Pennsylvania Republicans Love Gerrymandering

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I'm not suggesting any of that, what I'm suggesting is that your quip about Sheila Jackson's seat has nothing to do with Sheila Jackson, it has to do with Republicans in your state attempting to water down the influence of a minority. I thought I was pretty clear on that, but apparently not. Now you know.

It is racist to argue that racism is "natural" in order to justify it.



"Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
- Exodus 22:21

You are also ignoring all the times in which Native American tribes peacefully traded with one another.



https://www.thoughtco.com/global-warning-to-cause-food-shortages-1203847
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3373018/The-world-faces-widespread-food-shortages-global-warming-Crops-scarce-droughts-ravage-Africa-Asia.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/global-warming-means-food-water-shortages-warns-un-report-1.2583368
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-is-causing-food-shortages-2015-8

Another Thing: The next glaciation won't happen for 17,000 years.

Another Thing: Global warming could cause widespread famine in mere centuries.

And you cannot be more wrong. You obviously know nothing about Houston or of Texas. You are only making assumptions based on nothing more than how you think it is, not how it really is.

The district was created in 1970 (I just looked that up). I don't know how much the boundaries have changed over the
years, but it has been a minority district ever since it was created. And it was created by Democrats, not Republicans.

I know that many Republicans in Texas would like to redraw that district, but that is not likely to happen any time soon. My guess is that redrawing it to end the minority status would cause so many legal and political headaches that it would be nearly impossible to do.

Now what else misinformation are you going to try spreading today?

Let's look at your argument for a second: 1. It was created in the 70's, 2. I don't how it's changed in the last 50 years but it has 3. therefore based on my admittedly outdated information you're wrong.

Ok, moving along to discussion with people that understand logic now...

What the hell makes you think that I'm trying to justify racism? Do you somehow believe that it is racist to try to understand why people are racist?



The Indian Tribes in North America were the same race. Some were peaceful, some weren't. Many Indian tribes would kill members of other Indian tribes or would take slaves -- often either for labor or for sacrifices.



I don't know where you get the nonsense about it not starting for 17,000 years. There is some variation of the length of the various interglacial warm periods. I believe there was one a few hundred thousand years ago that lasted for something like 40,000 to 50,000 years. The last interglacial warm period, the Eemian lasted about 15,000 years. I think that at least the previous three warm periods before the Eemian each lasted about the same length of time. If this warm period is like the last three or four interglacial warm periods, we'll be lucky if it lasts another 2,000 years.

As for famine, you have to make every pessimistic assumption you can find to make such a prediction. Forget what the newspapers are telling you -- go look at history. The newspapers are just trying to sell newspapers.

The Native Americans didn't see themselves as members of the same race until white people showed up and classified them as members of the same race.



Global warming could destroy us in less than 1,000 years.



... which is why I found those articles online for free.

You obviously don't understand it.

You are claiming that it was created by Republicans to deprive Blacks of representation but you offer no proof of any kind to back up those claims. Your entire argument is essentially that Republicans do gerrymandering. Yes, they do that. So do Democrats. If you are going to dump on Republicans for it, then it is hypocritical not to dump on Democrats for doing it, too.

First of all, the district was drawn up in 1970 and Barbara Jordan, the first Black woman from the South to be elected to the House of Representatives, was the first representative from there.

If you knew anything about Texas, you would know that this state was very solidly Democrat into the 1980s. The first Republican governor since Reconstruction was not elected until Bill Clements was elected in the very late 1970s. My county, back then, didn't even hold Republican primaries -- if you wanted to vote in a primary, you had to vote as a Democrat.

Where I was living in 1976 the Democratic primary and the Republican primary were in the same building. The line to vote in the Democratic primary was several hundred feet long. The line for the Republican primary was pretty much nonexistent -- I don't remember if it had more than two or three people. Since a guy I had known and respected for a while was running for sheriff of the county as a Republican, I had decided to vote in the Republican primary so that I could vote for him. I was in and out of the polling place in less than five minutes.

During the years since 1970, District 18 has always been a safe seat for minorities. When I lived in Houston for a few years, there was never any doubt about that. Not once did the Republicans ever redraw the boundaries to take away the district from the Democrats. There has been some adjustments to the boundaries over time, but it has always been, since it was created in 1970, a district with minority representation.

If you are going to argue that the Republicans drew the lines to create District 18 as a safe seat for minorities, nobody in Texas would ever take you the least bit seriously. Similarly, if you are going to argue that the Republicans redrew District 18 to take away that seat, nobody will take you seriously.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Yeah, sure.

Is that all you got? That means I just won.

The story of Chicken Little is still a good story. It's about a chicken who thinks that the sky is falling because he got hit in the head with an acorn.

There is a big difference between devoting your life to science and getting hit on the head with an acorn.

Apocalyptic predictions are not inherently wrong just because they happen to be apocalyptic predictions. These sorts of predictions need to be examined on a case-by-case basis and we should only accept an apocalyptic prediction if there is scientific evidence to support it.

I'll use an analogy. Lots of people claim that tapwater is poisonous, even though it is not. Does this mean that every poisonous substance on earth is actually safe? Is the entire concept of poisoning a product of the liberal media?

Don't talk to me again if you are going to dismiss scientific research with childish hand waves.

Again, I'm not arguing s**t from the 1970's, it has been redistricted four times, count them FOUR since then, meaning when the district was created has absolutely no bearing on where it is today. That's like comparing modern Rome with antiquity Rome: a lot has happened to Rome since it was founded. And for the record the last three were done by Republican legislatures and there was even a federal lawsuit out in 2013 about the unconstitutionality of their last redistrict, which Texas lost it should be noted. Texas Redistricting Lawsuit

As for your claim that they're attempting to take away the seat, never claimed that either, what they've done is stuffed Democratic leaning areas of Houston into that obtuse horseshoe shape so those Democrats don't vote in the surrounding 3 districts. If those Democrats voted in the surrounding three districts they'd be competitive races and Republicans wouldn't win all three (perhaps not any). So the solution for Republicans is to stuff all those Democratic votes into a district the Democrats were going to win anyhow, thus assuring their remaining 3 counties are non-competitive for Republicans. You seem to be naive about how gerrymandering works: it's not about ensuring a candidate gets a seat, it's about diluting the opposition's voting influence.

And yes Democrats do gerrymandering too, but that's like comparing a dolphin to a blue whale, sure they both come from the same genetic order, but the dolphin weighs 110-150 lbs, while the blue whale weighs well over 300,000 lbs. Not the same thing, not even close. Again if gerrymandering were to go away on all sides the Democrats would gain ~11% of the seats held in the House of Representatives.

So if you're serious about being against gerrymandering, please, please I beg you call your congressman/woman and voice your concern about how they're diluting the voice of the people with their shenanigans.

Damn, somebody's lying

Nobody wins by being an idiot and parroting a bunch of nonsense from the newspapers.

If you want to see what Global Warming will do, look at history to see the truth. If you aren't interested in the truth, then just keep parroting the nonsense from the newspapers.

If they wanted to water down the minority vote, then all they have to do is take carve pieces out of District 18 and stick them into districts that vote heavily Republican. It wouldn't be that difficult.

I don't know where you get your data on the gerrymandering by Democrats and Republicans -- I wouldn't even attempt to try to figure out which is the worse. It isn't even worth the effort and research it would take to come up with a real answer instead of manufacturing results out of your imagination. Your analogy between redistricting with dolphins and whales has no basis in reality.

What I know best is my state -- Texas. Within this state, the Democrats have been by far the worse with gerrymandering because they controlled the state for so many years -- until the last thirty to forty years the Republicans had opportunity to do anything. And don't think for a second that the Democrats didn't take every opportunity that they could to limit Republicans like that.

Of course, it varies from state to state. In states that have been mostly Republican, the Republicans would have done the most gerrymandering.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have clean hands at all in this issue so stop pretending that the Democrats are like little angels surrounded by evil Republican demons. They aren't.

And your idea that if they didn't create that safe seat for minorities in District 18, then the Democrats would likely win some of the other districts, you clearly know nothing about Houston or about Texas politics.

psychological projection



Are you just going to keep vaguely mentioning history, or are you going to cite some sources?

Are you referring to the Medieval Warm Period? There was a huge famine in North America during the Medieval Warm Period. Thousands of Native Americans died.

https://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/Home/drought-floods-famine-and-central-and-south-america

"These droughts often lasted for a decade or longer and have been dubbed meagadroughts. Two droughts, in California and Patagonia, each lasted for well over 100 years and have been described as epic droughts."



Are you trying to turn this into a smugness contest?

Just give up man. You suck at this. You're just embarrassing yourself.

Who are you referring to?

Even your own source doesn't agree with your conclusions:



It looks like you just embarrassed yourself enormously.

By the way, the Anasazi people left their famous dwellings to go elsewhere around 1300, thought to be because of drought. That happens to coincide with the early part of the onset of the cooling known as the "Little Ice Age".