• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Is congressional districting according to race justified racial discrimination?

Is congressional districting according to race justified racial discrimination?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • No

    Votes: 21 95.5%

  • Total voters
    22

MildSteel

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Messages
4,974
Reaction score
1,047
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Undisclosed
Again, self explanatory.
 
Not really self-explanatory. The Voting Rights Act required it of affected states, so are you asking was the law justified or the states that complied with the laws, but then went far beyond in gerrymandering GOP seats by further diluting black votes in the process?
 
Not really self-explanatory. The Voting Rights Act required it of affected states, so are you asking was the law justified or the states that complied with the laws, but then went far beyond in gerrymandering GOP seats by further diluting black votes in the process?

No, that's not what I am asking. The question is is the practice of deliberately drawing congressional district lines to favor or disfavor a particular racial group justified racial discrimination. That is the question. Clear?
 
No, because there is no such thing as "justified racial discrimination."

I disagree with you. There is indeed a such thing a justified racial discrimination. If you want to discuss it, I have opened a thread on the topic. Having said that, I am not sure if this is an example of it. I just want to see what others think. It may assist me in coming to a conclusion.
 
Not really self-explanatory. The Voting Rights Act required it of affected states, so are you asking was the law justified or the states that complied with the laws, but then went far beyond in gerrymandering GOP seats by further diluting black votes in the process?

You seem to be confusing intended outcome of discrimination with the process of discrimination. You cannot turn a minority into a majority; you can either concentrate minorities into special districts thus giving them a token representative (still easily ignored) or spread them as thinly as possible hoping to minimize the impact of their vote in that manner.
 
Racist through and through. As are race based preferences that the left loves.

Do they really love them, or do they support it just to get black votes, just like some on the right support anti gay policies just to get the votes of the religious right? I was talking to one guy and he said it's just a shell game both sides play.
 
I disagree with you. There is indeed a such thing a justified racial discrimination. If you want to discuss it, I have opened a thread on the topic. Having said that, I am not sure if this is an example of it. I just want to see what others think. It may assist me in coming to a conclusion.

Well, then lets turn the tables a bit (sorry I missed the other thread.) If there is such a thing as "justified racial discrimination" when it comes to congressional redistricting then are we not making an argument for outright segregation of the populace? It seems to me that if we are suggesting that representation should best match the racial make up of a community, then by source the community has to be overwhelmingly one race to ensure pure outcome of that representation under "justified racial discrimination." Or, segregation by race. And if follows, then there is no reason to stop at race but also extend to age, perhaps income level, etc. I mean, why not? Since we are talking about "justified racial discrimination" then why not have "justified ageism discrimination?"
 
Do they really love them, or do they support it just to get black votes, just like some on the right support anti gay policies just to get the votes of the religious right? I was talking to one guy and he said it's just a shell game both sides play.

Does not matter-they support govt imposed racism.
 
Well, then lets turn the tables a bit (sorry I missed the other thread.) If there is such a thing as "justified racial discrimination" when it comes to congressional redistricting then are we not making an argument for outright segregation of the populace? It seems to me that if we are suggesting that representation should best match the racial make up of a community, then by source the community has to be overwhelmingly one race to ensure pure outcome of that representation under "justified racial discrimination." Or, segregation by race. And if follows, then there is no reason to stop at race but also extend to age, perhaps income level, etc. I mean, why not? Since we are talking about "justified racial discrimination" then why not have "justified ageism discrimination?"

Good points. Having said that, if we are to have a representative democracy, should not the representatives reflect the demographics of the population? If they do not, and simply represent the interests of say white males, is that actually a representative democracy? As such it may be that drawing congressional district lines in such a way is actually justified racial discrimination. I honestly don't know at this point. Just throwing it back in your court.
 
Again, self explanatory.

It seems reasonable to draw districts in such a way as to ensure minorities get representation (if you assume the all will vote based on their minority attribute and not substance). Other than that drawing districts is pretty arbitrary. Should a large city have two districts split in half north to south, east to west, circle within a circle?

Though I suppose if you draw arbitrarily you arent showing preference which makes it fair. If not the best outcome.
 
Does not matter-they support govt imposed racism.

Does not the right do the same when they intentionally support policies meant to appeal to the racist sentiment in white males? You are familiar with the work of Lee Atwater, right?
 
It seems reasonable to draw districts in such a way as to ensure minorities get representation (if you assume the all will vote based on their minority attribute and not substance). Other than that drawing districts is pretty arbitrary. Should a large city have two districts split in half north to south, east to west, circle within a circle?

Though I suppose if you draw arbitrarily you arent showing preference which makes it fair. If not the best outcome.

It appears to me to be reasonable, and it may be it is an example of justified racial discrimination.
 
Again, self explanatory.

Gerrymandering has always been used to distort voting populations to the benefit of certain elements. That is the flaw. The human flaw, I guess.
 
Does not the right do the same when they intentionally support policies meant to appeal to the racist sentiment in white males? You are familiar with the work of Lee Atwater, right?

What policies would that be, or is this just another magical "dog whistle" of the left?
 
Good points. Having said that, if we are to have a representative democracy, should not the representatives reflect the demographics of the population? If they do not, and simply represent the interests of say white males, is that actually a representative democracy? As such it may be that drawing congressional district lines in such a way is actually justified racial discrimination. I honestly don't know at this point. Just throwing it back in your court.

(I had to go get another cup of coffee for this conversation, and it may get philosophical depending on how many cups I go through this am.)

I tend to say no, if we are going to stay a constitutional republic then whole idea is to have elected officials govern within the confines of a constitution. And no where in those confines is the idea that to represent a district one has to demographically match the constituents by race, or by age, or by sex, or by income level, etc. If it were otherwise we would already see stronger elements of racial segregation today and the make up of Congress would more match the racial demographic make up of the US. Right now we have roughly 12.6% of the nation that is black, roughly 8.9% of the 114th Congress is black. They still do not add up, but still I am unsure that means that Congress cannot be reflective of the will of the people because of that roughly 3.7 point gap for the black population. I am sure though that we have plenty of black voters that feel otherwise and it gives us this problem of what to, Constitutionally, to ensure outcome.

These are the reasons I initially answered the thread with there is no such thing as justified racial discrimination, even if the tables were flipped and 15% of Congress was black with the same 12.6% of the population being black I doubt that alone means a higher degree of political goals obtained. I mean think about it, we have now had a two term black president and by demographics and economic data blacks are worse off now than before, and in just about all categories blacks lag behind whites when it comes to unemployment, labor participation, movement up the income quintiles, education, etc. When it comes to the percentage of Americans on one or more forms of government assistance (social safety nets) the results are just as bad when broken down by racial lines.

In this case I have little choice but to suggest the argument for justified racial discrimination by default means continuing to go with very specific representative district lines and eventually involve segregation to effect representative outcome. That further illustrates the political window dressing today's representatives have given us with this effort to ensure political outcome. So now we get to evolve past today's politics being all about treasury promises, we get to include manufactured results for office but little results for those that elected them.
 
What policies would that be, or is this just another magical "dog whistle" of the left?

Policies such as it's anti-affirmative action stance and it's stance on welfare. It's one thing to support a policy because simply think it is the right thing to do, it's quite another when you do it because you think it will get you the votes of racists. That is a big problem I have with some elements on the right. They make it difficult for someone like me, who can see SOME wisdom in conservative ideology. Here's Lee Atwater articulating his infamous "Southern Strategy."

 
No, that's not what I am asking. The question is is the practice of deliberately drawing congressional district lines to favor or disfavor a particular racial group justified racial discrimination. That is the question. Clear?

No you still have not clarified. If a state was required to do it because the federal government required it, is it justified to follow the law?
 
You seem to be confusing intended outcome of discrimination with the process of discrimination. You cannot turn a minority into a majority; you can either concentrate minorities into special districts thus giving them a token representative (still easily ignored) or spread them as thinly as possible hoping to minimize the impact of their vote in that manner.

You cannot change a person's immutable characteristics like race and gender, but it is certainly possible to put them in the position of being the deciding votes, king-makers if you prefer.
 
You cannot change a person's immutable characteristics like race and gender, but it is certainly possible to put them in the position of being the deciding votes, king-makers if you prefer.

By creating (artificially?) concentrated minority districts you do two things - give better odds that those districts will vote for a given "minority friendly" party and remove the need to appeal at all to those minority voters in any other districts.

If a state has 20 districts and a 15% minority population then it can be clustered tightly (gerrymandered) to get 3 virtually guaranteed seats while having no measurable affect on the other 17 districts. That may seem like progress if you score it as 3 wins instead of zero wins for "minority friendly" candidates but it actually hurts, overall, since the vast majority (the other 17 representatives) then have no reason to care about those "majority minority" district voter's policy concerns. On the other hand, if each district had that minority (15% of their district's voters) to be concerned with, in each election, then that may tip the election (and public policy) if the minority voters tended to vote for one party over the other.
 
No, that's not what I am asking. The question is is the practice of deliberately drawing congressional district lines to favor or disfavor a particular racial group justified racial discrimination. That is the question. Clear?

If we accept that this example is wrong, is not the redrawing of ANY congressional district intentionally done to produce a pre-ordained result wrong?
 
Again, self explanatory.

What districts have been redrawn according to race? Congressional districting is about equal numbers of people being represented.
 
(I had to go get another cup of coffee for this conversation, and it may get philosophical depending on how many cups I go through this am.)

I tend to say no, if we are going to stay a constitutional republic then whole idea is to have elected officials govern within the confines of a constitution. And no where in those confines is the idea that to represent a district one has to demographically match the constituents by race, or by age, or by sex, or by income level, etc. If it were otherwise we would already see stronger elements of racial segregation today and the make up of Congress would more match the racial demographic make up of the US. Right now we have roughly 12.6% of the nation that is black, roughly 8.9% of the 114th Congress is black. They still do not add up, but still I am unsure that means that Congress cannot be reflective of the will of the people because of that roughly 3.7 point gap for the black population. I am sure though that we have plenty of black voters that feel otherwise and it gives us this problem of what to, Constitutionally, to ensure outcome.

A couple of things. First of all, as I am sure you are aware, there are various ways of interpreting the constitution. Some prefer a literal interpretation, some original intent, and some see the constitution as a very flexible living document that is there to support the needs of the present. It appears you lean towards a literal interpretation. While it is true that the constitution does not explicitly call for congressional district lines to be drawn in this way, it does not explicitly forbid it either. Neither is there anything in it, at least that I am aware of, that would lead one to believe that such district lines would violate the basic principles upon which the document is based. That's one point.

Second of all, although I understand your point about if there was such language, we would have more segregation than we have today, I don't necessarily believe that is the case. I say that based on experience. For example, I am black, but I live in the suburbs of a large metropolitan area, and I did not choose my house, based on congressional district lines. And although I have not researched the matter, I think there is a substantial amount of the population who are like me. So my point is, I don't think it is necessarily clear that having such language in the constitution would result in more segregation. Perhaps it is possible, but even if that were the case, I can't say for sure that the effect would be substantial.

These are the reasons I initially answered the thread with there is no such thing as justified racial discrimination, even if the tables were flipped and 15% of Congress was black with the same 12.6% of the population being black I doubt that alone means a higher degree of political goals obtained. I mean think about it, we have now had a two term black president and by demographics and economic data blacks are worse off now than before, and in just about all categories blacks lag behind whites when it comes to unemployment, labor participation, movement up the income quintiles, education, etc. When it comes to the percentage of Americans on one or more forms of government assistance (social safety nets) the results are just as bad when broken down by racial lines.

I agree with you here. Part of the reason that blacks have not been able exert sufficient influence on policy is systemic, in that there are very powerful lobbies that punch well above their weight in terms of numbers because they are very well funded. Some of them are hostile to the type of policies that would likely benefit blacks. Another reason is the lack of strong, principled leadership. And sadly, it is also due to the influence of poor education and misplaced values.

In this case I have little choice but to suggest the argument for justified racial discrimination by default means continuing to go with very specific representative district lines and eventually involve segregation to effect representative outcome. That further illustrates the political window dressing today's representatives have given us with this effort to ensure political outcome. So now we get to evolve past today's politics being all about treasury promises, we get to include manufactured results for office but little results for those that elected them.

Well some don't like it when it is put forward, but we do quite a bit for the show of it. One way in which people can be effectively controlled is to give them the appearance that they are empowered, when in reality, they have little or no power at all. That's a game that has been played many times, in many ways throughout history.
 
No you still have not clarified. If a state was required to do it because the federal government required it, is it justified to follow the law?

I think that is a slightly different, though related question about states rights vs those of the federal government. But since it is related, let me see if I can respond. Let's make the assumption that it is indeed just to have a nation whose government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. IF the district lines are drawn such that the demographics in congress reflect the demographics of the state, then I think yes, under those conditions and assumptions, it would be just and therefore justified that the states follow such a law. That's my humble opinion on the matter. It appears you may think otherwise. What is your opinion?
 
Back
Top Bottom