15 years ago, this site was a whole lot better.

I see absolutely nothing extreme about supporting the duly elected president of my country, and about half the country would agree with me. That makes it a pretty mainstream position all in all.

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One is racial hatred, one is not. When’s the last time you heard of an American getting shot by police in Japan?

Ok, now when’s the last time you’ve heard of Americans raping/murdering Japanese women in Okinawa?

Hmmmm…seems to be a double standard YYY? If you support policies or a person for qualities ( which are subjective after all) how to you qualify “extreme”. Some may say your thinking on Climate Change is “extreme” but I do not label you or anyone in that way. I agree with many things on both sides but what was centrist/ slight right, appears to be viewed as further right…would you concur?

I read your posts and accept your ideas where I can but I don’t generally agree with them. And that’s ok. I am rambling, sorry :shushing_face:

Are you being fun or welcoming?

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That’s an extremely subjective opinion.

If you’re implying that police shootings, as a whole, are a racial issue in the U.S., you’d be on pretty shaky ground.

If you want to talk about excessive use of force by the police in general, or how the increasing militarization of law enforcement agencies is a worrying trend, we may have some points to agree on.

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Have you lived in both countries? Are you fluent in the Japanese language? Where I come from, I heard loads of garbage coming from older men all the time directed at minorities. All my time in Japan, traveling around the entire country and speaking with and overhearing many people over the years, I never heard the same amount of hate. I’m American and I know it sucks to admit that we have a racial hatred problem, but we do. Japan is not free of such issues, but it is very drastically less.

As a whole, no. But more often than not, yes. I see the videos of these incidents, and half the time even I think to myself “man, the suspect should have just listened/calmed down”, but I still think there is a major racial problem at the forefront of the issue.

seriously tho, have you watched Ryan Boundless?

What seasoned posters are aware of is that every time a controversial thread is started it is started by a new poster. Whether it’s about Taiwanese genitalia or white people being horrible, it is always started by a new guy.

We try to be accommodating, but there comes a point that if it smells like shit then it probably is.

It depends. I don’t call people in certain countries who literally prostrate before their heads of state extremists just because they do what’s expected of them. But Americans figuratively prostrating or bending over backwards to justify everything the Donald does, that does seem excessive to me.

And “mainstream” is a question of relativity. Donald worship is certainly not the majority position. I doubt it’s even the majority position among people who voted for him.

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There are plenty of things I disagree with Trump on, but I’m satisfied with his overall performance so far. I in no way consider myself a Trump apologist, and wouldn’t hesitate to support another party or candidate if I thought they could do a better job. I really wish the Democrats would pull themselves up out of the cesspool they’ve created for themselves, but I’m not holding my breath and will probably have to hold my nose and vote Republican for a few more election cycles.

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I didn’t start the thread!

Taiwanese genitalia… I’m not so experienced in. Will have to report back.

And white people are not at all horrible. But a lot of them aren’t trying to be better, either. shouldn’t everyone strive for that?

That’s not exactly unusual. And I’m wondering who’s defining better

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So now we can’t agree on the definition of better?

I don’t know, what’s your definition? “More good” isn’t really going to cut it.

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You think this is about you?

I’d like to know who says that.

That’s an interesting notion. I keep hearing the opposite from leftistas – “Bernie wouldn’t have been considered radical X years ago” and so on.

I like Merriam Webster’s 2nd definition: “Improved in health or mental attitude.”

I can’t believe I just copied and pasted the definition of “better” into a forum.

Like I said, an extremely subjective opinion. Where I grew up, the majority of racist speech and behavior I witnessed was directed by blacks at whites and Asians. We also learned about MLK in school (that was the actual name of the junior high I went to), and I took his message to heart, always doing my best to judge people by the content of their character.

Racism exists in every country on the planet, but the good thing about the U.S. is that there’s an open conversation about it, which has contributed a lot to the great strides that have been made. But the flip side of the open conversation is that it makes it seem that racism is bigger problem in the U.S. than it really is. In countries like Japan, there are consistent reports of racial discrimination, but the problem is denied and swept under the rug.

Another problem in the U.S. is groups on both the left (Black Lives Matter, Antifa, etc.) and right (those actually worthy of the alt-right label) who do their best to incite racial tensions and take things in the wrong direction.

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Wow now I understand! “More white people should be improved in health or mental attitude”. I’m glad you’ve cleared that up. You’re a regular philosopher.

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really? So if I hear something directly from other people, it’s my extremely subjective opinion that I heard what I heard?

Black people hating Asians… I guess you hear something new everyday. Can I call that your extremely subjective opinion that you witnessed any such thing?

This is so far gone I can’t even