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On March 13 2015 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 03:24 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:04 xDaunt wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying. And how do you think an explanation of SAE's racist chant would be received? Isn't the explanation that it was racist? What more is there to say? I guess one could talk about how they were saying they were 'taught' the chant. Or how it's #notjustSAE but I don't think that's what you meant huh? Source
I mean, it should come as a surprise to nobody that there is proof of a frat being a bunch of assholes, but singing a chant with a racist slur in it in a public place is a new low. I realize going along with the crowd is what frats are all about, but really?
Again, racism is alive and well all over this country. I saw it myself in Colorado during the 2008 election and I'm sure the only reason I haven't seen it since is because I am a white male and I don't really have many black or latino friends.
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On March 13 2015 03:41 puerk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 03:24 lastpuritan wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying.
And regarding the socialism bashing: what range of ideologies do you even include in that? @ lastpuritan all except libertarian socialism  That you even consider "all" in any way, shape or form appropriate as an answer to that question shows a lack of understanding of political ideologies. I was especially curios if you consider any form of social democracy pertaining to your use of the socialism label, and if yes, which.
was it hard to spot i was alluding to states delineated as "work for its citizens" e.g North Korea, Soviet Union, Former Iraq and todays Syria or any Marxist–Leninist administration.
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On March 13 2015 03:55 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 13 2015 03:24 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:04 xDaunt wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying. And how do you think an explanation of SAE's racist chant would be received? Isn't the explanation that it was racist? What more is there to say? I guess one could talk about how they were saying they were 'taught' the chant. Or how it's #notjustSAE but I don't think that's what you meant huh? Again, this comment was posted weeks before the OU SAE bus video surfaced. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/c1sTQN3.png) I mean, it should come as a surprise to nobody that there is proof of a frat being a bunch of assholes, but singing a chant with a racist slur in it in a public place is a new low. I realize going along with the crowd is what frats are all about, but really? Again, racism is alive and well all over this country. I saw it myself in Colorado during the 2008 election and I'm sure the only reason I haven't seen it since is because I am a white male and I don't really have many black or latino friends.
Not just the slur, but the lynching reference, and the obvious explicitly racially exclusionary angle (the sheer glee and enthusiasm didn't help). It's also not like the racist people on that bus stopped being racist when the song was over either.
Not to mention who knows what's going to happen to the person who took/posted the video? Not sure who the most powerful people from SAE are, but I'm sure their not happy the video didn't come to them first, the same is likely for the top of whatever sorority was likely on that bus.
I think it's safe to say people who were talking about racism being over, or limited to a small group ,or stuff like that, and would then cite Obama and other successful black people as evidence, were just flat out wrong.
It's better than it was, but it's far from gone/isolated
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/republicans-wont-have-a-real-health-care-plan.html
Republican consistency on broad ideological predispositions did not extend to specific policy questions, reflecting the enduring gap between symbolic and operational conservatism. For 81 percent of non-activist Democrats, the number of issue areas on which they supported an increase in spending exceeded the number of areas on which they supported spending cuts, but only 38 percent of non-activist Republicans identified more items to cut than items for which they favored spending growth. Democrats exhibit much stronger support for particular forms of government activity than for activist government as such, while Republicans are more united around broad principles of limited government than around the need for reductions in specific programs.
This, of course, explains why Republicans struggle so consistently to translate their principles into a concrete program: Even their own voters don’t support many real program cuts. This is why conservative Republican presidents have massively increased the deficit — they set tax levels to fund the government they would like in the abstract, while funding the level of government they want in the specific.
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On March 13 2015 04:06 lastpuritan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 03:41 puerk wrote:On March 13 2015 03:24 lastpuritan wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying.
And regarding the socialism bashing: what range of ideologies do you even include in that? @ lastpuritan all except libertarian socialism That you even consider "all" in any way, shape or form appropriate as an answer to that question shows a lack of understanding of political ideologies. I was especially curios if you consider any form of social democracy pertaining to your use of the socialism label, and if yes, which. was it hard to spot i was alluding to states delineated as "work for its citizens" e.g North Korea, Soviet Union, Former Iraq and todays Syria or any Marxist–Leninist administration.
And why do you leave out states like norway or sweden, that actually work for their citizens, and instead focus on countries that only slap "socialism" on their dictatorship as a flavour sticker?
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To be fair Norway and Sweden are as far away from Socialism as you can be.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
deeply disappointing events in ferguson yet again.
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Norway28926 Posts
On March 13 2015 05:46 Nyxisto wrote:
To be fair Norway and Sweden are as far away from Socialism as you can be.
as far as you can be? we're certainly closer than a vast majority of other countries. still far from socialist - absolutely - but considering most countries are further from socialism it seems a bit lazy to just state that we're as far away as we can be.
and farvecola you are of course, as always, correct. 
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I think to use the word in a meaningful way socialism must mean 'common ownership of the means of production' to at least some degree. Also Socialism usually puts a lot of focus on the working class in general, organized in certain ways running the state etc, while the Nordic model seems very focussed on individualism and leaving people alone. In that way even Germany and France are 'more Socialist' because there is more interaction between workplace and private life.
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Norway28926 Posts
There was a big split during the 70s-80s. Prior to that, Norwegian society was extremely uniform, and there was not much political room for individualism. One TV channel, media largely affiliated with political parties (either one or the other), one national curriculum and little personal leeway for teachers, people were greatly encouraged to pull in the same direction. Individualism and personal expression has certainly become more important as we became wealthier and part of the global stage, but for everyone older than 30, there's quite some residue from the quite socialist social democracy of the pre-80s.
Another thing is that a crucial element in Norway's success is that we nationalized our oil supplies. There's also our freedom to roam law. We've placed large restrictions on some elements of advertisement (no alcohol commercials, none geared towards children). We have many elements of the nanny state (because we believe that individuals and society are not to distinctly different entities with different goals, and we believe that sometimes individuals benefit from some degree of being protected from their own bad impulses), and we don't consider every aspect of private property rights you might find elsewhere sacred. I still regard Norway as a capitalist society, but to reject the influence socialism has had on us is flawed. Our Labour party, which has governed for a majority of the past 70 years, was initially a member of Communist International.. Obviously they distanced themselves from the Soviet Union a long time ago, but not from all socialist ideals.
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On March 13 2015 06:18 Nyxisto wrote:
I think to use the word in a meaningful way socialism must mean 'common ownership of the means of production' to at least some degree. Also Socialism usually puts a lot of focus on the working class in general, organized in certain ways running the state etc, while the Nordic model seems very focussed on individualism and leaving people alone. In that way even Germany and France are 'more Socialist' because there is more interaction between workplace and private life.
So promoting cooperatives where the workers or customers own the company? Or the state owning the companies? Both variants are used successfully all over the world to various degrees.
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On March 13 2015 05:46 Nyxisto wrote:
To be fair Norway and Sweden are as far away from Socialism as you can be.
national wealth funds, state owned resources, companies and utilities are socialist for the purposes under which the previous discussion used "socialism", that is why i specifically asked what he was considering belonging to it. as he said "all" which according to the chart included most approaches to social democracy everything the nordics are doing is socialist to him, and therefore in the terms of this discussion.
but since it is his motive to paint everything left of libertarianism as something bad, he somehow must deny the existence of social democracies or their nature, and keep pointing at the sowjet union and north korea........
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
socialism defined by ownership of capital, as in actually managing the businesses, is married to a particular economic theory. no real need to do that as long as 'the people' gets some portion of the value created. state run enterprises with significant degree of govt enforced monopoly power are almost universally bad in terms of efficiency.
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On March 13 2015 08:11 oneofthem wrote:
socialism defined by ownership of capital, as in actually managing the businesses, is married to a particular economic theory. no real need to do that as long as 'the people' gets some portion of the value created. state run enterprises with significant degree of govt enforced monopoly power are almost universally bad in terms of efficiency.
This is not really true. From a theoretical point of view, sure. But a lot of the utilities all over Europe that were sold off in the great privatization wave of the 90s ended up with worse quality service for more money.
http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/mythbusters-the-private-sector-is-more-efficient-than-the-public-sector has some examples.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
my phrasing kind of excluded natural monopolies. there's a distinct effect of badness for government created monopoly of a competitive sector.
obviously private is not necessarily efficient but i'm not seeing a reason to prefer government run businesses in competitive sectors.
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On March 13 2015 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 03:55 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 13 2015 03:24 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:04 xDaunt wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying. And how do you think an explanation of SAE's racist chant would be received? Isn't the explanation that it was racist? What more is there to say? I guess one could talk about how they were saying they were 'taught' the chant. Or how it's #notjustSAE but I don't think that's what you meant huh? Again, this comment was posted weeks before the OU SAE bus video surfaced. I mean, it should come as a surprise to nobody that there is proof of a frat being a bunch of assholes, but singing a chant with a racist slur in it in a public place is a new low. I realize going along with the crowd is what frats are all about, but really? Again, racism is alive and well all over this country. I saw it myself in Colorado during the 2008 election and I'm sure the only reason I haven't seen it since is because I am a white male and I don't really have many black or latino friends. Not just the slur, but the lynching reference, and the obvious explicitly racially exclusionary angle (the sheer glee and enthusiasm didn't help). It's also not like the racist people on that bus stopped being racist when the song was over either. Not to mention who knows what's going to happen to the person who took/posted the video? Not sure who the most powerful people from SAE are, but I'm sure their not happy the video didn't come to them first, the same is likely for the top of whatever sorority was likely on that bus. I think it's safe to say people who were talking about racism being over, or limited to a small group ,or stuff like that, and would then cite Obama and other successful black people as evidence, were just flat out wrong. It's better than it was, but it's far from gone/isolated
I don't know anyone has ever claimed that the racism is completely over, but to suggest that the racism is still rampant is blatant over-exaggeration of where we are currently or how far we have come in the past 60 years as a society in the USA. You only have to look at the gross and disapproving reaction of the general populace toward something like this.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
racism is still rampant. just look at the internets.
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states should never be merchants, do you guys think it is beneficial? if you wonder what state i would prefer to live in:
Ernst F. Schumacher:
small is beautiful
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On March 13 2015 08:24 jellyjello wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 13 2015 03:55 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 13 2015 03:24 ZasZ. wrote:On March 13 2015 03:04 xDaunt wrote:On March 13 2015 02:57 puerk wrote:
There is a huge difference in explaining and justifying. And how do you think an explanation of SAE's racist chant would be received? Isn't the explanation that it was racist? What more is there to say? I guess one could talk about how they were saying they were 'taught' the chant. Or how it's #notjustSAE but I don't think that's what you meant huh? Again, this comment was posted weeks before the OU SAE bus video surfaced. I mean, it should come as a surprise to nobody that there is proof of a frat being a bunch of assholes, but singing a chant with a racist slur in it in a public place is a new low. I realize going along with the crowd is what frats are all about, but really? Again, racism is alive and well all over this country. I saw it myself in Colorado during the 2008 election and I'm sure the only reason I haven't seen it since is because I am a white male and I don't really have many black or latino friends. Not just the slur, but the lynching reference, and the obvious explicitly racially exclusionary angle (the sheer glee and enthusiasm didn't help). It's also not like the racist people on that bus stopped being racist when the song was over either. Not to mention who knows what's going to happen to the person who took/posted the video? Not sure who the most powerful people from SAE are, but I'm sure their not happy the video didn't come to them first, the same is likely for the top of whatever sorority was likely on that bus. I think it's safe to say people who were talking about racism being over, or limited to a small group ,or stuff like that, and would then cite Obama and other successful black people as evidence, were just flat out wrong. It's better than it was, but it's far from gone/isolated I don't know anyone has ever claimed that the racism is completely over
You mean like this?
RNCVerified account
@GOP
Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.
Source
Or this gem from Ann Coulter on Fox News, so of course it went unchallenged?
But unfortunately for liberals, there is no racism America. There is more cholera in America than there is racism and so they have to invent it.
Source
There's more examples if you really need them?
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On March 13 2015 08:35 lastpuritan wrote:states should never be merchants, do you guys think it is beneficial? if you wonder what state i would prefer to live in: Ernst F. Schumacher:
You didn't need to quote that to say that you like small government lol.
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EPT
