The problem is that Britain / England does not have *racial* nationalists that are both intellectually disrespectable but personally respectable.
Malcom X would be a good example of that sort of person.
So Britain is left with an EDL that come across as hooligans [I'm guessing this is a function of the sorts of people that are willing to embrace a set of ideas that are viewed as Satanic in the eyes of the masses] and UKIP, which is able to use Civic nationalism as a way to finely tread the line between being merely "politically incorrect" and being downright evil.
At 7/22/13 08:15 PM, Revo357912 wrote: I wonder if they will also ban some of their historical texts then and Romeo and Juliet since in those times people would marry at around 15 and Romeo and Juliet depicts sexual actions of youngsters and could therefore be considered pedophilic.
On other news, purchases of porn mags has gone up in Britain.
I'm not defending Cameron or what he did, i despise him, but just one point.
In the time of Shakespeare they were "unaware" of the phenomenon of adolescence [which was "Discovered" in the late 19th century], where, for some reason, it takes a fifteen year old close to another decade before he is able to handle any adult responsibilities.
Depicting sexual activities of 15 year olds is a function of their view of when adulthood begins, rather than a sign that the Elizabethans were actually less sexually restrained than we are today. Back then a fifteen year old might have had a bit of sex, but it was likely almost always with her older husband, and was combined with a level of responsibility that the modern 15 year old Western girl cannot even begin to comprehend.
Today most westerners lack any responsibility until their mid 20s, and if they're sexual market value is high enough, sex is generally freely available to them for several years before then.
At 7/22/13 08:55 PM, Revo357912 wrote: What if a new nation arose where, instead of basing decisions on the masses or emotions, it was based on statistics and science?
Where the main goal would be the guaranteed freedom and privacy of people and the advancement of science?
Where it would be illegal to spread misinformation purposefully?
Where all Politicians had to have proper debates with points backed by facts, and have to have a college degree?
Where college is free?
How would it be?...
Hardly different from what exists now.
Humor aside let's break down what you've said.
1. One immediate contradiction is in making it "illegal to spread misinformation" on the one hand and guaranteeing basic freedom for each member of society. Unless your definition of basic freedom precludes freedom of speech. You cannot actually make it illegal to lie, what you *can* do it empower a group of individuals to legally persecute those that they claim are liars. Whether or not and to what extent said group effectively enforces honesty is entirely speculative.
You should spent more time thinking about what causes and effects can be brought about through institutions and why.
2. How exactly is a guarantee of free college education or freedom of privacy connected with a state which runs by scientific principles? I'm not saying that it cannot be but I'm not seeing the essential link between the two. Or are you linking "Science" with these other things you like precisely because you like them and therefore associate them with one another.
3. You will not find a single person who claims their vision of how the world is, or ought to be, is "Unscientific" [or, more accurately, anti-scientific]. Soviet planners thought their system was grounded in science, right until the point it collapsed. I imagine the Nazi state fashioned itself as being organized on the principles of science [science relating to human races]
What some people MAY say if they are intellectually honest is that their vision of the world is NON-scientific.
An issue is non-scientific when it cannot be decided by scientific means. For example, Science can tell you that smoking will damage the health of your body [Assuming it actually does]. Science cannot tell you whether you OUGHT to value the health of your body and therefore not smoke. The former is an OBJECTIVE issue with an objective answer. The latter is a judgement call.
Most political issues have people disagreeing on empirical matters. [What the effect of a law will be] -- but more often then not, it is a disagreement on priorities. To use a non-controversial example, it is generally agreed that tariffs benefit [domestic] exporters and harm consumers. No amount of "Science" can tell you whether one ought to benefit domestic consumers or domestic exporters.
4. Connected with point 3, "Facts" are everywhere and you can always selectively find facts to justify any theory. The use of facts is not what makes science different from non-science. "facts" is just an idiotic buzz word. The only thing you have are various measured and unmeasured observations of reality, "Empirical observations" -- by interacting with the world [through controlled and repeatable experiments] you are essentially trying to infer causality.
I can't abide people who worship science, they generally don't understand why science works and therefore don't understand what its limitations are.
5. Political / social science is not an actual science, and the bulk of college degrees are not governed by hard scientific processes. The shorthand explanation is that these sciences are generally incapable of formulating hypotheses which are all of the following; observable, testable, repeatable and falsifiable.
The below video explains it fairly well. The first 3 minutes are kind of obtuse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvfAtIJbatg&list=PLF1F1F4B4C0 C85189
At least the jury's verdict was never in question. Having a jury find someone of second degree murder or Manslaughter requires an even higher burden of proof than convicting someone
The Cops never attempted to charge him because they knew this already. They had most of the unfiltered evidence at their fingertips. The detectives who questioned him after the fact had lied to him about the altercation being captured on video camera.
Unfortunately, at this point, the most merciful thing to do would be to put Zimmerman out of his misery. He'll never be a free man, and in all likelihood more Hispanics and Whites will be met with violence unless the fourth estate does the second most responsible thing and bury this story for good. [The first most responsible thing would have been to admit they're either incompetent or liars]
Publically executing Zimmerman would safe him a lifetime of fear and would probably sate the bloodlust of the anti-racist crowd.
At 7/9/13 11:46 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Marriage is not.
That's what I thought but I wanted to verify.
A couple things here.
That function is limited mostly to the upper classes, i.e. a minority. Moreover, when you look at the various rules and obligations associated with marriage, you notice something. Namely, that these rules make sense from the perspective of encouraging [or, perhaps, compelling] men to function as economic providers for child-bearing women.
Second, who cares? Marriage has long now been about love and the joining of two non-blood relatives together as a family. Religion spent the better part of 2-3 millenia at the center, but has quickly and strongly been losing its place in the institution. Marriage now is only partially about children and very little about religion anymore.
Be careful about conflating the idea of traditional marriage as I am describing it and the idea of traditional marriage from some sort of Judeo-christian centric notion. Traditional marriage of the former kind predates the latter and, moreover, crosses cultures.
Or I misread that, and the actual argument your making is that because god is dead and marriage has lost it's religious significance, and little has been lost from this change, that there is little cause to worry.
I'm not certain one way or another whether a non-religious conception of marriage is a good or bad thing. I am fairly confident that society's foundations are compromised when marriage is perceived the way it is. You need *some* institution, which reinforces the fact that they need to be concerned about the welfare of the children that they brought into the world. You also need an institution to keep men and women productive whilst elevating their status for taking on the role of 'child provider' -- I see the only alternative as the child support model.
But all of this makes calls for homosexual marriage an effect rather than a cause.
I've stated repeatedly that modern marriage is probably *more* perceived as a matter of personal emotional satisfaction than it is a matter of duties and obligations meant to provide for children more intensively. If we are to simply take this new conception for granted, obviously not only homosexual marriage but polygamous marriage is of equal value to heterosexual marriage. More and more people take this for granted, and so more and more people are coming to the conclusion that follows from it.
That's a secondary point, yes. However, the main point was that if child rearing is no longer truly associated with marriage (seeing how many kiddos are born out of wedlock nowadays) why should that part of the insitution be the deciding factor in who gets to join? That would be like deciding military generalship based on one's family station.
It would be carrying a bad idea to it's logical conclusion, But I take issue with the bad idea generally.
But I actually wasn't talking about biological versus non-biological. I was talking about having two fathers or two mothers versus having one mother and one father. Again, it would be quite the coincidence ifAnd you're going back to a tactic I criticized before: dictating a person's personal ability solely based on the class they belong to. You're in essence saying that men by biological fact, are wholly incapable of raising children. This is completely and utterly false. This presupposes that much of how the sexes act is based on biology and not gender. I knwo numerous men who are more feminine and more matriarchal than 90% of my female friends. And I know some women who are more masculine and patriarchal than the men I know. Sure there are some things we take for granted (and should not) about how the sexes act. However, the more these traits are studied the more they are shown to be products of gender conditioning and not biology. (e.g. women are actually biologically more driven to cheat than men are, even though society insists the opposite is biologically true.)
Knowing *some men* or *some women*, unless you are prepared to supply statistics, seems tantamount to saying that the exceptions invalidate the rule. Additionally, all of this also presupposes that the child's perceptions of the parents will be the same as if in a normal biological relationship as much as the parent's perceptions of the child's will be.
I'm disinclined to believe that on the aggregate males, even homosexual males, can be functionally equivalent to mothers and likewise in the case of homosexual females.
______
I forgot to mention in that paragraph about birth control and those of lower income, that if a person could *only* raise children by indulging the understanding of society [i.e. child support] they are almost by definition a bad parent. [By virtue of the forethought that they put into the issue]
Additionally there is a serious problem when a great many children are born from the lower income brackets and a handful of children are raised very intensively by the members of the upper and upper middle class. Traditionally, encouraging the upper class to have more children was a good way of "re-distributing wealth", good behaviors, and good genes amongst the rest of the population.
It is even worse when increasingly one's economic position is being determined by innate cognitive ability, but that's a topic far removed from gay marriage.
At 7/8/13 01:34 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
I know, and I intentionally ignored those studies. The study that whats her face put up earlier this years is the only one to take a large sample size, but suffers from other more destructive problems (such as the sample dates in question predating legal intentional parenthood by homosexuals in all but one state).
I brought them up as a sort of pre-emptive strike :'(
And an even better argument would be that marriage is not a pre-requisite for child-rearing. This means that the argument as to whether homosexuals are good, bad, or equal parents (in all circumstances) to heterosexuals is entirely irrelevant to marriage, except in a backward direction. Instead of denying marriage because of the claim, true or not, that that the clss is bad at parenting, it should be allowed because IF they truly are bad at parenting, they could use all the help they can get, and that includes the benefits of marriage.
Marriage is not a pre-requisite or should not be? Traditionally it was seen to be, and for reasons which go beyond mere religious doctrine. Child rearing wasn't merely the a pre-requisite for marriage, it was the primary function of marriage. The modern idea that marriage is about "Love" is extremely modern.
I* think* I understand your logic though. We live in a world where people have different conceptions of what marriage is and if marriage is not a pre-req for child rearing, then there's no justification to exclude homosexuals from screwing around with marriage if heterosexuals are able to.
And if homosexual couples are already legally permitted to adopt children, it would make more sense for them to do so married.
I Oppose gay marriage in principle because I have a different view of what marriage is, but at this point I'm not interested in actually politically opposing Gay Marriage because such an opposition is contingent on a whole host of other things that are not likely to occur any time soon.
On top of that, why deny all of the other benefits through which child rearing itself is completely irrelevant?
Well "Separate but equal" was tried but apparently doesn't satisfy many people. I originally took to the position that if civil unions come with the same benefits as marriage, homosexuals had no reason short of unsatisfied egos to complain. I'm not sure if Civil unions in the various states actually were functionally the same. [I suspect they weren't]
But once again this just shows how all of this is contingent.
Limiting the number of children based on an objective calculation as to whether the family can financially support them is very different than limiting it based on a subjective determination that a class of people is categorically bad at parenting.
How exactly is a bioligical mother inherently a better parent than any other parent? Is there some extra-sensory connection? Is there some sort of chemical or mental block that forces us to treat all children worse than those who are our biological offspring, regardless of what position they fill in our family?
Is not parenting about responsibility, love, and empathy, rather than mere blood connection?
Well I do generally think, ceteris paribus, a biological mother will perform better than a non-biological mother [or father]. By virtue of the fact that knowing that a child is your offspring will likely produce greater feelings of responsibility, love, and empathy. [Similar to the idea of the Cinderella effect in evolutionary psychology]
http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/buller/cinderella%20effect%20facts.p df -- As i said, similar, but not quite the same thing.
Mind you, however, that if a significant proportion of child births are accidental , then parents raising children they didn't plan to raise might be less empathetic than non-biological parents who are actually *choosing* to adopt a child, since selection bias is offsetting the effect of biology.
But I actually wasn't talking about biological versus non-biological. I was talking about having two fathers or two mothers versus having one mother and one father. Again, it would be quite the coincidence if
At 7/7/13 11:41 AM, Camarohusky wrote:At 7/7/13 01:10 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: They're not equal in their capacity to raise children.First off, this has never once been proven. Second, raising children is only one part of many when it comes to reasons for marriage.
You don't have to prove that they aren't equal in their capacity [if we're talking about parenting rather then actual reproduction], you have to prove that they are. Seeing as the idea of them being the same is far more counter intuitive than the reverse.
Most of the studies I've seen, especially the ones that have been trumped up recently, claim that children raised are basically the same. My beef with these studies is the small sample sizes and also the selection bias. [Researchers picking 100 or so white, upper class Lesbian couples and interviewing their children, and then drawing conclusions]
Of course if we can be confident that these sorts of people are the only ones who will ever think of adopting children, then that is a pretty decent argument for allowing homosexual marriages on the condition of adoption.
An even *better* argument would be that although a child raised by a homosexual couple is worse off than a heterosexual couple, he or she is better than if not adopted at all.
Your subjective views don't absolve a system that currently labels all homosexuals as bad parents and thus cannot marry whilst allowing drug addicts and predatory child molesters to marry.
If your argument is that "crappy heterosexual parents are permitted to marry and therefore for the sake of consistency homosexual marriage should be tolerated." I would call that a *good* argument.
I fault the system for being less restrictive, not more, and so do not wish it to become less restrictive. So my *theoretical* objection to allowing gays to marry is consistent. However you're right that it's not accurate in light of contemporary views on what marriage is.
On top of that, your views narrowly presupposes that a homosexual is inherently unable to parent properly without taking any actual knowledge of the parenting skills of any of those homosexuals who wish to marry.
You might as well say poor people can't raise children well because they have a higher rate of CPS involvement, even though there are millions of such couple raising very healthy and well adjusted childen.
Except that I do support measures to at least regulate the number of children the destitute can have. Or rather, limiting the number of children someone can have if they are relying on public assistance. You have a serious problem in the United States where birth rates are diverging along class lines, but that's another issue.
If they're poor but are able to raise their children on their own then that's another story.
Also note there is a difference between saying an individual homosexual is a bad parent and A homosexual couple is not adequate for the raising of a child. An adopted child raised by two exceptional fathers is a child with two fathers and no biological mother. That is the problem. It has nothing to do with homosexuals being irresponsible or incompetent.
At 7/5/13 05:28 AM, Sense-Offender wrote: I guess I'm not quite following in what way(s) you think homosexuals and hererosexuals are inequal.
And do you actually think atheists are incapable of morality?
They're not equal in their capacity to raise children.
Mind you that I also think a large number of heterosexuals should not be permitted to marry either.
You're misreading. "Atheists do not believe in god, therefore they cannot act morally" -- The idea is that if you do no not believe in X, you must also believe [or not believe] Y, and because you do or do not believe in Y you must be demonized.
I do not believe in equality. I don't observe it and I do not observe people adhering to it. That doesn't mean I believe [or don't believe] in anything else. The only thing that follows from the observation that people are different [and therefore, by definition, unequal] is that they will behave differently. Furthermore, it may therefore be not only necessary but also productive to treat them differently.
You just automatically assume treating people different necessarily entails extolling some and treating others like garbage.
Atheists are capable of acting morally [As it is commonly defined]. "Incapable of morality" sounds strange. One either acts morally / immorally, or believes that X is moral. Whether or not they can consistently deny the existence of god but believe in morality as an actual thing [and do so logically] is suspect.
There are plenty of non-believers who can nevertheless make platitudes about right and wrong. I am a non-believer and I think they're deluding themselves, but it does prove atheists are capable of both acting and believing in morality.
At 7/4/13 09:58 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
You, again, are missing the point. I am not advocating that all groups be treated the same. I am advocating that all groups be treated the same uless there is a significant and rational reason to do otherwise. Meaning that all groups are treated equally until proven that there is some real and actual need to treat them differently, and that this need is based in actual reasons, not just hypothesis and dislike.
The response to this was already provided. In my mind this is equivalent to saying "Treat Likes Alike" -- But this is a trivial criteria. Even people in the 17th century and prior would not object to it. I'm just going to steal someone else's words on this issue since they're better written and I'm kinda tired. [not of this topic, I need to go to sleep]
Here, as Aristotle long ago observed and as Michigan law professor Peter Westen explained some years ago in a much-discussed article in the Harvard Law Review, equality has a more normative sense. It means that like cases (or, as lawyers say, âEUoesimilarly situatedâEU instances, or similarly situated classes of people) should be treated alike.
But in that normative sense, equality is wholly uncontroversial-and entirely useless. Everyone favors equality: Everyone thinks that like cases should be treated alike. Nobody argues, âEUoeThese groups are alike in all relevant respects, but they should be treated differently.âEU So when people disagree about legal or political issues, they arenâEUTMt arguing for and against equality. Instead, they are disagreeing about whether two cases, or two classes of people, actually are alike for the purposes of whatever is being discussed.
With respect to that sort of disagreement, though, no answers can be squeezed out of the idea of equality, as WestenâEUTMs article explained. Instead, we have to refer to our political philosophies or our moral views or something of that sort. Something more substantive than the unassailable but substantively empty proposition that âEUoelike cases should be treated alike.âEU
You seem to be mistaking the concept of equal opportunity with the highly flawed concept of complete equality.
As of yet, there has been no reason to keep gays from marriage that stands up to any logical and/or common sense argument.
This is mainly because to day people view marriage as a vehicle to legitimize sex, including Christians, as opposed to a vehicle designed to keep one male and one female morally and legally attached to the wellbeing of their offspring. One could make a perfectly reasonable argument that Marriage means whatever people want it to mean and so if this is the case I would agree that there's no qualitative difference between heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage. They are of equal [zero] societal value.
If one still holds to the antiquated notion that a child requires a male father figure and a female mother figure as necessary [but insufficient] conditions for being raised in a functional environment, insofar as marriage exists to facilitate this process and is NOT a mere vehicle for legitimizing sex, then 'homosexual marriage' isn't "Wrong", it simply makes no sense.
Not necessarily. Many cases of this equal treatment cannot even make a prima facie case for such discrimination (dictionary sense, not the colloquial sense).
I'm not sure what this sentence means, sorry.
Groups, unlike people, cannot earn the loss of a right either. As, unless the entire group (100%, no less) commits or omits that necessary act required to lose/keep the right, removal of the right will result in an unjust and improper deprivation.
A "trend" should be sufficient to warrant some response. So for example, Michael Bloombergs frisking policies target African Americans disproportionately. The reason? African Americans commit disproportionately high crimes. I.E. Not all african americans are committing crimes but discrimination' in the form of profiling appears "fair" or at least logical.
I have no idea what denying "Rights" entails, since everyone has their own definition of what rights are and who should get them and why. You can call something a right and then demand that because it's a right we're obligated to provide it to everyone 'equally' [in reality this is never possible since rights are always in conflict with one another] the justification being that it is a right.
At 7/3/13 11:24 AM, Sense-Offender wrote: Why would you waste your time typing that? I'm not entertaining the ideas of someone who thinks gays are to straight people as children are to adults. A guy isn't lesser for liking dick and neither is a woman for liking vag.
So you won't admit into your brain arguments and ideas that challenge your cherished values and fundamental assumptions.
I think there's a word for that.
Regardless...
Two things are "Equal" when they are the same. "Greater" and "Lesser" are just notions that you subconsciously associate with notions of non-equality. Saying that four does not equal five does not require that mathematicians sit down and decide whether 4 is a 'BETTER' number than 5, in some abstract sense.
I could, mind you, regard Heterosexuals and homosexuals with EQUAL contempt, and advocate that both groups should be enslaved, or have their faces stomped upon.
I shouldn't even have to bring this up, but I *am* a Homosexual. I don't buy into biblical justifications for needing to stomp homosexuality out of existence. But I still recognize that these groups are not the same and cannot truly ever be treated as "the same"
It's very similar in some regards to saying that Atheists can't behave morally because they don't believe in god.
At 7/3/13 11:36 AM, Camarohusky wrote:
So?
One step at a time.
2. No one truly believes in equal treatment at a personal level.You're greatly missing the point,
You're missing the point of me breaking this down. Since equality, like "Education" and "Racism" has androgynous meanings [which is partly what gives them their potency] I need to nail down each possible definition, from the most strict to the most "relaxed".
If you don't treat gay Jim as well as you treat straight Jim,
Treatment of people based upon the groups they belong to and the significance being in those groups has is an essential tool in social functioning.
So it isn't purely a question of treating "Individuals" differently. It's true that when you know people personally the social tools you can use are going to be more nuanced and precise. However, every person raised in a social setting has a similar set of protocols for dealing with different sets of people who are not part of that narrow circle. I provided examples of this in the previous post.
And there are serious societal problems associated with *not* being discriminate in judgement towards groups when you are not in a position to know each member of that group personally.
Note that saying that group discrimination is a necessary thing is not the same thing as saying that all forms of discrimination are necessary or good. If you *feel* in your heart of hearts that Jim Crow was an inappropriate way to treat a group of people [to say the least], you haven't thereupon proven that all forms of discrimination are evil. Of course, subconsciously that's what the majority of people think, and that is why egalitarianism has had such an insidious choke-hold on western minds.
Of course you can get even more generous and say "You should treat all likes alike" -- But this standard is so relaxed that it is entirely compatible with pre-enlightenment and pre-egalitarian notions. The difference of opinion consists in determining what differences are "significant" -- i.e. worthy of consideration, and which ones aren't. For example, you could say that male and female anatomy [among other things] is a significant enough reason to warrant public bathroom facilities discriminating between men and women by providers of public bathrooms.
Once you've gotten to the point of saying "Treating all likes alike" you've admitted that the issue needs to be handled on a case by case basis instead of being given solved with proclamations of "Universal Equality" --> i.e. Equality is a red herring.
Partly for this above reason, Egalitarians have resorted to trying to downplay the significance or even outright deny the existence of differences between groups that COULD CONCEIVABLY warrant differential treatment in ways that they dislike.
You're getting off topic.
I'm not trying to condemn feminists per-say. I'm saying different things are expected of/from members of different groups and in day to day interactions they are taken entirely for granted. Men treat women differently then they treat eachother and visa versa, and this is treated as normal and natural, *even very often by self styled egalitarians*.
3. Equal Treatment Under the Law
Now you're getting into the territory of decisions made based upon relevant and germane distinctions.
It's your judgement whether a distinction is relevant or not. But I've already said above that whether a distinction is "germane" is always and everywhere the real issue. And that issue is only muddled rather than aided by talk of abstract notions of "Equality" and "Rights"
:There are numerous facets of adult life that children are unable to perform to an adequate level.
I'd rather not get bogged down on this particular point but most children forget all but a far better "default" hypothesis is that Modern Children are being kept from adult responsibilities at increasingly elevated ages. [Progressive credentialism or credential creep is a more recent example of this] The vast majority of academic knowledge acquired in primary and post-secondary school that has been tacked on to the traditional education system which emphasized reading, writing, and arithmetic, is forgotten very shortly after graduating school. Furthermore, it is unclear whether this academic knowledge, especially given that it tends to be forgotten so quickly, is actually something necessary to handle the new "complex economy".
Now if you ask me I think expectations for children are being lowered in large part because our society has prolonged child adolescence into the mid 20s, whereas in earlier times someone could be doing everything that was expected of an adult as early as 14 or 15.Then again, back in earlier times 20 years of education wasn't needed to become a rookie in the high end careers,
Nor is it likely needed today.
With some exceptions [Medicine, and engineering, etc.] Most degrees to not teach job skills. An English major is still more employable than a high-school graduate because English degree tells employers that this person is likely more intelligent and conscientious than the HS Grad. The problem is that this effect only works when these graduates are scarce. It's akin to everyone trying to stand up at a rock concert in order to get a better view. It's less that the jobs are getting more complicated and more that the job applicants are getting more competitive.
I'll think of making a thread on this precise topic at some later point.
Again, this is based in relevant criteria to the end decision.
Yes it is.
Having been involved in family court issues I can attest that this is categorically wrong. When both parents were around, the father got the child just as much as the mother did.
Are you inferring a general trend from a single personal experience? Or do you have data on Alimony, Child support payments, and child custody that falsifies what I have said. I am fairly confident that women are categorically favored in divorce courts, but I am open to that view being challenged.
4. The root of egalitarian thinkingWhy do people like equality? Here are my two reasons: my freinds and acquaitnaces, and the golden rule.
I have friends in numerous demographics of various levels of societal respect. I don't like seeing my friends hurt for no reason (as if I like seeing them hurt for a reason, but the lack of reason makes it sting harder). Why should I sit back and let them be shit on and just revel in the fact I was born a white male and am straight? No, I stick up for my friends.
First of all, by valuing them over strangers you are discriminating in their favor.
Since what I said in the post you responded to kind of flew over your head. [Mostly my fault] I'll explain it in what i think are four simple "truisms".
1. People and Groups are different
2. Whether or not the way you or society at large acts towards different individuals or groups in different ways, and normalizes this treatment, is justifiable is context-specific. Judgement will therefore be required in each case.
3. Equal means "the same" -- Equal treatment does not imply/necessitate that the treatment is 1. Fair 2. Humane 3. Sensible. [It could be but does not need to be].
4. Therefore, this judgement [of whether the differences are 'important'] can [and should] be made without reference to abstract notions of universal rights or universal equality.
At 7/2/13 05:32 PM, Sense-Offender wrote:At 7/1/13 02:42 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Heterosexuals and Homosexuals are not equal any more than children are equal to adults or men are equal to women.I stopped reading here.
Now I know not to take Smilez seriously on anything anymore.
Few people nowadays are capable of "handling" such a blunt claim even as they live their lives more or less operating on the assumption that people are different and therefore should be treated differently.
So let me put it to you this way. In what meaningful sense are people equal?
1. Almost no one believes that people are descriptively equal. Nearly every week scientists are discovering the physiological basis behind well known steriotypical differences between groups of people, some differences being easier to talk about than others.
2. No one truly believes in equal treatment at a personal level.
Trying to treat everyone equally would entail you treating strangers the same way you treat friends, family, or spouses. It would also entail treating children the same as adults. There are reasons why it is considered normal to behave differently towards and in the presence of different groups, you could probably list them. Each reason you give is a repudiation of the notion that people are equal *in your eyes*.
"Treating women the same as men" sounds lovely in theory but this is principally because the people who mouth such a platitude are only thinking about more superficial differences like income and careers. Try taking off the rose colored glasses and imagine if, for example, men acted towards and around women the exact same way they act around men. Try to imagine the execration that would follow if someone tried to create a female Peter Gryphon. Most Feminists today would not openly advocate such a thing and I suspect any man who tried to treat a woman "Just like a man" would be accused of sexism
3. Equal Treatment Under the Law
This is the weakest form of equality and the closest to being reasonable, since *in theory* the best way to maximize public cooperation with the law is to whenever possible make sure that all citizens are bound by the same rules. But yet again people make exceptions without giving it a second thought, and the reasons for these exceptions would strike most modern people as quite reasonable.
The most obvious of these exceptions are differences in legal treatment between minors and adults. [This, by the way, is precisely why I said that children are not equal to adults, the law does not recognize children as being capable of making
Now if you ask me I think expectations for children are being lowered in large part because our society has prolonged child adolescence into the mid 20s, whereas in earlier times someone could be doing everything that was expected of an adult as early as 14 or 15.
Elderly people whom physicians regard as "incompetent" for medical reasons are then required to have some trusted other co-sign their legal documents.
We don't treat men and women equally in divorce courts. [We assume, rightly or wrongly, that either 1. The woman is a more essential caretaker to the child or 2. The woman is a superior caretaker to the child] or in the Military Draft.
4. The root of egalitarian thinking
There are two main reasons I think people treat equality as such a great thing despite continually repudiating it through their actions.
A. The Major reason is subconscious. Non-equality is associated with things people in this day and age are naturally predisposed to dislike. The three most prevalent of these are The Holocaust, Slavery, and Jim Crow, followed closely behind in fourth by apartheid, and perhaps also the Japanese internment camps. To not support equality is to support these things.
Of course much of what makes these particular things especially bad in our mind is not a result of comparing the actual magnitude of it to other historical tragedies, but rather because they occupy a mythological place in our history.
But I still see equality as a red herring here. None of these things would be any less evil if they were done without prejudice. Unless we are to believe that trying to kill and/or enslave all peoples equally is somehow less of an issue than targeting one group or another.
Or to put it more simply. "Equal Treatment" is automatically associated with "Fair" or "Good Treatment" [Neither of which need to be meted out equally] just as "Unequal treatment" is automatically associated with "Unfair" or "Bad" treatment. Since you can treat people equally poorly, or treat people "unequally" well. [i.e. some people better than others].
B. The Minor reason is a conscious one, since this particular way of thinking of the world was never classified as an actual position by it's proponents, the names it has been given have all come from it's critics. It goes by "The Blank Slate", or "The Standard Social Science Model". It is the view that all observed behavioral differences between people [Except homosexuality] are a result in differences in environmental conditioning. Following from this is the idea that with the proper environment, anyone can become like anyone else. It sounds quite idiotic when you formulate it aloud but it's an idea that has informed a half a century of political thought, as well as much of mainstream theories on education.
You see I'm not just some troll. I went to all the same schools as you did and got the same lessons taught about the greatness of equality. I've thought about this much more than you have.
At 6/30/13 12:14 PM, Camarohusky wrote:At 6/30/13 11:51 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: That wouldn't work for long. It's not about equal protection under the law, but the satisfaction these activists get out of knowing society was forced by them to bow down and acknowledge that Homosexuals are equal in all significant measure to heterosexuals.
Stop being so damn bitter.
It's NOT about concessions. It's not about bending society over. It's about equality. Making to two separate institutions that are equal reeks of something very familiar and VERY unequal.
Yes, Equality, I emboldened that part in my paragraph that you quoted.
Heterosexuals and Homosexuals are not equal any more than children are equal to adults or men are equal to women. This non-equality is something that people understand implicitly and act upon operationally without any tears or qualms. This doesn't mean you are obligated to treat them *unequally* in all contexts everywhere, but it does mean you will end up treating them unequally in contexts where said differential treatment is sensible.
The relevant difference between [A difference and a 'non-equality' are synonymous] hetero and homosexuals is not in their capacity to provide love or companionship, but in their ability to provide a functional environment for the upbringing of children.
The best argument against this would be that since marriage has been debased to such a degree that it is genuinely little more than a vehicle for *any* kind of companionship that provides emotional satisfaction to the parties involved, heterosexual marriage is no longer a redundant word and therefore all forms of monogamous relationships are of equal value.
I already established that a tiny minority of Homosexuals have an interest in monogamous relationships, so for those whom have no intention of marrying it is obviously about the IDEA of being able to marry.
I view the whole thing as akin to women demanding inclusion in men's professional football leagues. It would be founded on a false premise of women being equal to men [the relevant inequality being that of the ability to perform in professional football] In addition, 1. Almost no women would actually be interested in becoming a professional football athlete 2. No one deep down would actually believe women could match men in this particular context, but they would pretend that they could for no other reason than not to look like a bigot of some kind.
If there were some functional reason for the difference (which thee is none) it would be very different, such as sex based restrooms. However, this is more like labelling all with blonde hair "people" and those with darker hair "others." This carries a strong indication that those with dark hair are not deserving of being called people and therefore are lesser people.
Greater and Lesser are value judgements. Equal and Unequal are empirical matters, as two things are equal when they are the same. The decision to make something out of a difference between two people or two groups does not have to be motivated by bigotry or malice.
The irony of bringing up restrooms would be that aside from the fact that women cannot use urinals very effectively, there doesn't appear to be a genuinely practical reason from the perspective of a sexual egalitarian why men and women need different restrooms. Certainly there would be significant discomfort on the part of both sexes to have to relieve themselves in each others presence but from the eyes of an egalitarian this would be as much of a cultural norm as notions of marriage being restricted to heterosexuals. Both of which could [and should] be overcome through social conditioning.
At 6/29/13 11:16 PM, Gramiscus wrote:At 6/29/13 11:09 PM, tyler2513 wrote: It's just that marriage was originally created to be just between a man and a women. Some sort of alternative way should be done.They call them civil unions instead of marriages sometimes I think
That wouldn't work for long. It's not about equal protection under the law, but the satisfaction these activists get out of knowing society was forced by them to bow down and acknowledge that Homosexuals are equal in all significant measure to heterosexuals.
For non-homosexuals the impulse is simply non-bigotry. Heterosexuals who wish to be fashionable will continue to make concessions so long as they feel it the only way not to come across as a gay-hater or unrespectable bigot.
At 6/27/13 09:58 PM, PMMurphy wrote: Well you see, there are lots of federal things you can't get claimed to unless you have a spouse. So all gays simply can't get them.
There are gays who die in hospitals where heterosexuals would live because they can't get funding.
That legal documentation slip of paper, really is a big deal.
If it is such a big deal why do so few of them get married when it is legal?
The desire for equal recognition and status can explain what a desire for equal legal protection cannot. True monogamy entails as much burdens as it does benefits, which is why growing numbers of straight men are avoiding marriage like the plague.
At 6/27/13 09:39 PM, PMMurphy wrote:At 6/27/13 09:20 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Has never heard this side of the arguement before, is kinda stunned and shocked honestly.You really feel this way? Gay marriage probably isn't so popular and the reason why its not very successful might be because of society itself and the fact they look down on it and don't accept it. I doubt it has anything to do with the fact people are homosexual.
I'm not sure where you get this idea from. I even said in the post that the percentage of the population that is homosexual is a few percentage points.
Gay Marriage's popularity among the majority of its supporters is due to their indignation at any form of "inequality" -- That is to say, any form of observed differences between peoples and groups that they consider morally reprehensible. That is to say, they wish to make the world flat.
The only real negative to raising a child as a homosexual couple is the fact you need a mother and father figure at early birth for a child to develop properly.
Yes, but I see this as moot because the only thing smaller than the proportion of homosexuals who actually plan to get married long term are the proportion of homosexuals who plan to get married long term AND raise a child.
The fact we can give gays marriage means we give more people and equal opportunity to be successful in this world. Its hard enough doing it alone, why not let people try to do it together.
How exactly does marriage constitute a form of opportunity? We're not talking about the right of people to pool their resources, cohabitate, or create civil contracts.
It's not about economics but about social recognition, about being seen as "Equal to everyone else" as proxied by a social institution which predates Christ and might very well predate civilization.
Just because a government is run by a psychotic dictator doesn't mean the people fighting him are nice people with good intentions. Did anyone stop to consider that an entire country might be populated entirely by [relative to our own standards of acceptable behavior] barbarians who will kill, enslave, and oppress one another regardless of who the USFG decides gets the weapons and training?
Why can't we just let the third world be poor and miserable on its own terms.
How would you react if Chinese government officials were having serious public discourse over whether they should fund, train, and arm the Tea Party. That would be quite the psychodrama.
Hopefully this will allow more people to realize that Marriage as it is understood today bears as much semblance to the meaning of a marriage in previous generations as the use of the term racist today bears semblance to acts of racial hatred in the past.
The purpose of marriage was for the upper classes a strategic move, and for everyone else a way of keeping adults committed to the upbringing of children.
It's not all that surprising that [even without the flat-earthers who actively sought to bring about this change] traditional marriage as defined above [Not as defined by the Christian right] would fall to a new marriage where its sole purpose was to fulfill the short-term emotional and sexual needs of not-so-young-adults. Modern contraception, paternity tests, female economic dominance, and child support laws render fatherhood obsolete. And if a child can be raised [however poorly] by only one parent, then marriage itself is that sense "obsolete".
Of course conservatives, always acting against their own interests, fell for the notion that marriage is about love.
Moreover, this cheering over being allowed to marry has made me more ashamed of being Homosexual than anything else. The sheer pettiness of these people is astounding. They're a few percentage points of the population, and of the entire homosexual population only a few percentage points actually do get married. Since roughly a third of heterosexual marriages end in failure, I can't imagine how low the percentage of homosexuals that are in omitted marriages is.
They care more about the *idea* of being married than anything else. It's about their ego, their need to feel equal to everyone else.
It would have been far better if Marriage had been made a criminal offense decades ago.
At 6/6/13 09:49 PM, Psycho666 wrote: Question that nobody is asking:
"Have conservative groups done anything differently that would cause them to be targeted more often than others?"
Parallel analogies of the logic:
"Do people in fast sports cars do anything differently to receive more speeding tickets than people with stock economy cars?"
I imagine the cause and effect link between the nature of conservatism and the response by self-interested bureaucracies is pretty transparent. But your analogies are missing the essential component of whether such cause and effect is something that is unacceptable and ought to be changed, or something 'essential' and therefore immutable.
From my perspective it's both. But some people might only see it as being one or the other.
One could just as readily ask whether being Jewish would cause you to be more likely to be thrown into a Nazi Concentration camp.
Mind you, if it is accepted on principle that government agents have the power to effectively [and by effectively I mean, 'being effective'] influence political decisions in their favor, then it must also be accepted that the government is self-directing and self-regulating. That is to say, literally "Auto-Cratic" I have no love for democracy, but that doesn't change the fact that a government cannot be both auto-cratic and demo-cratic at the same time.
People who have a civics class view of government where federal agents would *never* act in their own rational self-interest can't admit the existence of this kind of 'scandal'.
If one imagines the Federal Government providing you with security, then at least admit to yourself that it is doing so either upon its own whim or is *somehow* incidental with protecting the private interests of whichever individuals are personally engaged in making important "national security" decisions.
You can't build a political system on the premise that people will behave against their own interests.
Much of one's privacy is naturally circumscribed by the technology you voluntarily use, in the sense that your transactions and records are recorded. But there are two qualifiers that make this issue 'interesting'
1. What interests [potential or otherwise] is there on the part of people who 'could' access these records to access them.
2. Whether these people can legally access these records
"Legally" is only of relevance to those who operate within the structure of the law. Those who have no cause to fear the enforcement arms of the highest law of the land, that is, the federal government, are for all intents and purposes, outside of the law.
What I'm pondering is if the IRS had thought of using it's audit powers in a politically motivated fashion, it seems inevitable that an intelligent bureaucrat loyal to an incumbent politician would attempt to use the NSA's own programs to spy on their political rivals. It would amount to a nearly untraceable Watergate.
At 5/4/13 01:21 PM, Dawnslayer wrote:At 5/4/13 10:49 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I view one person's right to vote as valid as my right to make your life a living hell.Just for the sake of argument, let's say I agreed with you (which I don't). It still doesn't answer the fundamental question: how does the landlord know if the tenant voted for Obama or not?
This is a valid point in the context of the specific measure. Sort of like any indiscriminate act of violence in response to a threat [real or perceived] is just that, indiscriminate. You're bound to make trouble for people who had nothing to do with the political struggle.
I'm not excusing the specific case, I'm just saying that I don't see anything wrong in principle with retaliating against the aggressive act of voting.
At 5/4/13 01:05 PM, Ceratisa wrote:At 5/4/13 11:11 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:Secondly, previous instances of immigration though where received with hostility. Eastern / Southern European immigrants were not seen as the same "Whites" as North western Europeans. In fact the whole "White" brush would have been seen as too broad for nativists of the turn of the century.You are talking turn of the 20-21st century right? When you mention turn of the century?
The shift from north western Europeans to eastern and southern europeans began in the late 19th century early 20th.
For one thing, no one really calls for Asians, Africans, or Arabs to be made minorities in their own country.
Secondly, previous instances of immigration though where received with hostility. Eastern / Southern European immigrants were not seen as the same "Whites" as North western Europeans. In fact the whole "White" brush would have been seen as too broad for nativists of the turn of the century.
Nevertheless these European immigrants seemed to want to be Americans and more or less assimilated and at some point all European Americans became looked upon as generically "White"
First, start by accepting the fact that Xenophobia, as it is called, is "natural" in the same way that promiscuity is in some way natural. It can and should be tempered to a degree to ensure that the behavior is not self destructive. Nevertheless, Trying to achieve a society of pure tolerance is as pointless and destructive as trying to achieve a society of pure chastity.
The issue of race politics is relevant to immigration but not as the universalists would have one believe. People are more trusting of those who look and act more like them, they are also more inclined to civic mindedness and charitable behavior when they live in a society surrounded by people who look and act like them. [See Robert Putnam] Perceptions of having one's own society taken upon by people who appear different [race and/or ethnicity in the current case] and act different [culture] fosters feelings of resentment. --> This can explain past immigration anxieties and present immigration anxieties.
The desire to live among people who look and act like you is not the same as active antipathy towards other groups, nor is it a subconscious desire to subjugate or enslave people with darker skin than you. [Which as far as I can see is what saying "brown" serves to imply] -- Eastern and southern Europeans were distrusted for the same reason as Hispanic immigrants are distrusted today.
Liberals don't feel as much resentment in partially due to their own sense of post-racial piety but far more importantly because they themselves seldom live in the multicultural societies which they attempt to create. Multicultural college campuses being perhaps the one exception.
Normally I'm loath to the idea of saying "This time It's different" -- But this time around I actually do think it's different.
I'm guessing that on the average this new group of immigrants is less willing to assimilate and less "proud" of being American citizens than previous generations. This might be due to 21st century USA's lack of inspiration, or the fact that the cultural differences have some physiological basis that previous cultural differences between north-western and eastern / southern Europeans did not.
I don't propose deportation or strict immigration controls, however. What I propose instead is that the south-western United States be made into a Hispanic National State, and that further immigration into the remainder of the now partitioned US be made emphasizing high-skill and high intelligence.
I also propose that red states and blue states be separated so that Democratic politicians don't use immigration and racial hatred as a bludgeon against white voters.
Voting can [can meaning is capable of but not necessitating] constitute an act of aggression as much as choosing to increase someone's rent is. The difference being that the Landlord's technical right to set rent rates as he or she so chooses is pre-established, whereas the powers of government are forever in contest/dispute [and for good reason]
If democracy works as it is described in the civics class, and if one politician creates a law or a policy which is militaristicaly, economically, or socially aggressive towards a particular group of people, then I don't see passive or active forms of retaliation as particularly detestable, especially if its of a non-violent nature.
I view one person's right to vote as valid as my right to make your life a living hell.
At 4/11/13 11:03 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
In the end it's a decision based on either which party has the highest number of things I agree with, or which party has the least number of things I completely detest.
When you try to explain the same concepts that I do you can explain them in a fraction of the text.
Bravo sir.
I doubt most people around here are bound to a particular party. They might have a favorite of the two but that's not the same sort of thing as being some die-hard partisan [what a sports team fan is to politics]
So lecturing the people here with pretty sounding words is not going to help you any. And I mean that in a critically constructive way.
Part 3:
So all of the above relates to scenarios like pollution that require law. Now IâEUTMm going to beg the following question: For the provision of any *given* good or service, would we prefer the provision to be done in the style of a monopoly with elections to decide management [The democratic-state model] or in the style of contract, subscription, and disassociation [The market model]
IâEUTMve already provided a few reasons for why IâEUTMm inclined to side with the market model.
1. Number of competitors is almost always greater than or equal to the number of [feasible] competitors in the market model
2. The level of informed decision making in the democratic state model for any given person has [almost] no relationship with the outcome of the election.
3. Changes in the market model generally do not need to occur at fixed, highly televised intervals.
4. Small groups and individuals can make changes to their own system without having to expend the additional energy required
5. Profitability or subscriber-based penalties for various kinds of malfeasance is *scalar*, whereas the threat of a lost election is *binary*
6. Attempting to impose a penalty on one agency in the market model does not weaken the penalties that other people impose on other agencies, in the same way that those who are dissatisfied with one candidate negate those who are dissatisfied with the other.
If this seems strange, consider the âEUoebetween stateâEU phenomenon. One way in which a confederation of small, largely independent states can maintain their accountability is, if migration within the states is not too costly, states which depressingly poor performance with respect to growth, crime, school quality, etc. etc. would suffer emigration and a reduction in the tax base, and visa versa. The nice feature to this is that individuals donâEUTMt have to wait until their *numbers* exceed 50+% in order to make differences, at least for themselves.
Another way to look at it would be to ask what life would be like if every decision you made in life was decided by popular vote. Or by taking orders from an individual or group of individuals who were decided by popular vote. Odds are, there would be a great deal of bitter conflict over what are in actuality very trivial matters and accountability would be frustratingly difficult to attain because it would require that you spend considerable time and energy getting your neighbors into a coalition to influence the outcome of the next election, at which point the matter of greivance may have slipped from the public imagination.
Now *none* of this proves that you donâEUTMt need a state. [or that you do] - Though it is an argument for why you need some kind of legal framework provided *somehow*
In my mind, the sensible rational behind a state is that law must be provided by a single agency in a given territory. The sensible rationale behind democracy is that since the legal monopoly cannot be held accountable through any kind of market mechanism [aside from emigration], popular elections can act as a rough approximation to a check on poor decision making. But thatâEUTMs all it is; a crude substitute where the superior mechanism, by its nature, cannot function.
Whether or not we need a monopoly on law is an interesting discussion, but it really can only occur between Minarchists and Anarchists since anyone else would be busy making arguments about enviromental regulation or consumer protection or social services etc. etc.
Real response as promised.
Part 1:
Your argument for the accountability of democratic states hinges on the fact that the entirety of the voting populace [in reality itâEUTMs always less than half and for obvious reasons] is involved in the selection of representatives. The fact that the âEUoeAccountability mechanismâEU is the exact same thing for every single problem of accountability which can emerge means that for any given issue is what makes that accountability weak or nonexistent on any issue. Combine this with the fact that an election can only occur in a term of a few years and elections are generally a competition between two parties.
So for example, we can speak of a pre-2012 election Obama being accountable to the voters in some general sense. And this accountability can seem sensible in our minds. It seems sensible until we think about accountability to any single group on any single relevant issue. Was Obama held accountable to the voters who had hoped voting for him would have ended US involvement in Iraq/Afghanistan or the middle east generally? Was Obama held accountable to the voters who had hoped voting for him would reduce the deficit? Was Obama held accountable?
This is what I referred to by a type 2 accountability problem. Obama is only accountable to whichever groups are marginally responsible for his winning the election. That is, whichever issue, or whichever demographic, or whichever interest group is responsible for the margin which sets him ahead in the polls. [That is to say, the penalty is binary rather than scalar]
Part 2:
Oil spills or any instance where one party is imposing heavy negative externalities on another complicates things. The people who lived in the Gulf had no control over whether BP could operate in deep waters or anywhere in the gulf generally. And weâEUTMre also not dealing with a situation where the effects brought on by one group can be easily avoided by another group.
In the case of BP, making BP accountable requires some form of law [And I know I'm going to get grilled for saying this]; pretty much every economic argument will require some appeal to the law. ThereâEUTMs nothing in the âEUoehandbook of MinarchyâEU that says an aggrieved party canâEUTMt make an aggressor party pay for damages incurred that were not contractually agreed to prior. Ideally these sorts of payments would be agreed to before the fact in the same way people who drive cars are required by law to purchase automobile insurance.
But then youâEUTMre probably asking âEUoeIf law is being used to solve this problem, does that not immediately imply anyone who advocates using the law thinks that those who make the law are by definition more accountable than those who donâEUTMtâEU
Not necessarily, but explaining why is difficult.
Every economic system proposed, *including* âEU~right wingâEUTM forms of Anarchism, basically tries to conceive of the most efficient and accountable legal framework within which goods and services can be produced. If problems arise which in the minds of the thinker do not necessarily require any additional laws to solve, they wonâEUTMt call for them.
The difference between more libertarians and less libertarian people thinking about these issues is that the former can conceive of a relatively small number of legal principles being used to solve a large majority of the problems. Or in other words a smaller burden of laws, usually limited to the enforcement of contracts and protection of person and legally acquired assets, is sufficient to âEUoesolveâEU many of these accountability issues.
Using one legal framework to solve a particular problem need not hinge on the assumption that law makers always and everywhere being more accountable than non-lawmakers. If It did, the question would immediately arise as to why whoever makes the laws shouldnâEUTMt simply be put in charge of all oil production. [In the case of an oil spill, the defendant also becomes the judge]. - Which is somewhat the natural logic behind âEUoeState SocialismâEU and/or âEUoeCommanding HeightsâEU Socialism.
To see why, imagine if you were in a dispute with your parents. You might arrive at a fairer and more objective ruling if a random stranger were selected to arbitrate the dispute. [Your lawmaker] This works because the stranger is presumed to be indifferent to the outcome of the dispute, not because the stranger is presumed to be of great moral virtue. [He need only be virtuous enough to *remain* indifferent]. We can imagine though that if you were in the *same* dispute but with the stranger, the outcome of the dispute would be worse than if you were in a dispute with your parents.
So suppose in the future scientific research shows that the fluoride treatments in water were actually causing noticeably health risks [IâEUTMm not saying they have to be]. In a class action lawsuit the government functions both as the judge and as the defendant; which is not exactly a recipe for accountable outcomes.
The difference between the âEUoeminarchistâEU and the âEUoeanarchistâEU is that the former talks about laws being provided through a monopoly, [which is the definition of a state] because law by its nature *must* be monopolized. The latter discusses laws as they could come about through a more competitive or polycentric basis.
If the accountability of the legal monopolist is difficult to ascertain, the advantage to having fewer laws solve the same number of problems is that you depend on the legal monopolist less often for getting things done, and rely more on subscription and disassociation [Which compared to elections, I would argue, are superior.]
At 4/9/13 11:45 PM, naronic wrote:
"The next time you want to support your argument, you might want to choose a source that actually supports your argument."
The next time you raise an objection to an argument, figure out what that argument is.
I did not put forward any particular explanation for why these gaps occur. The source simply serves to show that the cliche objection you put forward can be dismissed. You can take the position that the text takes that while socioeconomic status plays very little role, the stability of families does. I'm inclined to think that such a hypothesis has much more going or it, but even whites who criticize African American [and to a lesser extent, White] family dsyfunctionality run the risk of being eaten alive by people like you who think what they're doing is moral and virtuous.
Go back to the first post you responded to. What is the point of talking about "Identity tolerance" with respect to "Behavioral Tolerance"? People who hold high the banner of identity tolerance feel compelled to lash out at anyone who fails to properly *ignore* the existence of a behavioral problem within a given identity, **causes notwithstanding**. Tolerance of negative behaviors becomes looked upon as the same thing as tolerance of negative behaviors by that identity group.
[The title of the book comes from a quote from one of the people recorded during one of the incidences of mob violence] Making fun of the title seems to me to be an indirect way of making the nonsequitor that "The title of the book is stupid, therefore the content is invalid"
With respect to content validity, the premise of the book does not contradict the idea that violent crime rates have been falling. The book does not claim that total crime rates have been on the rise. The topic of the book is racially motivated mob violence and/or race riots, which are a subset of all violent crimes and in all likelihood are a fairly small
<http://www.examiner.com/article/white-girl-bleed-a-lot-the-
return-of-race-riots-to-america-by-colin-flaherty-1> To quote a review of the book:
"It's about our inability to discuss race. That is the underlying issue it investigates, and the counterpoint that it raises to every fact it introduces. For its canvas, the book uses the recent spate of mobs of mostly black people attacking Asians, homosexuals, whites and blacks. It will disappoint racists because it is not a racist book. It does not accuse all African-Americans based on the actions of a few, and its point is not that these race riots are that exceptional. Its point is that Americans cannot talk about race, so we lie about these riots. Because we lie, we'll never figure out a solution. The author recommends the Kindle version of the book because just about every page has at least one link. Most of these go to YouTube videos. These show you the riots as they happened, which author Colin Flaherty then contrasts to what police, individuals, government and media said happened. The two accounts are different, but he leads you to that conclusion and lets you make it for yourself. While he does cover some black leaders who are claiming these riots were unrelated to race, he also covers the black leaders who have taken the black community to task for these riots. This book is very fair in covering all angles of the issue."
So why do you provide [incorrect at first] straw man objections to a claim the nature of which you don't understand? Why do you get so furious when these issues are mentioned? Because you believe that failing to do so would be a mark of intolerance. Since the claims made by these people are not all that controversial when you approach them from a non-emotionally charged perspective, someone such as you is forced to provide them with a new position that is easier to attack empirically.
________
Other issues:
Hate crime is something subject to the methodology of whoever defines the crime as being racially motivated or not. Also the FBI has a strange methodology where Hispanics are treated as Whites when they engage in hate crime, and as Hispanics when they are victims. This means that when a Hispanic attacks a White, it is defined as white on white and by definition not a hate crime. Whereas the reverse is liable to be called a hate crime.
Also, much more simply, The FBI is not just recording every act of violence committed by one group against another. You have to assume the FBI is as willing to call a crime by an X against a Y a hate crime as much as it would Y against X.
And just like with violent crime generally, Mob Violence is not necessarily part of the FBIs radar of hate crimes.
1. If the Youtube Videos are recordings of the actual events described then they are primary sources. I do not see how the fact that they are "Youtube" as opposed to some other source makes them invalid or not.
2. You don't say how what is said in these news reports differs from what specifically was said in the book. The Gawker article simply says that older people are unjustly afraid that SN sites are being used to organize violent activity. So you tell me how I'm supposed to figure out what is being mis-represented here.
There have been either three or four large gatherings of-mostly African-American-teens in Philadelphia in the past three months, depending on whose doing the counting. They have turned violent, with some kids smashing up stores and beating up passersby. The March 20th mob was the latest, and it featured some of the worst violence yet. The key aspect of the story, repeated in almost every news account, is that these weren't just normal groups of teens: They were "flash mobs" "organized through social networking Web sites."
I mean I can provide such an excerpt but since I have no clue what is being refuted I can only guess.
The book supplies the reports and also supplies any video recordings of the events, many of which would find their way onto You Tube or some other video hosting source. Reporting is simply the act of taking primary sources and having the reporter filter it through some form of analysis [or summary]. The author merely provides the primary sources and provides no analysis. Are you saying that it is more objective to filter primary source data instead of simply providing the readers with all the extant primary source data? Does Journalistic integrity
At 4/8/13 03:18 PM, Camarohusky wrote:At 4/8/13 01:15 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: So if you want to speak of accountability.So, you have actually proven me right in your attempt to poke a hole in the argument, you just don't realize it.
At 4/8/13 03:18 PM, Camarohusky wrote:At 4/8/13 01:15 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: So if you want to speak of accountability.
This is just a response to your first paragraph. I'll try to get a response to your second for Wedesday but I don't have time today to do it. [College assignments]
1. I appreciate your polite demeanor
2. Everything you read was written by hand, you can try copy-pasting excerpts and seeing if you get anything similar on the internet. ItâEUTMs possible but highly unlikely that you will.
3. My reason for abstracting is to get rid of name-bias. For example I will refer to Obama as âEUoeThe presidentâEU or âEUoeThe administrationâEU around Republican types so that they donâEUTMt raise personal or emotional walls. The super-nutshell version of what is written is âEUoeImagine a context in which one group could benefit at the expense of another. Can âEU~anotherâEUTM disassociate from the 'group'? No? Then can the 'another' impose a penalty on the 'group'? Is that penalty effective?
I.E. if an obnoxious and ignorant libertarian has an unjustified bias against "The Government" -- then it would make more sense to simply rename the Government as a corporation which operates under different rules from that of non-state entities. [Law monopoly and elections for management] -- If your Dumb libertarian considers elections for management and a territorial monopoly to be good things, then a corporation with these things [i.e. a government or state] would be superior to one without.
4. I wanted to include the two scenarios in which accountability would not occur, in reality my argument centered on the second. Including the first was probably a waste of time - I donâEUTMt think what was said was false but it certainly didn't help me. When deciding whether or not to include a detail I think could possibly be relevant I tend to include it, under the assumption that if I don't, the reader probably will [and then claim I hadn't thought of it beforehand]
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