"I don't want to pick a person, say, he's a racist, but I do think the way they're piling on Obama, the harshness, you kind of feel it. I think I see an edge in them that's a little bit different and a little harsher than I've seen in other times."
This time it's Walter Mondale, and you've got to at least give him credit for speaking in the most mealy-mouthed and boring way possible.
Jeez, I almost feel like calling it mush from the wimp.
September 24, 2009
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 223 of 223kcom,
I've lived in a tribal society (for several years), which I'm guessing you haven't, and I didn't have any praise for it. It's ridiculous and highly inefficient in many ways.
Okay, so you’re not pro-tribalism. Check. You’re glad to be away from there. And you think multiculturalism is a pipe dream for that place and all others like it because…
It's fake, fake, fake. Real people with real differences have been getting along in real ways for thousands of years without an official religion of multiculturalism to tell them how to behave.
Okay, so real people with real differences have been getting along in real ways for thousands of years -- except in that tribal society you lived in and all others like it where they’re lagging behind for some reason. So what would solve their conflict?
The answer to human conflict isn't fetishized pollyanaish tripe. It's real people getting on with their real lives with each other, a tradition we've had since the founding of the country. A tradition (hey, there's that word) that has no basis in tribalism whatsoever, but rather in the words and ideas of the Constitution. Or have you forgotten "All men are created equal"?
No I haven’t forgotten it because “All men are created equal” is in the Declaration of Independence and even then it took another 189 years until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That’s a long time for one of those groups (blacks) to wait. A very, very long time. So for at least another 189 years in this country that solution you suggest was fake, fake, fake.
Not that I’m against our Const. and D of I. I know how conservatives are wont to misinterpret such things as proof we liberals hate America. I fully support their implementation. I’m simply saying both of those documents combined didn’t solve tribalism like you claim. Unless denying voting rights to blacks is no big deal to you, because it is to me. And I could make the case it didn’t stop after 189 years, but let’s just make the right to vote a minimum benchmark for you. Prior to 1965, the solution you suggest absolutely was fake, fake, fake. Tribalism reigned in this country.
Revenant said…
“There are countless forms of racism enthusiastically endorsed by liberals and opposed by conservatives, from the eugenics projects of the 20s to the affirmative action policies of today.”
Brilliant, Revenant. So true.
So here you and Revenant are hurling this “racist liberalism” at me like I have to answer for it when I don’t and you can’t establish that I do. The very fact blacks and Jews for decades have overwhelmingly voted for the more liberal party and against the more conservative party stops this racist lineage claim of yours dead in its tracks. I defy you to explain this voting pattern of blacks/Jews the last 40 years without making yourself look racist.
(pt.2)kcom,
And this I more or less agree with:
"flightiness open-mindedness stalwartness close-mindedness
Bad Good Good Bad
Liberalism Conservatism"
Where I think you start to go wrong, though, is when you start classifying things on this scale where this scale doesn't really apply very well.
"Now to my thinking, racism belongs on the bad side of conservatism under close-mindedness."
I just don't think you can pigeonhole racism in this way.
Quite a concession. You acknowledged there that close-mindedness is conservative. You realize that, right? Yes, because you said I started to go wrong where I plugged in the last two traits, racism and irresponsibility, meaning prior to that you agreed with the logic right up to and including “close-mindedness is conservative.” Glad to see you finally agree. But then, after walking along so far with the logic, you got to the last step, racism is close-minded, turned on your heel, and shook your head.
I just don't think you can pigeonhole racism in this way.
Sigh. Man, oh man. So here we are.
a) Racism is closed/narrow-minded
b) Racism has nothing to do with being closed/narrow-minded.
I obviously agree with a) and you obviously agree with b). Wow. I really don’t know how you can defend such a Klansmanlike belief. But this is logically what you’re saying by denying a). Imagine getting your face plastered on the evening news having that quote attributed to you. You’re at a political rally surrounded by fellow conservatives with their anti-Obama signs waving behind you, you lean into the mic and say, “Racism has nothing to do with being narrow-minded.” Yep, this is the belief you’re sticking to, dagnabbit, and nothing’s going to change your mind.
As for all your Marx references, not to mention this snide little tidbit I let go the first time…
I also can't help noting that the entire world spent practically the entire 20th centure breaking out of one thing or another and landing squarely in the lap of new views such as Marxism, Leninism, Bolshevism, Nazism, Fascism, Pol Potism, Maoism, Shining Pathism, Stalinism and on and on ad nauseum. Compared to that, conservatism looks quite good.
Holy straw manapalooza, Batman. You sure you couldn’t find a few more anti-liberal, sometimes downright tyrannical political ideologies to foist upon liberals? Don’t deny that’s what you did there. “Compared to that, conservatism looks quite good…” as opposed to… gee, liberalism maybe? As if those are sound argumentative points against modern liberalism. You want to talk about freedom?
Social conservatism wants the gov’t in every uterus; in every bedroom (sodomy laws); at every marriage ceremony to deny freedom to same-gender couples; standing between every person with a fatal disease and their doctor who wants to ease their suffering and allow them their ultimate choice.
In short, conservatism wants gov’t to deny freedom in the most profound ways in people’s lives: birth, marriage, death.
As another example of false dichotomies, the opposite of far left isn't far right
So does right-wing extremism even exist as a concept to you? Apparently not since you equate it with left-wing extremism. How about right-wing near extremism? What does that look like to you?
"So does right-wing extremism even exist as a concept to you?"
No, it doesn't, not in any meaningful sense that's different from left-wing extremism. Extremism that denies liberty is extremism no matter what direction it comes from. As I said before, far left and far right are just two peas in the same pod. It's like asking, "Would you rather be murdered with a gun or with a knife?" Or, if you want to get even more explicit, would you rather be murdered by a Communist or a Nazi? The correct answer is to not pick either, but to say they both suck. Because they aren't different ends of some kind of scale. They're both on the same end of the scale - they are both collectivist and totalitarian philosophies. They're both the enemy of freedom. That's why this whole left/right thing is frequently such a waste of time. A much more pertinent measuring standard, especially in light of the values our country was founded on, is to ask: does the thing being measured try to promote individual freedom or does it try to eliminate it. That's where you'll find your answer as to whether it's good or bad.
Of course, you asked that question directly after repeating the very same mistake I've called you out on numerous times. You're equating a dictionary definition of a word with the complexity of a political movement. "In short, conservatism wants gov’t to deny freedom in the most profound ways in people’s lives: birth, marriage, death." I thought you said that you weren't automatically equating newer with better. But every time you talk about the word or concept of conservatism as an idea, you automatically equate it with the specifics of a wide-ranging and multi-faceted political philosophy parts of which you don't like, known as Conservatism, as if the two were one and the same. They're not.
"Quite a concession. You acknowledged there that close-mindedness is conservative."
No, I acknowledged that conservativism taken to an extreme could lead to close-mindedness. That's a hugely important difference. Which fits the description of many things in life. Adventurousness taken to the extreme can lead to recklessness. Self-repect taken to the extreme can lead to narcissism. A concern for safety taken to the extreme can lead to timidity. So does adventurousness equal recklessness, does a concern for safety equal timidity? No, it's just something for a self-aware person to be on guard against.
"You realize that, right?"
No, as I explained above, I don't realize that.
"Yes, because you said I started to go wrong where I plugged in the last two traits, racism and irresponsibility, meaning prior to that you agreed with the logic right up to and including “close-mindedness is conservative.”"
No, I agreed with your general scale in an abstract way as to thinking processes. Meaning that if you accept nothing new because it's new then you are on one end of the extreme (which you can choose to call close-minded) and that if you accept anything new because it's new then you're on the other end of the extreme (which you could choose to call flighty). That's pretty much a given and a no-brainer, which is why I agreed with you. But I'll repeat what I said before in that once you try to apply that scale to racism and irresponsibility you're really moving into questionable territory. Neither one fits that scale at all well. Irresponsibility is not a function of being closed or open-minded, it's a function of something entirely different, or at least tangential. Sometimes, being close-minded can be the height of irresponsibility. There was an episode of "Scrubs" where an older doctor was still using a procedure that had been supplanted by a newer, far safer one. When the other doctors at the hospital found out about it they were appalled - not just the young, hip ones but also the older, curmudgeonly one. So no, I don't think irresponsibility can be pigeon-holed like you're trying to do. And I don't think racism can either. There's too much racism in too many different groups at too many different levels expressed in too many different ways for me to believe that. I know you can (and are trying to) just define racism as close-minded and conservative by definition, but my real world experience just doesn't back that up. At some point it becomes a matter of semantics, using your 90%/10% argument, but at that point it loses any real meaning.
"Glad to see you finally agree. But then, after walking along so far with the logic, you got to the last step, racism is close-minded, turned on your heel, and shook your head."
As I explained above, I only agreed up to a point far short of what you thought it to be. I think you are over-simplifying racism to the point of meaninglessness. If you haven't seen signs of "liberal" racism then you're not getting out of your comfort zone far enough to make a good judgment.
"a) Racism is closed/narrow-minded
b) Racism has nothing to do with being closed/narrow-minded.
I obviously agree with a) and you obviously agree with b)."
No, I don't agree with b). And I think a) is way too simplistic. Again, as I said above, you're measuring on the wrong scale. In fact, it's not really amenable to a scale at all. It's too complex for that.
"Wow. I really don’t know how you can defend such a Klansmanlike belief. But this is logically what you’re saying by denying a)."
I'm not denying a). I'm saying it's stupidly simplistic. I doubt that makes me a Klansman but kudos for playing the nuclear card. Of course, it doesn't work nearly as well as it used to when the Klan actually did have some sway in society. Now they're just pathetic.
"Imagine getting your face plastered on the evening news having that quote attributed to you."
Yeah, I'm really going to worry about being talked about on the news: "He thinks a) is overly simplistic." I'm shaking.
"“Racism has nothing to do with being narrow-minded.” Yep, this is the belief you’re sticking to, dagnabbit, and nothing’s going to change your mind."
Well, since that's not my argument, I doubt I'll stick to it. And a weak, simplistic, reductivist argument from you is not going to change my mind either.
"So here you and Revenant are hurling this “racist liberalism” at me like I have to answer for it when I don’t and you can’t establish that I do. The very fact blacks and Jews for decades have overwhelmingly voted for the more liberal party and against the more conservative party stops this racist lineage claim of yours dead in its tracks. I defy you to explain this voting pattern of blacks/Jews the last 40 years without making yourself look racist."
This really made no sense. 1) We did no such thing and 2) you're guilty of the same thing you are decrying. I don't have to answer for anyone's political philosophy except my own, despite the fact that you think I should answer for the Klan, for racists, and for anyone else who's political philosophy you have a problem with. But because I, and you, don't have to answer for someone else's actions doesn't mean that those actions don't exist. I'm going to keep repeating what I've said all along - your outlook on human existence, human psychology, human motivations and human behavior is way too simplistic. I know (and honestly feel for you) that it makes arguments so much neater, and cleaner and easier, but it just isn't true.
As far as the track-stopping claim goes, do you really have that simplistic a view of politics? Really? (Oops, I'm repeating myself. I added that list bit at the end of the paragraph above after-the-fact and now see that I made the same point here.) Have you ever heard of the book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" I confess I haven't read it but from what I've heard the author (definitely not a conservative) basically wonders why people in Kansas are so stupid to vote the way they do. I wouldn't call that racism, but it's a relative of racism, and it also points out the fact that why and how people vote, and what for, is a very complex topic not easily reduced to simple little truisms (although I grant you that you are doing your best).
And just as I enjoyed the Klan card earlier, I'm now enjoying your timely use of the race card. "Don't you dare say anyhing because I'll call you a racist if you do." is not a particularly winning personality trait. Here's one small point) Anti-semitism is a lot more prevalent on the Left these days than on the Right? So yes, it is a bit of a mystery why they would vote against their interests (maybe they are all from Kansas?) [Note: I said that last bit with tongue in cheek. I'd no more appoint myself to determine someone else's interest than someone on the Left would. Oh wait, they do that all the time.] And here's another point) the Democratic Party is a big, corrupt political machine (as are the Republicans in the sense I'm talking about) and have been very good at buying votes from various constituencies. They've been especially successful with blacks. What they've delivered in return might be less than ideal, but I guess it's something. You see, politics is much more frequently about messy dealings with interest groups than it is about big, noble ideas. It's kind of the reason that Bull Connor and John Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy were all in the same political party. Oh, wait, they were and are all Democrats. Show me the Republican Bull Connor. And then show me all the Republicans who voted for the civil rights acts. And show me the president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But, of course, it's called the Republican Party and not the Conservative Party. And, of course, it's the Democrats and not the liberals, so again, you're reductivist arguments are just too weak to desribe the real world.
"I’m simply saying both of those documents combined didn’t solve tribalism like you claim. Unless denying voting rights to blacks is no big deal to you, because it is to me. And I could make the case it didn’t stop after 189 years, but let’s just make the right to vote a minimum benchmark for you. Prior to 1965, the solution you suggest absolutely was fake, fake, fake. Tribalism reigned in this country"
Actually, you're wrong again. They did solve the problem. They bequeathed to us a form of government where he had the right to say what we thought, the liberty to associate together and to petition the government for a redress of our grievances. We had the right to elect people who represented our interest as sovereign citizens and we had the right to remove them when they didn't. The entire civil rights movement was an appeal to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They are the foundation on which all of that is built.
It took way longer than it should have, and that is something that can never erased, but things changed within the system and because of the sytem and using the tools of the system, not outside it. No army invaded, no foreign court ruled, no king decreed - we changed it ourselves. Through appeals to individual conscience. That's the staggeringly awesome gift that our Founders gave to us. Compare that to all the other 20th century crap that I mentioned that was claimed to be a harbinger of some sort of utopia on earth (and that you pooh-poohed as somehow not relevant to a discussion of the relative merits of politcal change versus politcal stasis). The mechanism for change in most of those countries was non-existent, unless you count World War, mass murder, and horrific suffering as a mechanism. And most all of those countries were horrific places because someone got it into their heads to judge people based on what group they belonged to, not who they were or the content of their character, all things enshrined in our founding documents from day one. Liberal things for their time that somehow have become conservative over the years.
Now, seemingly, there is an increasing fascination with statism, collectivism, grouping by ethnicity and gender and race in determining who people are and what they should think and how they should interact with others. You see, unlike your proud example above, I think it's a bad idea for too many members of one group to vote or a particular political party. It indicates a certain close-mindedness, to use your term. People should make their own decisions based on their own philosophies. They shouldn't be herded into groups and treated as such because that route has always led to disaster, as you yourself pointed out.
I said this yesterday but will repeat it even more strongly today: Multiculturalism is a form of tribalism. It's codified and gussied up and given a shiny veneer but that's all it is. It's wrong, it's counterproductive, it's un-American, it's a waste of time. People are people, they are not groups. They should be dealt with as individuals. I don't know why you want to trade one form of tribalism (which you say is bad) for another (which, by logic, would also be bad). Isn't it glarinly obvious that if the freed slaves had been treated as individuals based on their merit and not as a group that things would have been immeasurably better for those 100 years after the Civil War? Why would we want to go back there and look at people through that sort of lens again? Like I said, just because something is labeled "liberal" doesn't mean it is. And everything well-intentioned isn't always a good idea. The 20th century was filled to the brim with crappy "good ideas". That's where the conservatism, as opposed to the close-mindedness, comes in - show me it's better and I'm on board. Tell me it's better without offering any proof and you're going to find me skeptical. The road to hell is paved with good intentions but it doesn't mean I have to supply the asphalt.
"except in that tribal society you lived in and all others like it where they’re lagging behind for some reason. So what would solve their conflict?"
Not any fake feel-goodism, I can assure you of that. Nor fake tribalism, which is what multiculturalism is. What would solve their problems is the same thing that has solved problems everywhere. Education, individual freedom, political maturity, a social compact that respected individuals rights and prosperity, an intolerance of political corruption, a shared sense of civic virtue, etc. None of which is ethnic group specific. There are good people and bad people in all societies so the focus should be on the good people, not on the
groups they belong to. You don't solve tribalism by adding another layer of tribalism. Especially bureaucratic tribalism. Once you do that it's going to be locked in place forever. Why, oh why, would anyone who's not a racist want that? It might be well-intended but it's an absolutely terrible idea.
Two quick (I promise) personal notes:
1) I appreciate you making reasonable (if sometimes wildy wrong) arguments. Despite the length of this conversation, it's never dissolved into a shouting match, which is saying something nowadays. Not that I haven't poked at you a bit, and vice versa, but all in all, I'm happy at the tone. Many left-leaning people are nearly impossible to hold a serious conversation with.
2) "Okay, so you’re not pro-tribalism. Check. You’re glad to be away from there."
Point 2 does not follow directly from point 1. In some ways it's nice to be out of there and in other ways I miss it a lot. Again, things are just never as simple as you might want them to be. I met a lot of good people there. Very, very nice people. I had some very interesting and enjoyable experiences. Life is too big to be pigeonholed. Just because it was a tribal society didn't mean everything about it was bad. Human beings are human beings, after all. Life is lived on many, many levels and politics is only one of them.
Unfortunately, though, the exreme downside of tribalism does periodically rear its ugly head. The odds are good that a fair number of the people I met over there are no longer alive. I have no way of finding out. So, yes, for reasons petty and grand, a truly tribal society has a lot of weaknesses that limits its potential in the ways we would generally measure it. And the people pay a price for it that we would not be comfortable paying.
pt.1 kcom,
Or, if you want to get even more explicit, would you rather be murdered by a Communist or a Nazi?
That’s all I was looking for was if you considered Nazism right-wing extremism, which you do, as opposed to many conservatives I’ve talked to who use the “socialist” part of the name to insist it’s left-wing. Of course Nazism has much in common with Communism as you noted and one can imagine both ends of the left-right model wrapping around and touching each other to deal with that. But of course, even that’s insufficient in trying to place, say, libertarianism which the left-right spectrum simply can’t accommodate.
The four-quadrant grid model, however, can. An example is the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. Try it if you haven’t already. If you’re like me, someone who has fairly solid political opinions, it won’t take a minute and it’s very accurate by my lights. It placed me far into the Liberal quadrant.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html
The four-quadrant model takes into account collectivism (statism) vs. individualism (libertarianism) as well as left (liberal) vs. right (conservative) and places them on perpendicular axes to one another. Doing this, it accurately, I think, shows liberalism and conservatism to be equally individualist and collectivist. It always bugs me when conservatives claim they’re the individualists and liberals are the collectivists or statists. It’s just not true. Yes, liberals are collectivist with regard to social programs and higher taxes to pay for them, but conservatives are collectivist with regard to vice laws to rein in what they perceive as harmful liberal licentiousness and hedonism. If that description doesn’t seem accurate to you, I suggest you might be more libertarian, are overly attached to the word “conservative,” and are trying to mold the word to fit your ideals when that’s not how it should go. People are the mixed bags, not the terminology.
Anyway, I immediately got nervous when it occurred to me you could use this four-quadrant model to debunk my claim about closed-mindedness being conservative. That was until I tried to plug in the most closed-minded answers I could to the ten questions and to my relief, it scored Conservative/Statist. Here’s how I answered.
Personal Issues:
1. “Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet.”
Censorship I think is more closed-minded, so I put Disagree.
2. “Military service should not be voluntary. There should be no draft.”
Voluntary sounds more open-minded, so I put Disagree.
3. “There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults.”
Let them get their freak on. More open-minded. So Disagree.
4. “Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.”
Allowing drug use is more open-minded. Disagree.
5. “There should be no National ID card.”
Advocating freedom from Big Brother type stuff seems more open-minded to me. So I put Disagree.
The Economic Issues section I answered all Maybe. Unlike the personal issues, I honestly couldn’t see closed-mindedness dominating one side over the other here. I dread this might open up as many as five more offshoots of disagreement between us, but since the overall theme thus far has been one of my seeing closed-mindedness in certain areas with you denying it’s there, the continuation would be for you to do the same here. But who knows? We might switch roles and you’ll be the one seeing close-mindedness where I don’t see it. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Final tally: Taking the test as closed-mindedly as I could, I scored perfectly on the border between Conservative and Statist, as far from the moderate center as possible and opposite the border between Liberal and Libertarian. Yep, makes sense to me.
pt.2 kcom,
So going by this result, if I adjust my initial racism is conservative claim to racism is conservative/statist, well, the first example that comes to mind here is Nazis. Talk about a perfect fit. Can’t get more conservative/statist than them and they epitomize racism. Another group that comes to mind is conservative Democrats who voted against Obama based on his race, most notably in Appalachia. They tend to be poorer, less-educated bible thumpers who believe in welfare. Here’s a video of statistician Nate Silver speaking to this phenomenon:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics.html
Another group is old Jews who voted Dem their whole lives, but wouldn’t vote for Obama based on his race. Here’s a Sarah Silverman video pleading with them during the campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk
Certainly there are racists who are further out from the conservative/statist hotzone. Gun-toting, militia-type libertarians strike me as tending toward white supremacism and they’re right-leaning, so are connected with the conservative side of conservatism/statism. Conversely, there are the leftist anti-Semites you mentioned. I don’t know enough about them to know if they’re statist or libertarian liberals, but if they’re statist, they fit my hypothesis as the mirror image of gun-toting, militia-type libertarians and equidistant from the conservative/statist racist hotzone but connecting to the statist side instead. Racist blacks such as your Rev. Wright types fall near them on the graph leaning more conservative/statist.
The least racist group according to this model should be the one furthest on the four-quadrant graph from conservatism/statism -- namely, liberal/libertarian. This rings true to me since this political group is the most sensitive to racism and doing most of the calling out of it.
You no doubt think this is a bunch of crap and consider this group just as racist/bigoted if not more for dividing people into groups and attributing characteristics to them which you think don’t apply. All I can say to this is to ask yourself if you see racism in Nazis and the KKK and why it is you’d be a racist for calling them out as racists. Then work back to a group like Appalachian Dems and Florida Jews who’ve admitted in polls that their vote against Obama was based on his race. What’s so racist/bigoted about calling them out? Maybe you needed to see those poll numbers to be convinced of what liberals like Sarah Silverman were already aware of. Or maybe even then such poll numbers like Nate Silver presented you disregard anyway and you’re only comfortable calling Nazis and the KKK racist. Or blacks.
Speaking of which, how about Bill Cosby? Is he a racist for the way he’s pointed out the problems of his own racial group? Of course not. So why are whites racist who point out the same problems of blacks? They aren’t necessarily, but here’s where we get to a key distinction between what’s racist and what’s not -- and that’s intent to help or hurt. Bill Cosby is intending to help. Whites making identical comments sometimes mean it compassionately, but often don’t. They just intend to hurt. And that’s racist.
pt.3 kcom,
Now I’m kind of glad this World’s Smallest Political Quiz came to mind. It’s actually helping refine my initial claim of liberalism is diametrically opposed to racism that I only blurted out in disgust at Althouse’s thread heading and some of the comments supporting it. I’d thought about this hypothesis of mine a bit before this, but more just sensed it deeply, not having really intellectually examined it even remotely as much as I have these last couple days. But I’m glad this happened because not only has it been a fun mental exercise, but it’s strengthened my confidence in it and I appreciate your challenging me on it. Plus I think I’ve discovered it’s more accurately liberal/libertarianism is diametrically opposed to racism.
You're equating a dictionary definition of a word with the complexity of a political movement.
Not exactly. For instance there’s a whole economic side to conservatism/liberalism I haven’t even tried to make fit. My answering Maybe to those economic questions in the World’s Smallest Political Quiz above emphasized that. Nor have I tried to make foreign policy conservatism/liberalism fit with this. These are two of three political spheres and the only one I’ve been focusing on is the third one, the social/personal sphere. Here I am equating the dictionary definition of “liberal” meaning “broad/open-minded” to social liberalism and by contrast am applying “narrow/closed-minded” to social conservatism even though I realize the dictionary only goes so far as saying “cautious” and “disposed to existing views.” My argument is that this contrast exhibits itself in real life and while I couldn’t provide a dictionary definition, which I surely would have, believe me, I’ve been offering various links and appeals to logic to make the case. I apologize for not making this clearer. I’d like it if the dictionary did add that meaning, but I’m not about to go on a letter writing campaign or anything. Merriam-Webster doesn’t include the word “hathos” either even though I think it should because I think it’s a great word. It just hasn’t caught on enough yet.
http://www.wordspy.com/words/hathos.asp
Irresponsibility is not a function of being closed or open-minded, it's a function of something entirely different, or at least tangential. Sometimes, being close-minded can be the height of irresponsibility. There was an episode of "Scrubs"…
The Scrubs example was a good point. It convinced me I was wrong at least about “irresponsibility” and maybe “flightiness” too. So I recant those. Like I said, I hadn’t put much thought into it. I just envisioned the irresponsible, drug-taking, yeah-whatever-man, anything goes, hey-let’s-just-party, hippie slacker to be a fairly accurate depiction of social liberalism taken to its extreme and figured “irresponsible” was the worst adjective I could come up with.
There's too much racism in too many different groups at too many different levels expressed in too many different ways for me to believe that.
I think I just covered this above.
“a) Racism is closed/narrow-minded
b) Racism has nothing to do with being closed/narrow-minded.”
No, I don't agree with b). And I think a) is way too simplistic.
Well, if racism is not closed/narrow-minded, then I defy you to show how it is in any way open-minded. If you’re saying it has nothing to do with being open-minded or closed-minded, then you agree with b).
I'm not denying a). I'm saying it's stupidly simplistic. I doubt that makes me a Klansman but kudos for playing the nuclear card.
I didn’t say it makes you a Klansman. I said it’s a Klansmanlike belief. If I’d said it makes you a Klansman I would’ve called you one. But I didn’t.
Main Entry: -like
Function: adjective combining form
: resembling or characteristic of (bell-like) (ladylike)
pt.4 kcom,
"So here you and Revenant are hurling this ‘racist liberalism‘ at me like I have to answer for it when I don’t and you can’t establish that I do.”
This really made no sense. 1) We did no such thing and 2) you're guilty of the same thing you are decrying. I don't have to answer for anyone's political philosophy except my own
Then how was Revenant’s comment to me brilliant?
So yes, it is a bit of a mystery why they would vote against their interests
Yes, it’s a mystery to conservatives/Republicans because they falsely believe Jews are voting against their interests. In actuality they’re not. The Democratic party supports Israel. Adjust the false worldview to fit reality and the mystery disappears.
the Democratic Party is a big, corrupt political machine (as are the Republicans in the sense I'm talking about) and have been very good at buying votes from various constituencies. They've been especially successful with blacks. What they've delivered in return might be less than ideal, but I guess it's something.
Very vague here. You’re admitting Dems have delivered something to blacks, but you don’t say what it is. But that’s okay. It’s somewhat of an admission nonetheless.
You see, unlike your proud example above, I think it's a bad idea for too many members of one group to vote or a particular political party. It indicates a certain close-mindedness, to use your term. People should make their own decisions based on their own philosophies.
So blacks and Jews aren’t making their own decisions based on their own philosophies? Where do you come off?
I said this yesterday but will repeat it even more strongly today: Multiculturalism is a form of tribalism.
First of all, you’re interpreting multiculturalism only as something forced on people. It can be that, but it’s also something that’s not forced. It can be purely organic. A mindset. It’s acceptance of other people and their culture. If a WASP in Texas accepts Mexicans, blacks, and Koreans and their cultures without anyone forcing him to, he’s multicultural. He has the mindset. What you call real people getting along despite their real differences -- well, that’s organic multiculturalism. You’re misunderstanding and demonizing the word just because you associate it with liberals and their policies. But if there’s already organic multiculturalism happening, then the forced multiculturalism you’re stuck on isn’t even needed.
Now sometimes it is needed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were both laws forcing multiculturalism. “All men are created equal” on its own wasn’t enough. It allows “separate but equal” which can be totally racist.
But it gets more complicated. I don’t, for instance, consider tribalism necessarily bad or multiculturalism necessarily good. Take al-Qaeda for example. That group I feel tribalistic against and think notions of multiculturalism with them are out of the question. Or say if a school started forcing integrated seating at lunchtime, that’d be some bad multiculturalism. But I’m picking easy examples. No doubt you’re thinking of affirmative action which I didn’t want to bring up and maybe you didn’t either because we’ve already had our hands full, but suffice it to say I’m on the fence on it for the workplace and am opposed to it for college entrance.
pt.5 kcom,
I appreciate you making reasonable (if sometimes wildy wrong) arguments. Despite the length of this conversation, it's never dissolved into a shouting match, which is saying something nowadays. Not that I haven't poked at you a bit, and vice versa, but all in all, I'm happy at the tone. Many left-leaning people are nearly impossible to hold a serious conversation with.
I was thinking the same thing in reverse, heh.
"Okay, so you’re not pro-tribalism. Check. You’re glad to be away from there."
Point 2 does not follow directly from point 1. In some ways it's nice to be out of there and in other ways I miss it a lot.
Okay.
I'm really glad you responded. This thread is getting pretty old and will drop off the front page pretty soon. And truth to tell, I've spent too much time on it already, in the sense that I have things in my real life I definitely need to work on - including going to work. So I'm going to keep this short and not respond to all your points just so I don't spend another hour or two at this.
I took the quiz (I think I've taken it before) and the first time I came out solidly in the Libertarian zone. I redid it with slightly different answers that I could have gone either way on the first time and that second time I came out in the centrist zone but near the libertarian area. For what it's worth. :)
"5. “There should be no National ID card.”
Advocating freedom from Big Brother type stuff seems more open-minded to me. So I put Disagree."
All I can say is that every conservative I've ever read who had a strong opinion on this was vehemently opposed to a national ID card system. And if you really want to get an earful of it (anti-ID card) go listen to some of the truly right-wing stuff on shortwave radio and places like that. So I think your premise is wrong, just based on observation.
And beyond that I also think it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that you think freedom from Big Brother stuff is open-minded and you think liberalism is open-minded and yet liberals are generally the ones advocating collectivist policies that move everything closer to Big Brotherism rather than farther away from it. The first requirement of Big Brotherism is for the government to have control over every aspect of people's lives and that's what things like national healthcare promote - taking things that were private and making them part of the government's business. Especially when you start mandating it, fining people, and otherwise coercing their behavior in ways you never have before. Most conservatives I'm aware of who are anti-ID card see it as a way to facilitate exactly this sort of big government coercion.
"So blacks and Jews aren’t making their own decisions based on their own philosophies? Where do you come off?"
I knew you weren't going to like that. But here's partly what I mean. You may not have noticed, but those of us not deeply rooted in the liberal camp can't help but observe the viciousness with which any/many black people who stray from the liberal fold are treated by others in that fold, both black and white. It's truly repulsive - racial epithets ("Colin Powell is a house nigger"), condescension, other vile language, etc. It was no coincidence that the person beaten up at the town hall in St. Louis was a black man on the side of the anti-health care rallies. Whether intended or no, these behaviors send the message that if you are black you have to be a Democrat or a liberal and if you aren't we're going to make you pay a personal price for it. No such standard applies to white people. Your political affiliation isn't pre-assigned and enforced on you like it is if you're black. It all serves to herd black people into one party and one mindset, which is very useful to the Democrats. Ostracism is a powerful weapon. Of course, individuals with sufficient moral courage and backbone can opt out and change sides, but the price to pay in doing that is certainly a deterrent. I'm not necessarily disputing that many or even most blacks would vote Democrat under different circumstances but I am arguing that the barriers in place artificially skew those numbers. You have to be suspicious of any numbers in politics that are that one-sided. It suggests something unusual is going on. Just as a counter-example, a CNN story I looked at said about 25% of evangelical Christians (who are very often equated with the solid, conservative Right) voted for Obama in the last election.
Although I'd like to say more I'm going to pick just one more thing to talk about. The one thing that stood out to me most when I first read through your answers.
"Now sometimes it is needed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were both laws forcing multiculturalism. “All men are created equal” on its own wasn’t enough. It allows “separate but equal” which can be totally racist."
I fundatmentally disagree with this interpretation. They were laws that did just the opposite. They forced uniculturalism. They reiterated and reinforced the concept that in this country all men are created equal and are endowed with the same inalienable rights. Separate but equal is the very definition of multiculturalism.
I think you have to make a distinction between what a concept says and the human weakness inherent in politics and its implementation. "All men are created equal" doesn't allow separate but equal. Weak human actors twisted and turned it to get to separate but equal but it was always wrong. So those laws didn't correct the concept, or add to it, they simply corrected the human weakness in improperly implementing that concept.
I swore to myself I was going to keep this to one page. I added a few extra things and now I'm over. So I really have to sign off. But in closing, again I'd like to thank you for your time and I really appreciate the fact that you acknowledged that some of the things I said made you rethink things. That's the best anyone can hope for because none of us can change anyone else's mind. We can just help them see things from a different angle. I'll think about what you said and see if it leads me anywhere. As I think you've gathered, I'm not a hard-core, right-wing conservative but my trust of liberals and Democrats is very limited. Their faith in "we know best" big government I think is highly misplaced.
One more thing I wanted to say is that I'm not trying to have the last word by fiat. If you want to respond to any of this you can. I just can't afford much more time at this right now.
Actually, at the risk of starting a whole new discussion, I wanted to add that in my mind, even when I was growing up, foreign affairs had a much more important effect on forming my political identity than domestic affairs ever did. I don't know if that is even taken into account on the four grid quiz. It might also explain my general level of discomfort with Democrats and liberals, despite my agreement with them to some degree on social issues.
kcom,
Yes, we’re really out here in the sticks on this thread, aren’t we? Outside the city limits, traveling a deserted road, just two guys walking along still arguing. I think it’s time we headed back, too, because I’m finding these huge responses too time consuming as well. Having said that, let me just say I figured you might score as a libertarian, not least of which because it’s a libertarian website I noticed, heh. Oh well. So maybe those questions are a little skewed to make the test taker appear more libertarian. The other political self-tests online which are bigger (naturally, since that’s the world’s smallest) might very well show you to belong more to the conservative camp, foreign policy stances accounted for and whatnot.
All I can say is that every conservative I've ever read who had a strong opinion on this was vehemently opposed to a national ID card system. And if you really want to get an earful of it (anti-ID card) go listen to some of the truly right-wing stuff on shortwave radio and places like that. So I think your premise is wrong, just based on observation.
Well, this link shows Republicans voting overwhelmingly for a Nat’l ID card and Democrats voting overwhelmingly against, so you might want to rethink that.
http://news.cnet.com/National-ID-cards-on-the-way/2100-1028_3-5573414.html
The first requirement of Big Brotherism is for the government to have control over every aspect of people's lives and that's what things like national healthcare promote - taking things that were private and making them part of the government's business.
Okay, my two cents on health care. What conservatives see as gov’t trying to take over every aspect of people’s lives, liberals see as an unfortunately necessary intervening force to provide people access to what should be considered, like education, a basic right that the private insurance industry is ill-equipped to handle because of it being a) profit-driven and b) having to satisfy the conflicting interests of policy holders and share holders, the former being the ones who usually get screwed due to a). The special nature of health care also causes skyrocketing prices due to a captive market and these are things every other advanced nation on earth has figured out already and the US hasn’t, or at least part of it hasn’t, because of an overly simplistic application of a core good idea of America which is the free market which in almost every other economic sector it’s brilliant at, but not this.
A predictable conservative response to this is, “No, private insurance is not ill-equipped to handle health care because health care’s not a basic right anyway.”
Right, conservatives in general don’t believe health care is a right and because of this they believe poor people don’t deserve health care. This is just an ugly, undeniable fact. Not to mention it’s essentially pro-eugenics watered down because with their system whoever can’t meet the bar to obtain health care for themselves, oh well, c’est la vie. It just serves to weed out the herd. Liberal spin of conservatism, yes, but 100% true.
As to the notion of blacks feeling pressured to vote largely as a bloc due to fears of ostracism from fellow blacks and how this is useful to the Democratic party, well, I could say the same thing about anti-blacks (white racists) being useful to the GOP. Maybe not the ostracism part because whites so outnumber blacks that they’re less concerned about losing some of their own to the other party. But imagine if whites were the ones who were only 12-15% of the population and I think you’d see the ostracism factor, what there is of it, flipped, so it’s not a black thing. I also think it’s important to note that voting is a private matter, so I don’t see how blacks who truly want to vote GOP are prevented from doing so except maybe in primaries, but even then registering is also a private matter except maybe for the clerk seeing who’s in all likelihood a total stranger, so there’s nothing really stopping them. They can just say they’re going out for ice cream or something as they secretly go vote. I don’t think it’s so bad that members of the black community are posting guard to spy on who’s trying to vote Repub behind everyone’s backs. So all the blacks who want to vote GOP basically are, I think. As for black conservatives who want to come out of the closet but are too scared to, well I would think they lack the so-called conservative trait of individualism to be truly conservative anyway, so there really aren’t many of them around to worry about.
Furthermore, I don’t think the Democratic party even has to try to appeal to blacks like conservatives think they need to constantly do because I’m convinced conservatives screw up enough on their own and reveal their bigotry all the time in daily life without even realizing it to remind blacks why they don't vote GOP -- because it's filled with ignoramuses like that. Totally clueless. (Or worse, not clueless. In which case, complete assholes.) Conservatives/Republicans do further damage to themselves by accusing liberals and blacks of imagining it. And I just shake my head and marvel. Like the common conservative complaint over the double-standard of blacks getting to say the n-word but whites can’t or they’re racist. Things like that. Utter cluelessness. That’s a real culture mender there. But oh well. What can you do? It’s intractable because as long as racism is around, it’ll be found in its greatest concentration in conservatives. And I know that to be true even if you’re no closer to being convinced of it even after all this. Not that I expected you to be.
Well, if you want to put in a last word or throw it back and forth a couple times more, I’m fine either way. And if I don’t hear back from you, I’ve enjoyed our debate and I’ll see you around. I don’t think keeping the email alert of this thread alive is straining my system any.
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