American Politics

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766248]Yes, right CL. I agree. But it is not relevant to the discussion. We are discussing reasons why the USA got wealthy, not allocating blame for it, nor discussing the morlaity of it all. Thats another discussion.[/QUOTE]Without a doubt, slavery helped the United States build wealth from its days as a colony up until the end of the Civil War. After that, I am not educated enough on the topic to say with certainty that it helped create wealth within the United States into the 20th Century.

Here are some things to consider.

1. All the money spent on former slaves to help them transition into society as full fledged citizens. A whole Federal organization known as the "Freedman's Bureau" was started to achieve this goal. Millions of former slaves suddenly needed housing, food, education, and career training. This was a monumental task considering the economic and human cost of the Civil War. The USA had to station soldiers in the South until 1877 to protect former slaves and keep the South from rebelling again which cost another fortune. The USA also had to rebuild the infrastructure of the South because it had been completely decimated during the end of the War as part of a "scorched Earth policy" adopted by the North in order to break the will of the Confederates and force them to surrender. It couldn't have been cheap to rebuild Atlanta and all those towns they burned, buildings they cannoned, and railroads they tore up.

2. All the money spent on former slaves and their descendants. As we all known, the Jim Crow laws in the South prevented former slaves and their descendants from ever gaining economic success on par with other racial groups. These laws were designed to impoverish southern African Americans. Basically, it kept a significantly larger percentage of African Americans economically dependent upon the state when compared to other racial groups. Yes, this enriched whites by creating a class of people whose only chance for work was low paying jobs, but it also cost the Government a lot of money in the form of well-fare to make sure their basic needs were met.

All things considered, it would have absolutely been much harder to settle the United States during its days a Colony and its' early history without slavery. The USA was built on the backs of slaves and indentured servants. That being said, I don't think you can attribute the modern wealth of the United States to slavery. Look at Brazil. It had far more slaves than the USA and today it is on par with other nations in Latin America, not the Western Nations of Europe. Nations can crumble quite quickly, just look at the German Empire from WW1, or the fall of the Soviet Union. A nation can fall in as little as a generation, or even quicker in times of war. Countries do not magically become rich and successful, it is due to a multitude of factors- the most important being geography, abundance of natural resources, and work ethic and ingenuity of its' citizens.

One thing I can say for sure, is that the United States is no accident and the success of the Nation is by no means guaranteed.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766331]

Again, as I noted before, there was a long term drop in USA GDP of 18% attributable to the Civil War. The costs of the Civil War to the USA Economy were greater than the value of slavery to the economy.

Your third source also estimates the costs of the Civil War to be $10.4 billion, and the value of slaves at the time of the start of the war to be about $3.3 billion.
[/QUOTE]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must – the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today – mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich.

You also compare an evaluation of the cost of the war to a market value of slaves – false equivalency. The value of the slaves in an estimate of their economic worth going forward (to the potential buyer) . It has no relation to the value that past slaves had provided to owners and the economy.

You also claim that the war would not have happened if there had been no slave trade. I don't believe that claim stands – the final national election before war led to Rep Abraham Lincoln being elected without a single electoral vote from the south (my, how times have changed). The south felt they had no influence in the running of their country and wanted secession. I believe those same sentiments would have led to war anyway – you can see it happening again now. War may have happened regardless, either then or later. I don't think it is clear cut. Regardless, even if I give you this last point, my other points above stand on their own merit.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2766363]Without a doubt, slavery helped the United States build wealth from its days as a colony up until the end of the Civil War.
The USA was built on the backs of slaves and indentured servants. That being said, I don't think you can attribute the modern wealth of the United States to slavery.[/QUOTE]Right. Agreed. I am not arguing that it is the only reason. I put fwd 10 reasons, and slaverry was one of them. No doubt I missed some other good reasons from my 5 minute list. .

In no way is it a unique story. Likewise the industrial revulotion in UK and Europe was fired by child labour, in sweatshops, mines, and cotton mills. In South Africa, the country was transformed in to the richest country in the world (for white people) by the use of rightless blacks in the gold and diamond mines and indentured Indian labour in the sugar plantations. Indeed, not only did the blacks have no rights, they were also forced to work in incredibaly dangerous conditions, where thousands died.

Now you guys know why I try to limit my American Politics references to "in the past 100 years", within a reasonable timeframe where the topic, you know, matters.

And even then some who hated the irrefutable data durung that timeframe claimed I was talking about ancient irrelevant history! LOL.

No problem. It's all good.

Hey, if I were a winger and after that possibly gloat-worthy "Red Tsunami" diminished to barely a Red Tinkle, and only that much because Repubs got to redraw district lines to create a handful of new ridiculously gerrymandered Repub House seat "wins", I'd want to change the subject ASAP too.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766513]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich..[/QUOTE]Your claim that "GDP always goes down during war. " certainly does not apply to the US. But the folks who wrote the following paper are economists, so what do they know. [URL]https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Economic-Consequences-of-War-on-US-Economy_0.pdf[/URL].

And the fact that Lincoln received no votes from the South has absolutely no bearing on which political party Lincoln belonged to as you intimate. It is well known (or should be) that the Republican party during the 1860's was very liberal. In fact, they even advocated for a strong federal government! It wasn't until the 1960's that the parties essentially switched positions. The South, which had long been a bastion of Democrats became Republican during the Civil Rights movement. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States) and [URL]https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-republican-party-to-1865.html[/URL].

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2766669]Now you guys know why I try to limit my American Politics references to "in the past 100 years", within a reasonable timeframe where the topic, you know, matters.

And even then some who hated the irrefutable data durung that timeframe claimed I was talking about ancient irrelevant history! LOL.

No problem. It's all good.

Hey, if I were a winger and after that possibly gloat-worthy "Red Tsunami" diminished to barely a Red Tinkle, and only that much because Repubs got to redraw district lines to create a handful of new ridiculously gerrymandered Repub House seat "wins", I'd want to change the subject ASAP too.[/QUOTE]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.

The reason I quit arguing with you about your so called "irrefutable data" is because we're going through the same old stuff, over and over. You're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you. And if for some reason I do, you'll probably cry, like the Mormon missionary who debated the foundations of his religion with me 20 some odd years ago. You're like a shaman who has determined that sacrifice of virgins is correlated with better harvests. He may be right as a result of coincidence, but it's not the sacrifice of the virgins that caused the good harvests.

I'll give Roosevelt and the Democrats credit for trying everything and the kitchen sink to get us out of a depression. But other than that, other conditions, like improvements in technology, globalization, demographic changes, the business cycle, what's going on in the rest of the world, wars (which mostly started during Democratic administrations), Congress, and a pandemic had much more influence on the state of the economy than which party the president belonged to.

I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766513]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich.

You also compare an evaluation of the cost of the war to a market value of slaves false equivalency. The value of the slaves in an estimate of their economic worth going forward (to the potential buyer) . It has no relation to the value that past slaves had provided to owners and the economy.

You also claim that the war would not have happened if there had been no slave trade. I don't believe that claim stands the final national election before war led to Rep Abraham Lincoln being elected without a single electoral vote from the south (my, how times have changed). The south felt they had no influence in the running of their country and wanted secession. I believe those same sentiments would have led to war anyway you can see it happening again now. War may have happened regardless, either then or later. I don't think it is clear cut. Regardless, even if I give you this last point, my other points above stand on their own merit.[/QUOTE]I applaud you for bringing up some thought provoking points. I kind of got into the slavery issue you brought up, and did some reading.

I did a literature search on the effect of slavery on present day economies, and you're just plain wrong. In fact, reality is the opposite of what you think it is.

Engerman and Sokoloff wrote a series of papers dealing with or touching on the effect of slavery and subjugation of indigenous people on the development of economies in the Americas. They attribute the relative success of the USA and Canada versus other countries to less inequality in the northern countries, mainly because the Americans and Canadians subjugated far FEWER Africans and Native Americans than other countries. The bad guys in their narrative are the Portuguese, French and Dutch, who brought lots of slaves to the New World, and the Spanish, who wiped out and effectively enslaved the native population in places like Mexico and Peru. Engerman and Sokoloff believe the greater inequality persisted for centuries, and resulted in countries that are poorer today than they would be otherwise. Please note that this is the opposite of what you're espousing. While you can argue about whether this persistent inequality caused countries to be poorer (as Nathan Nunn does, see below), it's clear that slavery and massive subjugation of indigenous people is correlated with LOWER GDP. In other words, if anything, slavery and subjugation of Indians have caused the GDP of the USA to be lower than it would be otherwise.

Nathan Nunn, a Harvard economist, is an expert on the effects of slavery on economies in Africa and the New World. In this paper, he shows a startling relationship between GDP and the percentage of the population that was enslaved:

[URL]https://scholar.harvard.edu/nunn/publications/slavery-inequality-and-economic-development-americas-examination-engerman-sokolof[/URL]

You'll need to download the .pdf file and go to Figure 2 on page 8. The United States had the fewest slaves as a % of the population and had the highest GDP per capita in 2000. Haiti had the highest % slaves and had the lowest GDP in the year 2000.

Nunn, who took a harder look at the data than Engerman and Sokoloff, believes that slavery had a long term effect on inequality as well as income. However, he does not believe that the initial inequality resulting from slavery has had an effect on later economic development. So what is the reason? He doesn't really know, but has a couple of ideas described on page 34 of the .pdf.

One other point, the USA had a Civil War, fought over the issue of slavery. Most other countries in the New World did not. Your point that GDP recovers after a war is not true for the South. It was still suffering the effects of Reconstruction into at least the mid 20th century.

I'd draw your attention again to Figure 1 in the following. Ten years after the Civil War, USA GDP was still 18% lower than it would have been otherwise:

[URL]https://www.theigc.org/reader/the-cost-of-violence-estimating-the-economic-impact-of-conflict/preventing-violent-conflict-should-be-a-key-priority-for-development-and-growth-policy/19166-2/#text=Even%20 six%20 years%20 after%20 the, makes%20 civil%20 war%20 so%20 costly.[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2766826]Your claim that "GDP always goes down during war. " certainly does not apply to the US. But the folks who wrote the following paper are economists, so what do they know. [URL]https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Economic-Consequences-of-War-on-US-Economy_0.pdf[/URL].

And the fact that Lincoln received no votes from the South has absolutely no bearing on which political party Lincoln belonged to as you intimate. It is well known (or should be) that the Republican party during the 1860's was very liberal. In fact, they even advocated for a strong federal government! It wasn't until the 1960's that the parties essentially switched positions. The South, which had long been a bastion of Democrats became Republican during the Civil Rights movement. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States) and [URL]https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-republican-party-to-1865.html[/URL].[/QUOTE]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him.

I've only had a chance to read the executive summary so far, but this explains why Tooms is right about Democratic Party presidents and higher GDP growth. GDP growth is higher under Democrats because they start wars!

I guess George Bush, the only Republican on the list, was trying to take a lesson from the Democratic Masters of Warfare, but it just didn't work out. Bill Clinton, who was one crafty devil, stopped regulating financial markets so that the economy would implode under Bush whether or not he started a war.

Thanks for clearing this up!

Before someone starts to argue with me, this post is 100% satirical. One hundred percent. And it's not directed to you PVMonger, except the part about Lincoln being a Liberal. Honestly, good links, I'm going to come back to them.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him..[/QUOTE][QUOTE]So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:[/QUOTE]World War I. Wilson / USA joined the war. Nobody in the USA "started" WW I.

World War II. Japan attacked USA military base in Hawaii, Germany declared War against the USA, both already waging war in the Pacific and in Europe. Nobody in the USA "started" WW II.

Korean War and Cold War. USA did take a side. But nobody in the USA "started" those.

Vietnam War. The French were at war with North Vietnam. They were driven out. Nobody in the USA "started" that war. Eisenhower, a Republican, replaced the retreating French with USA military personnel in 1954. He didn't have to. But he spent the rest of his presidency making a case for our increasing responsibility to prevent the "Domino Theory", his chosen term, of South East Asian nations falling to Chinese Communist rule one by one, totally committing the USA militarily to the war by word, deed, treaty and action.

At most, LBJ enacted a "surge" in Eisenhower's total military commitment in order to hopefully put an end to the lingering quagmire we were stuck in thanks to Eisenhower's years' long words, deeds, treaty and action all through the previous Happy Days years.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican. Yep. I'm guessing the reason that was the only one you got sorta kinda right is because you were a relatively awake and alert adult at the start of it and it did not require any reading and research. Just a guess though.

Now, one could argue the 9/11 Attack "started" a war with somebody. However, it shouldn't have been with Iraq and only tangentially with Afghanistan. It was GW Bush's idiocy, vengeance for his dad's blunder re sleeping through Hussein asking if it was ok with us if he invaded to annex Kuwait and hundreds of lies that plunged us into those quagmire wars. Oh, and yep, he was a Republican.

Tiny12:

[QUOTE]Before someone starts to argue with me, this post is 100% satirical. One hundred percent. And it's not directed to you PVMonger, except the part about Lincoln being a Liberal. Honestly, good links, I'm going to come back to them.[/QUOTE]I argued with the parts about who "started" some of the wars you cited because, although you might see it as 100% satirical, what you wrote is routinely repeated in Mainstream Media as though it were true.

But I didn't argue with the part about Lincoln because it did seem satirical. It isn't common for Repubs or their election supporting Bothsiders in Mainstream Media to assert that Lincoln was not a Repub even though there is no way a person with his record could win the Repub Party's nomination.

However, after every one of these Great Repub Economic Disasters, the Repub Party does swing into action disavowing that the Repub steward of it was a "real conservative" or a "real Republican."

They actually tried to float that bit about Reagan, Bush2 and Trump when their classic Repub economic agenda, policies and results crashed horribly. So the idea that they would disavow Lincoln for what most of them today would likely see as his "Emancipation Proclamation Disaster" and all that isn't as outlandish or obviously satirical as some might think.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.

The reason I quit arguing with you about your so called "irrefutable data" is because we're going through the same old stuff, over and over. You're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you. And if for some reason I do, you'll probably cry, like the Mormon missionary who debated the foundations of his religion with me 20 some odd years ago. You're like a shaman who has determined that sacrifice of virgins is correlated with better harvests. He may be right as a result of coincidence, but it's not the sacrifice of the virgins that caused the good harvests.

I'll give Roosevelt and the Democrats credit for trying everything and the kitchen sink to get us out of a depression. But other than that, other conditions, like improvements in technology, globalization, demographic changes, the business cycle, what's going on in the rest of the world, wars (which mostly started during Democratic administrations), Congress, and a pandemic had much more influence on the state of the economy than which party the president belonged to.

I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.[/QUOTE]Repubs usually turn out more heavily in midterm elections. But ballots and votes are still being counted in a very big and populace state. Do you have a link for your 51% to 47% votes and such. I mean, there was a moment when Trump claimed he was the winner and we should stop counting votes because, as planned by Repub state legislatures, they hadn't counted all the likely Dem mail-in ballots.

And there was that approximate 3,000,000 more votes for Hillary by the time all the ballots and votes were counted in California.

Just sayin'.

So you think it has just been a wild coincidence and maybe we're just not paying enough attention to every niggly piddly incidental detail for every legislative and stewardship decision over the past 100 years that Dems produced and presided over every economic boom time, historic jobs creation, none of the Great Recessions and Massive Job Losses while Repubs produced and presided over every Great Depression, Great Recession, Massive Job Loss and none of the boom times and historic job gains.

And that perhaps Repubs were just too busy producing their horrific economic results to be bothered with proposing, fighting for and passing One. Single. Positive. Meaningful. And Now Revered legislation at any time over the past 100 years whenever they controlled the White House, The House and the Senate.

Oh, and that neither you nor anyone else can name ANY political party other than the Dems who have produced and presided over the above mentioned positive economic results and ALL, not some, ALL of the above described legislation whenever they controlled the Big Three.

Yet you claim I am some blindly faithful, irrational "blue" partisan who refuses to acknowledge reality or the hidden data or the wisdom of voting Repub or the wisdom of helping Repubs win by Bothsiding or Neithersiding it so they can get in there and produce the only ultimate results they have managed to produce for at least 100 years over and over and over again.

LOL. Ok. Whatever soothes your Blindly Faithful Partisan Economic Disaster soul.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.
[/QUOTE]I have said it before that I think GDP is a terrible metric for anything other than GDP. Has nothing to do w general prosperity or happiness. Arms production.

I noticed in my time here that USAns tend to have a hyperfixation with economic stats. As if the solutions to life lie within. Success and happiness are not found in statisitcs. If you were to ask me if my parents have had a big influence upon me, I wouldn't check the amount of money they have spent on me and make a decisiion.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him.

I've only had a chance to read the executive summary so far, but this explains why Tooms is right about Democratic Party presidents and higher GDP growth. GDP growth is higher under Democrats because they start wars!.[/QUOTE]Wilson started WWI? I could have sworn that it was Austria after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

Roosevelt started WWII? I could have sworn that it was Hitler with a strong second to Tojo.

Truman started the Korean war? I could have sworn that it was Kim il Suck.

LBJ started the Vietnam war? I could have sworn that it was Uncle Ho.

You obviously have no clue about Republicans or Democrats. If you knew anything at all, nobody (at least not me) said that Lincoln was a liberal Democrat. The Republican party in the 1860's was very liberal. "Upon its founding, it supported classical liberalism and economic reform while opposing the expansion of slavery. " [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States).

Please don't fall into the same trap as every member of the Moron Brigade does. That trap is "Republicans opposed slavery in 1860 and Democrats supported it in 1860 so that means that Democrats still support slavery."

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.[/QUOTE]While technically true, the Democrats are resorting to it mostly in response to insane Republican gerrymandering, which has been especially aggressive in the last decade.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.
....
I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.[/QUOTE]Actually, if anything like that 51% to 47% result holds after all the ballots and votes are counted, I have and would still argue that was the result of the typically pro Repub Mainstream Media, Bill Maher and your Bothsider / Neithersider efforts along with the entire Repub Party's efforts since 2020 to suppress, obstruct, disenfranchise, hinder and thwart likely Dem votes. Which, along with their extreme gerrymandering rig, appeared to be the only overriding 2022 election campaign strategy.

Yes, Bothsides gerrymander when they can. Without exploiting that built-in rigging system, the Repubs would not have squeezed out a tiny handful of House seats gains. However, as we all know, that isn't the only rigging Repubs employed to reduce the number and percentage of Dem votes this time around in order to squeeze out that Red Tinkle:

[B]Explainer: Republicans push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of U.S. November midterms[/B]

[URL]https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republicans-push-restrict-mail-in-voting-ahead-us-november-midterms-2022-09-09/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Sept 9 (Reuters) - The Republican Party has pushed to enact new curbs on mail-in voting, which surged in the 2020 presidential election and fueled former President Donald Trump's false claims that he was robbed of victory by widespread voter fraud.

Citing security concerns, 18 states passed new legal limits on mail-in voting in the months after the election, from extra identification requirements to shortening the window in which mail ballots can be requested or cast.[/QUOTE][B]Republicans sue to disqualify thousands of mail ballots in swing states.
The lawsuits coincide with a systemic effort by GOP leaders to persuade voters to cast ballots in person, not absentee[/B]

[URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/07/gop-sues-reject-mail-ballots/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Republican officials and candidates in at least three battleground states are pushing to disqualify thousands of mail ballots after urging their own supporters to vote on Election Day, in what critics are calling a concerted attempt at partisan voter suppression.[/QUOTE][B]After voters embraced mail ballots, GOP states tighten rules[/B]

[URL]https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-voting-rights-election-2020-2caf9b85bec73c807ecea15775f6da63[/URL]

[QUOTE]A monthslong campaign by the Republican Party, fueled in part by the false narrative of widespread fraud in last years presidential election, has led to a wave of new voting laws that will tighten access to the ballot for millions of Americans.

The restrictions especially target voting methods that have been rising in popularity across the country, erecting hurdles to mail balloting and early voting that saw explosive growth during the pandemic. More than 40% of all voters last fall cast mail ballots, a record.

Texas is the latest state to crack down, after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill Tuesday taking aim at Democratic-leaning counties that have sought to expand access to the ballot.

Regardless of motives, these bills hurt voters, said Isabel Longoria, the election administrator of Harris County, which includes Houston. Voters are going to feel this the next time they go vote, and thats what Im most worried about.[/QUOTE][B]Now I'm curious. Do you and other Bothsiders/Neithersiders have any examples of party-wide efforts by the Dems to make it more difficult for likely Repub voters or anyone else to submit their ballots, to cast their votes, to have their votes count, to suppress, obstruct, disenfranchise, hinder and thwart likely Repub votes or to reduce legal voting anywhere in the country as the Repubs have with the Dems?[/B]

And, Tiny, thank your for your safe cunnilingus tips. I appreciate that. Luckily it has been many years since I had an open sore in my mouth or damn near anywhere else within kissing, licking, sucking or fucking distance on my body for any reason and would tend to refrain from DATY or sex in general if I had one. On that topic, I had a splendid shaved pussy DATY experience last night with a lovely face, very hot body, 20-something year old Nana Plaza go-go girl, followed by her treating me to one of the better BBBJ+CIM+swallow experiences I've had in a while. I loved it when she smiled and said, "I have your babies in my tummy now" after swallowing my cum. But not really. I've had a vasectomy. There is nothing in her tummy that could make a baby. Still, very cute.