EPA Takes Emergency Action To Stop Use of Dangerous Pesticide (thehill.com) 136
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: For the first time in 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken emergency action to stop the use of a pesticide (source may be paywalled; alternative source) linked to serious health risks for unborn babies. Tuesday's emergency order applies to dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA, a weedkiller used on crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and onions. When pregnant farmworkers and others are exposed to the pesticide, their babies can experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, which are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.
"DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately," Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. "It's EPA's job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case, pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems." The European Union banned DCPA in 2009. But the EPA has been slower to act, frustrating some environmental and public health advocates.
In an interview, Freedhoff said that EPA scientists have tried for years to get more information on health risks from the sole manufacturer of the pesticide, AMVAC Chemical. But she said the company refused to turn over the data, including a study on the effects of DCPA on thyroid development and function, until November 2023. "We did make some good-faith efforts to work with the company," Freedhoff said. "But in the end, we didn't think any of the measures proposed by the company would be implementable, enforceable or effective." "DCPA has been used in the United States since the late 1950s," notes the report. "After the pesticide is applied, it can linger in the soil, contaminating crops later grown in those fields, including broccoli, cilantro, green onions, kale and mustard greens."
"The emergency order Tuesday temporarily suspends all registrations of the pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. The agency plans to permanently suspend these registrations within the next 90 days."
"DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately," Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. "It's EPA's job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case, pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems." The European Union banned DCPA in 2009. But the EPA has been slower to act, frustrating some environmental and public health advocates.
In an interview, Freedhoff said that EPA scientists have tried for years to get more information on health risks from the sole manufacturer of the pesticide, AMVAC Chemical. But she said the company refused to turn over the data, including a study on the effects of DCPA on thyroid development and function, until November 2023. "We did make some good-faith efforts to work with the company," Freedhoff said. "But in the end, we didn't think any of the measures proposed by the company would be implementable, enforceable or effective." "DCPA has been used in the United States since the late 1950s," notes the report. "After the pesticide is applied, it can linger in the soil, contaminating crops later grown in those fields, including broccoli, cilantro, green onions, kale and mustard greens."
"The emergency order Tuesday temporarily suspends all registrations of the pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. The agency plans to permanently suspend these registrations within the next 90 days."
Republicans will complain about this (Score:1, Insightful)
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I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid. And my mother made me eat it. Now I'm president of the United States. And I'm not gonna eat any more broccoli!
He would be very happy to know that a weed killer used on broccoli is phased out.
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Cry harder. Slashdot has had a loud, right-wing contingent constantly whining for 25 years.
Priorities for chemical cleanup and phase-outs (Score:2)
There must be hundreds or thousands of these chemicals with direct links to problems in babies and children as severe as "their babies can experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, which are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life. "
Can we see 1) numbers of farm workers affected, 2) number of babies affected, 3) and facts around cost and alternatives?
They banned BPA from plastics in baby/children products years ago. What other c
OSHA? (Score:2)
Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.
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Bruh.
I thought that striking down Chevron was supposed to stop government agencies doing things like this. That's what your friends in DC said.
Is it possible they don't understand how the US legal system works, despite claiming to be part of it?
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No, it means that Congressionally-created agencies can't play the "I said so, just trust me" card when sued over their actions. OSHA was specifically created for worhplace safety. Policing the exposure of employees to unsafe chemicals is certainly covered by their charter.
Re:OSHA? (Score:5, Informative)
Chevron Deference wasn't so much about fairness vs. unfairness as it was about efficiency and predictability. Throwing every single possible regulation up to the court system is sheer chaos.
Under Chevron, congress sets the bounds under which an agency can act ("You can make choices about X, you can't make choices about Y..."), and courts only evaluate whether the agency is acting within the bounds set by congress. Congress can change those bounds at any point with new legislation if they don't like the agency's behavior.
Without Chevron, congress still sets the bounds, but every action the agency makes can be challenged in the courts. When it comes to something like the EPA, you can basically expect polluters en masse to challenge pretty much everything they do. Most suits will probably fail, but some will land on wingnut judges and result in overturned regulations. Meanwhile, the caseload on the court system skyrockets, and it's hard to predict what regulations will be like (to decide what to invest in) when everything has a lawsuit going over it.
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Under Chevron, congress sets the bounds under which an agency can act ("You can make choices about X, you can't make choices about Y..."), and courts only evaluate whether the agency is acting within the bounds set by congress. Congress can change those bounds at any point with new legislation if they don't like the agency's behavior.
The problem is when Congress says, "You can make choices about X" and does not explicitly exclude Y, then the agency comes along and declares that "Y" is, in fact, part of "X" and therefore they have the power to regulate Y as well as X despite the congress never delegating them that authority. Chevron was never supposed to grant them the ability to do that.
Re:OSHA? (Score:4, Insightful)
The buck stops with Congress. With a stroke of the pen they can correct what is and isn't delegated. Their silence on matters so far has been deafening, despite what the common man thinks should or shouldn't be regulated. Their indifference shows agreement as the final arbiters of what is and isn't in scope.
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I don't disagree that Congress' lack of action is a huge problem (in this area and many others) but given that Chevron deference is a creation of the courts in the first place, it's certainly within their purview to say "you're overstepping the deference we've given you" and no amount of handwringing will change that.
The federal bureaucracy overstepping its constitutional limits is just as big a problem as Congress not doing its job, and the courts would be insane to defer to it in matters of interpreting l
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I don't disagree that Congress' lack of action is a huge problem
I didn't say it is a problem. I said their lack of action is part of the system in place for decision making. If the wife comes to me tonight and says "we're eating fish for dinner" and I say nothing, it means implicit agreement that we're eating fish for dinner. If I don't like fish, I'd need to speak up.
The constitution places the burden on congress. Congress hasn't passed any law limiting the extent to which a federal agency can operate and thus it is implied that congress agrees with what those agencies
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Making laws is their job
And interpreting those laws is the job of the courts, and Congress cannot delegate power to the executive that it itself does not have.
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Losing Chevron means scientific decision-making gets shunted over to federal judges.
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Rats, 90000mg/kg. E.g. ingesting about 9% of your body mass in one sitting.
Re:OSHA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.
Yeah! If Congress wanted the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life then they would have written a bill explicitly telling the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.
Good thing Chevron is gone so that the Judges who really understand how to properly evaluate scientific studies can put a stop to this!
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No, it's just that if the EPA intends to act, it might lose in court for overreach, especially if it can't be shown that DCOA is a threat to anyone EXCEPT those working with it directly. DCOA has been in use for ~70 years, and to date it doesn't seem to have been shown to harm consumers who eat vegetables that have been treated with it during the growing process. And if they were, the FDA would be the first ones to step into that situation.
If it were shown that DCOA contamination affected the environment
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Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.
Yeah! If Congress wanted the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life then they would have written a bill explicitly telling the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.
Good thing Chevron is gone so that the Judges who really understand how to properly evaluate scientific studies can put a stop to this!
Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies. There is already a poster child for why scrapping Chevron was a bad idea and it was provided by a member of the august body that scrapped Chevron: https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com] ... One of these all knowing expert Trump appointed SCOTUS judges confused nitrous oxide an inhalatio
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It's obvious sarcasm, which isn't the same thing as trolling.
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Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies. There is already a poster child for why scrapping Chevron was a bad idea and it was provided by a member of the august body that scrapped Chevron: https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com] ... One of these all knowing expert Trump appointed SCOTUS judges confused nitrous oxide an inhalation anesthetic. with nitrogen oxide an air pollutant and this is just a sample of things to come. Nether congress critters nor judges are technological and scientific experts in everything, which is what they'd have to be if they are going to do what specialist agencies and their accredited experts previously did via Chevron.
You bring up a really good point. The concept that only an elected congresscritter should have the right to create policy ignores that this is not 1750 any more.
The world is too complicated now, and elected officials and their surrogates in the courts simply don't have the cred to make those decisions.
To use my own case, very few have my skillset. And just as few have any technical clue. But they observe that I come in and fix things, so they pay attention to what I tell them. And there is almost no c
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Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies.
I possibly could have been more explicit but I figured the ridiculously specific listing in the first paragraph would have given away the satire.
EPA (Score:2)
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And yet the summary indicates that only harm to workers can be documented from the use of DCOA.
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(my emphases) seems to indicate that it harms more than just "farmworkers".
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They're people to. The relevant law prohibits registration of a pesticide that causes undue harm to people. There's no "pesticide applicators don't count" provision.
How did I know (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How did I know (Score:4, Insightful)
Republican courts have been trying to remove the EPAs power to regulate chemicals. If they have their way, it will require Congress to pass legislation for things like this. That inevitably will make it political.
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Republican courts have been trying to remove the EPAs power to regulate chemicals. If they have their way, it will require Congress to pass legislation for things like this. That inevitably will make it political.
And the reason? Because the political process is so fundamentally broken that they know if it's forced to go through congress, there will be absolutely *NO* controls put on business when it comes to environmental concerns. Fuck these useless assholes. Our government officials, all of them, should be ashamed of themselves. The Republicans should be ashamed for being outright conspiracy theorist shit-heels. The Democrats should be ashamed for tolerating it, preaching reach across the aisle shit when it happen
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That a bunch of fucking idiots would take this political.
Because a bunch of fucking political idiots want to kill the EPA. If DCPA is good enough to their food chain, everyone should enjoy it.
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" That a bunch of fucking idiots would take this political. "
Because this is Slashdot of course.
Within fifteen minutes of any given post going live, the same people typically:
Blame one of the two political parties in the US
Turn it into a discussion about firearms ( even when the topic has nothing to do with them )
Somehow get Nazis involved
Commence to calling each other stupid for having an opinion that differs from their own
This place is a mere shadow of what it once was and it just barely above the noise f
Re: How did I know (Score:2)
source may be paywalled (Score:1, Funny)
Why don't you click the link and select "open in incognito browser" and see?
There is no "MAY" in tech. It's binary. Either it IS paywalled or it is NOT paywalled. Just because slashdot has the laziest editors doesn't mean they can't take that huge leap of CLICKING on it and seeing it's paywalled or NOT.
This one is NOT.
Seriously? Fucking do your jobs or go home. Slashdot was such a great UGC resource, but the new editors just make it into crap.
Oh sorry.
Slashdot MAY be crap. Alternate link: https://ww [usatoday.com]
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There is no "MAY" in tech. It's binary. Either it IS paywalled or it is NOT paywalled. Just because slashdot has the laziest editors doesn't mean they can't take that huge leap of CLICKING on it and seeing it's paywalled or NOT.
If you actually knew shit about shit you'd know that a webserver can serve content differently depending on who's loading it and where they are coming from. Could you please go away and let the technical people have a discussion without noobs like you?
More than that (Score:2, Insightful)
Phthalates of all sorts are disrupting hormones in-utero which causes problems with sex determination including sterility in men. If we continue at this rate it won't be long until new children simply won't be born.
Scientists are afraid to talk about it because for some people this may call in to question their entire identity.
The company refused to turn over the data (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be a good idea to create a law that mandates companies from turning over their health data to the EPA?
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-> that mandates companies to turn over their health data
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Sorry, but the health of corporations is of greater importance than the individual.
But but but... the economy! (Score:4, Informative)
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Banned in the EU for same reasons in 2009. You may want to stock up on glyphosate.
Glyphosphate, now there's a magick bullet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Unfortunately, while rock bottom stupid people were busy blaming vaccines, the proximity of pregnant women to fields where glyphosate chemicals were being used had an impressive relationship with autism in their offspring. The reports weasel a bit, but the statistics
Re: But but but... the economy! (Score:2)
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Pretty sure it was removed from the shelves because of cancer.
But that is apparently not the only thing it causes. That stuff is plain nasty.
Why now? (Score:2)
This has been a thing since the 60s. Why are they only just now doing something about it? What, did someone stop playing ball?
I'm amazed ... (Score:2)
Ahead of the curve (Score:3)
Yay! Finally justified to eschew broccoli and Brussel sprouts! Cabbage and onions might be a tad tougher to go without.
EPA: Broccoli has been bad for you since the 50's (Score:3)
Feeling vindicated now.
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This is what you have to look forward to if you vote for Republicans in November, Slashdotters.
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Wow, I've been keeping an eye on my original comment. It was modded up to "4, Insightful" and then I guess a bunch of GOP sock puppets heard about it and modded it down to 1. Hehe.
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Apparently, an educated public can be controlled quite easily if you control the institutions of learning.
Most of the "educated public" basically were taught to memorize and regurgitate information and not do critical thinking. My father did not let me get away with that. He taught me to think. Most of the best professors that taught me in college also demanded that. Yeah, I'm a bit older and came from that generation where you had to think at college.
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I'll wait.
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Basically: don't take at face value that meme your Aunt Beckie shared on Facebook claiming that vaccines are a Bill Gates plot to implant 5G tracking chips in our brains.
I 100% agree that critical that schools instill in kids how to evaluate the reliability of sources of information, to double check inflammatory / radical claims they see before propagati
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Knowing when you lack the required domain-specific knowledge and when to defer to the consensus positions of those who have said domain-specific knowledge is a key part of critical thinking.
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Sadly true...
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However, in order to be able to perform these strategies & techniques, students need an adequate mastery of the pre-requisite discipline specific knowledge, skills, & attitudes (KSAs). In other words, students need to learn a lot of stuff BEFORE they can think critically & that stuff is domain specific KSAs.
And how did the discipline-specific KSAs come to be? At some point in the past they all came "from nothing", which is to say that they came about by observing, pondering, and - dare I say it? - by chance. And arguably, critical thinking can be considered a prerequisite for KSAs, as well as the other way around.
All that to say that developing critical thinking, knowledge, skills, and attitudes, is a much more complex and emergent process than any causality-based description can fully explain.
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Re: GOP will fix things! (Score:2)
I'll wait.
Excellent counter-example.
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(1) Per Wikipedia: "Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments in order to form a judgement by the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ). If you don't like that one, we can always use the definition from the Foundation of Critical Thinking: "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or
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Secondly, I thought we were talking about primary & secondary education. As I said before, in higher education, it is sometimes taught "somehow," but not usually very well (e.g. minimal guidance methods
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Meanwhile, institutions of higher learning are being used to indoctrinate young adults into supporting Hamas and Jew bashing. Apparently, an educated public can be controlled quite easily if you control the institutions of learning.
You assume that they are getting an education. Much of the product of Higher Learning is regurgitating opinions.
Then wondering why they have the same job prospects as that kid that dropped out of high school in 10th grade.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com] Many companies are shifting to skills based hiring, rather than the crazy idea that a diploma ensures qualification. https://www.thecollegefix.com/... [thecollegefix.com]
And it isn't that difficult to blame them. The skillset the adult children graduates gained - e
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Then wondering why they have the same job prospects as that kid that dropped out of high school in 10th grade.
Job prospects with a degree are demonstrably better.
Pay attention here. Tell me about the job prospects for a Gender Studies Major. Yes, summer child, there are different job prospects that come along with different degrees. Just like I noted that there are fact based degrees like electrical and mechanical, as well as chemistry - one of the more lucrative majors in liberal arts (yes, chemistry is one of the liberal arts)
Many companies are shifting to skills based hiring, rather than the crazy idea that a diploma ensures qualification
But for many, having a relevant degree is a signifier that the person is likely to have the required skills. And then it is further tested in the selection process.
Pay attention. You seem to believe that I am saying this regarding all degrees. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Argue with these
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I'm sorry, is UCLA south of the Mason-Dixon line and East of, say, Texas? No, it isn't.
You could've stopped with "I'm Sorry" (Score:2)
Re:"...institutions of higher learning..." (Score:5, Informative)
South of the Mason-Dixon line and East of, say, Texas - yes. I've been there. Seen it. But . . . they don't wait until college there, they start teaching their kids to hate Jews (and Blacks, and Hispanics, and foreigners in general) as soon as they get to Kindergarten. I'm quite sure it hasn't changed since I was there back in the eighties. It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
As someone from Texas who has many friends from Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and lived in Virginia for a couple of years...you are full of shit, no respect given or intended because with your broad brush statement you are due none.
It was not until I was an adult working at a US laboratory on Long Island in progressive New York that I actually experienced people who were genuinely, hatefully racist. Growing up we were taught to be "colorblind" and to treat everyone as individuals. This was in the apparently hateful '80s. In the haven that is New York City and Long Island there were lots of people who made very stark distinctions between what they considered "good Italian families" and "the blacks" or "the Spanish," and don't get people started talking about the Irish or the Chinese. Growing up in Texas I had never heard hispanic or latino people called "the Spanish" nor did I grow up hearing the kind of vitriolic rhetoric that I was around every day working in New York.
Working with people from US labs in California exposed me to an entirely new kind of hatred, towards my being a white, straight male. Never mind that I have always worked in groups with people from all over the world, both men and women, gotten along with all of them, but being a white male (and doubly so if straight) is somehow, in 2024, the most oppressive and hateful thing one can be. The three best electrical engineers I've ever worked with, and stay in contact with to talk complex problems out with, one is from Cameroon, one is from Costa Rica and one is from the US. I do not understand in the slightest how diversity for diversity's sake is supposed to help anyone, when high-performing teams become diverse on their own as a result of the wheat separating from the chaff.
I am kind of rooting for WW3 at this point so we can nuke the earth and just start over with whoever is left, if anyone is.
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It was not until I was an adult working at a US laboratory on Long Island in progressive New York that I actually experienced people who were genuinely, hatefully racist.
The "ol' I don't know any racists so they don't exist" argument? Sorry but views of society is not built on anecdotes, it's built on policy and the support for that policy. Texas is widely regarded as that racist uncle in the US family for a very good reason, despite the fact that you somehow lived a sheltered life free from influence of your fellow statesmen.
Working with people from US labs in California exposed me to an entirely new kind of hatred, towards my being a white, straight male.
Ahhh yes, the poor marginalized white male. If we didn't already know you were full of shit, now you've removed all doubt.
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Re:"...institutions of higher learning..." (Score:4, Informative)
I am called/classified as a 'Boomer" am an old and white straight male, so ya gotta know, being hated is kinda the daily for me these days. But I recall how living in Brookline (now part of Boston) back in the late 60's, it was a multicultural place with no hatred, Jews, Christians, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Caucasian, and Black people all seemed to get along fine, our class President was a Black girl and the captain of our football team and Quarterback was a black male. Hell, I had a crush on an Indian girl, Chrishanti (she was Hindo) , and her parents were in favor of us being together, though I was only 9...
So, I believe that racism is very much dependent upon where you are and when you look. of course YMMV, and my anecdotes are as valuable as anyone else's, not more valuable at all, I mean a serious researcher would want to collect thousands of such anecdotes from all over the country then work to see if there was anything to be learned based upon a large collection of stuff.
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Oh I thought you were serious for a moment. Something really scary would all the illegals who prop up the agriculture and and meat processing plants going on strike.
Not scary. Expensive. (Score:3)
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What part of "white, straight male" do you NOT understand?
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Alabama boy here. You're exactly correct, and everyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence knows it, and they know why. Don't worry, brother. WW3 isn't the answer, because, in a way, that's what's unfolding already, in it's own way. What we white straight guys COULD do is go on strike. Just sit back and watch things fall apart at a much much faster rate than they currently are. You know, we could go on strike for a month and it'd fix everything.
Accurate statement and I appreciate the response.
It wouldn't even take all of the boring straight white guys going on strike for a month for things to collapse, only a comparatively small portion. When I was doing a lot of contracting the power plants, water plants and chemical plants were filled with straight white guys in the engineering and management departments. You can't operate something as complex as an electrical grid on 20-30% staff. The interconnectedness of the whole is also such that even if yo
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Newsflash: Italians are racist! The Irish are racist! The Chinese: also racist! Japan: very racist!
There's a lot of racism in the world, for certain. But the caricature of the Southern white "upper class" is not far from reality.
My EXPERIENCE directly contradicts your RANT. (Score:2)
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Nice try, though. A for effort. I still know what I saw. I've never in my life experienced any prejudice because I'm a white man - but I've seen plenty of it leveled against others, and I remember where I saw it the most blatantly and consistently displayed.
I am sure you have seen many things that you wish you had not seen. But I'm afraid that your characterization of my single, calm, uninsulting, direct statement as a RANT does not detract from its veracity, despite your use of uppercase letters. And stating that experience trumps logic does not make it so.
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Nice try, though. A for effort. I still know what I saw. I've never in my life experienced any prejudice because I'm a white man - but I've seen plenty of it leveled against others, and I remember where I saw it the most blatantly and consistently displayed.
Thanks for labeling MY experience a rant. I am sorry that my experience growing up in Texas and living in other parts of the US contradicts yours, we could just have been in different areas or have a different circle of people that we hung around, but I never saw this overt racism in my professional or friend groups over the years. I am certain that actual racism still exists in some places and via some people, but it is nowhere near what it has been in decades past, and people are too quick to REEE and pan
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Yes, our P/R is the best. (Score:2)
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Not to say that you are a bad person, but your anecdotal perspective does not constitute a compelling argument.
And the previous argument was or you just agreed with it? Here's an actual one for you The U.N. World Migration Report [iom.int]. The United States has been the number one destination of international migrants since 1970. Here's another, The latest U.S Census report [census.gov] which states "Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia still account for 67% if population growth and Texas is still number one of out those.
So it's either all the native oppressors are moving to these four states (not likely) or it's still the place most people who leave there country of origin want to come. Since many of these migrants are so-called "third-world" and would be the very subjects of the so-called oppression, why do they want to come here of all places? The answer is pretty simple but I'll ask you in the form of a question. It's so bad compared to what? There is no utopia but if you have one you should move there because apparently everyone in the rest of the world thinks the best you can get is here.
Are you suggesting that the fact that immigrants are settling in the South proves that Southerners couldn't be racist? Are you suggesting that the decision of where to live in a new country is made based on a foreknowledge of how they will be treated by the other inhabitants, and not on things like, oh, I don't know, proximity to the point of entry, number of others of the same background to offer a social support structure, the existence of some governmental services to support the immigrant community? You
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Not to say that you are a bad person, but your anecdotal perspective does not constitute a compelling argument.
And the previous argument was or you just agreed with it? Here's an actual one for you The U.N. World Migration Report [iom.int]. The United States has been the number one destination of international migrants since 1970. Here's another, The latest U.S Census report [census.gov] which states "Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia still account for 67% if population growth and Texas is still number one of out those.
So it's either all the native oppressors are moving to these four states (not likely) or it's still the place most people who leave there country of origin want to come. Since many of these migrants are so-called "third-world" and would be the very subjects of the so-called oppression, why do they want to come here of all places? The answer is pretty simple but I'll ask you in the form of a question. It's so bad compared to what? There is no utopia but if you have one you should move there because apparently everyone in the rest of the world thinks the best you can get is here.
Are you suggesting that the fact that immigrants are settling in the South proves that Southerners couldn't be racist? Are you suggesting that the decision of where to live in a new country is made based on a foreknowledge of how they will be treated by the other inhabitants, and not on things like, oh, I don't know, proximity to the point of entry, number of others of the same background to offer a social support structure, the existence of some governmental services to support the immigrant community? You know; all the things that might make the local white inhabitants resentful and maybe hateful?
And since we're quoting studies, here's one that shows that systemic racism has permeated Southern culture to a significantly greater degree than Northern culture, and consequently, Southerners are indeed more prone to racist beliefs than Northerners: https://www.wfae.org/politics/... [wfae.org] -- you know, the whole point the first guy was making that people got blown up about, as if there was actually a question about it.
I looked at your link, first comment is good Lord, the picture of that guy.
And the data they show in the graphs...don't really indicate what you seem to imply. It showed that comparatively there are more men who self-report as being conservative and fewer as liberal. On the three graphs with the "race" questions (where the survey questions were posed in a very loaded way) the difference between "Southern Whites" and "Non-Southern Whites" didn't create more than a 15% spread between the two groups for most o
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many people in Europe and the UK do NOT want to move here. But [...] once they arrive and become citizens, are some of the most patriotic Americans you will ever meet
Yes, most Europeans do not want to come to the U.S.A thanks to the relative piece that's ensued following WWII thanks to the efforts of NATO and its largest member nation. People who do arrive here are grateful because they see a the truth it appears generations who have been here can no longer see.
Well, then the CIA shouldn't have fucked up South America like they did, and you would have no "Border Crisis".
Nope. Bad comparison. (Score:2)
This isn't "can't have light without darkness". That's just rationalization. Sophistry (and not very good sophistry, at that). Once upon a time, racism was good for us. It made us react instantly when something unknown came at us in the jungle. The problem is that we live in cities now and we need to defeat the primitive genetic programming (like==good, unlike==bad) and base our actions on our collective intellect.
Are we, as a species, prepared to leave racism behind and collectively adopt a superior
Re: Nope. Bad comparison. (Score:2)
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This isn't "can't have light without darkness".
Dude, he almost literally said "You need light to fight darkness". Learn to read.
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"The South Will Rise Again!" (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anybody here have any question what they mean in the Deep South when they say this? I'd say just wall off the whole region and consider it a mass prison, but they'd like that down there. I guess we'll just wait until they get good 'n' drunk some night and actually try that whole secede from the Union thing again so we can go down there in military force and perform a proper curettement. We can reenact Sherman's march to the sea, won't that be fun?
I know what I saw down there. I also know it hasn't
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How can you be sure that your anecdotal experiences in a given region are exactly the same four decades later? Certainty is best reserved for things that can be scientifically proven, or when that's impossible, new anecdotal experiences. Otherwise, it's just pure speculation conjured to prop up your preconceived notions.
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So when the word "indoctrination" is thrown around...
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Because kids always mirror their parents' politics. Exhibit A, Elon Musk's daughter, Vivian Wilson.
Other thing is, Republicans have higher excess death rates from COVID [jamanetwork.com], so maybe it'll all balance out.
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The GOP's greatest asset is that their adversaries are 'voluntarily childless'.
Extrapolate over two generations.
The problem is as older generations die off, younger generations are more liberal (and also more worldly with the rise of technology). This is how progress happens. Gay marriage, legal pot, things that were unthinkable two generations ago are perfectly normal to young people now. This has always been true, which is also why blacks no longer have separate buses and women can vote, even the GOP won't be undoing those. Conservatives try to hold these things back as desperately as they can - see abortion -
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Why stop doing something that's so dang profitable? Humans will evolve over a few generations to tolerate their new chemical environments. Heck, the future human may need those flippers if the seas keep rising! It's not a birth defect, it's evolution! Not so useful in the Midwest, I'll admit.
Letting companies self-regulate on "good faith" is never going to work. The companies know they can pass the long term costs on to the public without liability.