I would say that you both need to cool it and try to seek to understand the other person rather than convince them of why they're wrong.

I view fanaticism as the key problem of our country right now.  You are part of it.

Idiot or not, you can expect people like her to be empowered if Hillary wins.  Her position will become the norm.

Even if the guy was a Muslim (which he isn't), what's the damn difference?  A Muslim has just as much right to be POTUS as a Catholic, Mormon, Protestant, Jew, Hindu or Jain.

We are not at war with radical fundamentalist Catholics, radical fundamentalist Mormons, radical fundamentalist Protestants, radical fundamentalist Jews, radical fundamentalist Hindus or radical fundamentalist Jain.  His personal bias compromises the security of the United States.  I find that abhorrent but as a law abiding citizen, I'm forced to endure it  because there is no legal path to removing him from office.  But my patience is pretty thin.

Very disappointing.  He touted himself as a true conservative, and turned out to be Obama's bitch.

I tend to think that Ryan is not so much Obama's bitch as he is in an impossible position.  He had to try to ride herd on a large group of fanatics who don't all agree on what they're fanatics about.  None of them want to compromise, all of them look for reasons to disagree and nobody knows the art of compromising.  At the core, that is why Congress is deadlocked.  It isn't Republicans, it isn't Democrats, it isn't liberals, conservative or progressives, it's all of them. 

The solution is get all the fanatics out of Congress, including the one you agree with.

I'm for us not hearing more complaints and start hearing recommendations for solutions.

Poverty and income differences between black families and white families?  How about comparing that to HS and college graduations?  More white people attend and graduate HS and college, so you would expect college graduates to make more money.

WHY do more white people graduate HS and college? Now you're getting somewhere.  DC is one of the worst where 86% of white students graduate high school but only 58% of black students do.  Are DC schools institutionally racist or are black students dropping out of school?  Where does the fault lie?

I also think that when white people experience racism, we write it off.  Black people write it down.  Yes, I live in the south and when I'm out I experience racism pretty much daily in some form.

But I don't really care.  My family has only been here about 100 years and we've dealt with our own racism.  Nobody would hire my great-grandfather, the Mick, so he opened his own business, a bar and worked his way up.  My grandfather worked that bar his whole life and pretty much went from working there to dying in the hospital from cancer.  My grandmother was from polish mine workers, slaves to the company store - it's not just a song, it's family history.  I was only the third fourth in my family to go to college and the first to go to graduate school. 

How did we do it - work.  It's four letter word.

There's going to be some chaos for a little while because no one understands all the impacts of this.  Uncertainty lowers value.  But in the long run, the mini panic going on is going to be much ado about nothing.

Great time for a vacation to the UK.

It's a bogus question. 

There's no such thing as a very good return 5 years out and asking the question as if there were is deceitful.  The uncertainty 5 years out is known by every business manager and is part of the CEO's calculations.  You don't know what's going to happen in 5 years, so the question being answered is really "would you sacrifice all of your returns today for the possibility of great returns in 5 years".  The answer is going to be no every time.

When I hear things like this I wonder if they're stupid or purposefully leading people astray.

You've got some horrible prejudices in here that I'm going to challenge because I see these preconceived notions about people as why you and they give up.

The things that got them trapped in the ghetto in the first place are forces beyond their control

The thing that has them trapped is their own mind.  There is not a single person that could not walk out of that ghetto today and get help to move up to something better.  There are job assistance programs out there that will help you move up, assuming you blew your first chance in primary school.

But that's the issue, I'm defining "better" in a way they don't.  To them, better is Obama paying their mortgage and free cell phones and that just isn't sustainable.  Who perpetuates the idea that living off freebies from others forever is even categorized as good?

They are not trapped, they are making a choice to take free stuff because we continue to make the free stuff available to them. 

...most damaging factor in all this mess, sending most of the males to prison before they have any chance at becoming a decent MAN.

"Most" males don't go to prison before they become decent men, the number is high at 35% and that includes the entire lifetime of adult males.  They go to prison BECAUSE they fail to become decent men and BECAUSE they break laws.

Assuming there IS a job out there for you, if it's not a fun job,

Where do you have the idea that a job should be fun?  Work is a four letter word and you don't get paid to do what you want to do, you get paid to do what needs to be done.  A job doesn't have to be fun, some of them really suck. 

And there ARE jobs out there.  There are job training programs out there for anyone who wants it.  The trouble I see is that government has made being idle tolerable or even comfortable.  It should never be a tolerable choice, it should be uncomfortable in order to very strongly encourage everyone to work and to gain the self respect of self sufficiency.

Being a famous musician or actor has got to be one of the most high pressure jobs possible

Sorry, but "famous musician" doesn't make anybody's list of most high pressure jobs.  Firefighter, police, military, pilot, LEO, teacher, corporate executive, heck even taxi drivers have more stressful jobs. 

If you have a job that is very meaningful and rewarding, you're less likely to do drugs but if you get your engineering degree and can't find a job other than flipping burgers, and someone enables you by paying your rent and groceries, you escape worrying about your dismal career prospects by doing drugs. 

There are a lot of people with engineering degrees doing drugs rather than flipping burgers?  Here, http://www.engineerjobs.com, 300,000 engineering job in the United States.  If you want to complain that the standards are too high, then complain to businesses, I have the same complaint.  But the jobs are there and it's a matter of marketing yourself correctly to get them.

If you don't like that, then there ARE jobs flipping burgers.  Or driving the garbage truck.  Or even sweeping up the barbershop floor.  Every single person has the ability to contribute something and if they choose not to because they'd rather hang out then I really don't have sympathy for them.

There are lots of places that I place the blame, but one is social promotion in schools.  If a kid hasn't learned what they need to know then passing them to the next grade tells them that knowledge is irrelevant when the exact opposite is true.  I don't care if you get 18 year olds in the 4th grade because they can't master the material.  Set the standard and require that people meet it to advance.  That's the best lesson they can learn in school, achievement matters.

Then take away the free stuff, there is nothing more disrespectful than to suggest to someone that they're worthless and cannot do anything.  Everyone contributes.