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On August 17 2017 06:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 05:43 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:29 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:07 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:03 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:59 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:53 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:47 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:45 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 02:57 ninazerg wrote:
Of all the groups of people I have ever debated in my life, far-left progressives have been the most resistant to having an actual discussion with me. Not even a 'debate'. Just a discussion. And this is a problem because people who hold these beliefs (I know I'm not being very specific here, but I don't want to get into that right now. That's another discussion for another time.) sit in influential positions in some cases. This failure to articulate and defend ideas with evidence and reason is a hallmark of intellectual laziness, and when some white supremacist posts anywhere on any website that has a public forum, I kind of expect the internet to do what the internet does and brutally assail them in written form, but I would also expect people who consider themselves to be 'intellectual' to engage them in a serious discussion. For example, if a Neo-Nazi says something like "Jews control all the banks" or something to that effect, my first thought would be to open a tab up and look up the CEOs of major banks to see if they're actually all Jewish or not. I don't even consider myself to be a very 'intellectual' person, but I consider myself smart enough not to immediately just go straight to personal insults in a discussion. if the left wants to 'win' in the marketplace of ideas, shutting down dissent, relying on Antifa for physical intimidation, refusing to engage in debate, and calling political-moderates names for asking questions is ultimately going to be counterproductive to their platform. I've had the same experience. And same reaction. I find in-person to be loads better because there's less Kwark and Plansix "you're a racist" distractions, but there's still hurdles in people showing me why they think they're right versus justifying why its right to shut down people who think they're wrong. Your post was like a breath of fresh air. Dangles, we don't necessarily think that you're a racist, we just think you voted for someone who gave racists boners and you continue to defend the giver of racist-boners even after one of these excited racists killed someone. And you and others think any defense of him should be framed in racism. What, you you don't think he's Hitler incarnate? Way to defend racism, you racist sympathizer. Antifa, on the other end, is the natural consequence when you think speech is violence and call for deplatforming. Time to own up to your own sins, I think. Next week on forgetting the violent riots after Trump's election and the threats and physical assaults from free speech events... (Actually, you're about the quintessential case of what ninazerg addressed. You aren't allowed to defend Trump in any way shape or form because "you voted for someone who gave racists boners and defend the giver of racist-boners even after racists killed someone." Ahem, using political violence to shut down the speech of others is the problem here. You, farva, are part of the problem here.) Sounds like you need a safe space where people won't bring up the fact that you voted for someone who emboldened Nazis. TL doesn't appear to be that place. If you start out, buddy "we don't necessarily think that you're a racist," chances are you're dismissing the thought that any of his actions could be defensible. He'll do mostly things I disagree with, and a handful I agree with, and the difference between you and me is that I can tell one from the other. You're very interested tarring even reluctant defenders with the racism paintbrush, and thus emboldening antifa and sending moderates to the Trump 2020 camp. If a "moderate" decides to embrace Trump and his white supremacist platform because someone called him a racist, well, the person calling him a racist was right. Right and wrong don't change when someone calls you a name. I've been called a fascist for defending free speech by tumblr feminists on facebook before and yet here I am, still a feminist. If your support of racial equality is predicated upon nobody with a different skin colour to yours calling you names, well, you don't support racial equality, you just support people not calling you names. "Embracing" is the political partisanship talking. Daring to conditionally defend is meriting the charges that ninazerg talked about. Dismissing people you want to call racists is a societal malaise. Cool story about tumblr, though, it really does seem you've chosen your mode of emulation well. Danglars, when I say you're being racist, or that Sessions is a racist, I'm not saying it as an easy way to be dismissive. I'm saying it because of the racism. It's not a shortcut, it's not because I have no other arguments to fall back on, it's not being used as a slur to attack anyone I don't like, it's because of the racism. There are lots of people on the left I don't like. And there are people like GH who will insist forever that game theory doesn't apply to first past the post elections to my endless frustration. I don't call them racists unless they're racist. Because of the racism. Please, please believe that I'm not dismissing you as a racist so I don't have to address your opinions. It'd be great if we had the luxury of dismissing racists and their racist opinions, but there are millions of you and you vote and you influence policy and it's a problem that we can't ignore. I'm not trying to call you names. I'm trying to get you to a point in your life where you go "hey, I seem to be getting called racist a lot right now, maybe I should look into that". But at some point some clever conservative commentator decided that he would become incredibly popular within his insular fan base by telling them that "racist" is nothing more than a slur and that you don't need to pay any attention to it when someone says it. Which, of course, is an incredibly comforting thing to hear in your position because it removes all personal accountability and need for introspection and places the blame firmly on the person calling you a racist. People fucking love lies that absolve them from blame and tell them what they always wanted to hear and so here we are, I say you're being racist, you immediately assume it's part of some attempt to dismiss you. It doesn't even cross your mind to take a look at your own beliefs and wonder why someone might think them racist. Honestly, we've been through this before. I claim your various assertions (that conservative posters here are racist, Trump supporters are mostly racists, people who didn't vote Obama are mostly racist) are puerile. You defend that calling everybody racists is justified because everybody's actually racist, and the solution is for people to be less goddamn racist. Kind of like your tumblr example, I can get along just fine if political partisans like yourself think I hate black people or feminist protestors think I'm anti-woman. Both opinions are laughably insane and will hurt your coalitions and political causes the longer you hold them. I'm working through my shock when people try to double-dip back into reasonable opinions ("we're not calling all Republicans barely removed from the KKK/neonazis/white supremacists"), after they've seen fit to label myself xDaunt and broad swaths of voting Americans racist bigots. It's not consistent, but I'm finding the rules get changed with every switch of political party in control.
Good luck reaching the far left on this. You simply cannot expect a rational response, and the first rational responses from the left on this stuff won't be made to people on the right. Professor Lilla from Columbia (he's very liberal) has been criticizing the left regarding its overuse of identity politics ever since Trump won. He just released a book in which he elaborates on his thoughts, and is now making the rounds giving interviews to support the book. One of the most interesting and poignant things that I've seen him say is this:
One of your most important insights is that liberal politics, by becoming driven by identity, have largely ceased to be truly political, and have instead become effectively religious (“evangelical” is the word you use). Can you explain?
We are an evangelical people. How we ever got a reputation for practicality and common sense is a mystery historians will one day have to unravel. Facing up to problems, gauging their significance, gathering evidence, consulting with others, and testing out new approaches is not our thing. We much prefer to ignore problems until they become crises, undergo an inner conversion, write a gospel, preach it at the top of our lungs, cultivate disciples, demand repentance, predict the apocalypse, beat our plowshares into swords, and expect paradise as a reward. And we wonder why our system is dysfunctional…
Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people – African Americans, women – seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. It was about enfranchisement, a practical political goal reached by persuading others of the rightness of your cause. But by the 1980s this approach had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow self-definition. The new identity politics is expressive rather than persuasive. Even the slogans changed, from We shall overcome – a call to action – to I’m here, I’m queer – a call to nothing in particular. Identitarians became self-righteous, hypersensitive, denunciatory, and obsessed with trivial issues that have made them a national laughing stock (drawing up long lists of gender pronouns, condemning spaghetti and meatballs as cultural appropriation,…). This was politically disastrous and just played into the hands of Fox News.
What the new identitarians demand is more than mere recognition, though. They demand that you see this country exactly as they do, reach the same moral judgments about it, and confess your sins (which is what the word “privilege” is a secular euphemism for). The most recent books by Ta-Nahesi Coates and Michal Eric Dyson are quite explicit about this need for repentance. The subtitle of Dyson’s is A Sermon to White America. And the use of the term woke is a dead giveaway that we are in the mental universe of American evangelicalism not American politics.
Source.
This kinda puts the incoherent SJW nonsense that we see from the likes of Kwark, Plansix, and others in proper perspective, doesn't it?
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On August 17 2017 06:53 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:43 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
It's like Hurling. Clearly an Irish person is going to be better at it on average and you'd assume so because they've actually grown up around it
Way to promote the irish drunk stereotype. Shame on you
I'm assuming this is a joke but it's hard to tell these days. (My Grandpa grew up playing Hurling and Gaelic football. and when they moved to New York there was a park they'd go too on weekends to watch.)
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One can acknowledge that ineffective over-emphasis on identity politics is a poor way to go about giving effect to an agenda while getting mad about the fact that Klansmen are excited like it's 1914 all over again.
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On August 17 2017 06:38 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:33 mozoku wrote:On August 17 2017 06:20 Plansix wrote:
mozoku: You might want to consider the idea that sexism and racism are ever present in our lives and combating them requires talking about them. Even progressives to racist things. The difference is that when we are called out on them, I don't see it as someone calling me a racists. Just that I did something that was racist, likely without meaning to. I think it's more a fundamental difference of how socially progressive 'conservatives' and socially progressive progressives see the world. I asked this question earlier: Is it racist to see a random Chinese person and a random white person and speculate that the Chinese person is probably better at Mahjong? Statistically, it's effectively demonstrable that the Chinese person is likely to be better at Mahjong. This creates a "stereotype" or a "prejudice" and would be considered racist by a lot of progressives I think. I don't see that as racist though. How society handles this a tradeoff: stereotypes are efficient/provide utility in a lot of ways (i.e. if you're making a bet), but they're also "unfair" in the sense that a white person has to provide extra evidence to prove he might be better at Mahjong that his Chinese opponent. Efficiency vs fairness is a value proposition that depends on individual judgment, or the collective judgment of many individuals when it comes to governance. It isn't as simple as "stereotypes" = immoral and bad. This doesn't at all excuse actual racists, and I denounce them whenever I'm confident I've found one. But when the Left starts calling everyone who has stereotypes as "racist" it dilutes the term because of what I said above. You're conflating a culturally specific skillset with character. I don't think it's racist to think that an Asian person is more likely to be familiar with a game that is historically Asian. I don't know anyone that would think that.
But the concept of statistical populations and the differences between them aren't at all limited to Mahjong and cultural skillsets.
For reasons that are likely at least partially due to historical injustices, crime rates among African Americans from the South Side of Chicago are x times higher than they are among the general US population.
If I'm sitting on a train car with 5 African Americans from the South Side of Chicago, I can observe that I'm x times more likely to be the victim of a crime than if I were sitting among five random members of the general US population. Therefore, I feel more threatened on this train car.
It's literally the same example as Mahjong, but now it's politically sensitive. No, it's not fair to the African Americans on the train. And I would be irrational to assume I'll likely be the victim of a crime on that train, since base crime rates are very low. But I'm still logically and mathematically justified in feeling more threatened on that train car than I would with 5 other random US citizens.
Now does that mean we should treat African Americans differently? Again, that's a judgment between utility and fairness. Mathematically, I would be maximizing utility for myself in terms of safety by choosing the random train car passengers. It's irrational in terms of utility to choose the African American train car.
On the other hand, I'm aware that the base probability of being a victim of a crime is still low, even on that train car, so I as a human being I don't mind being on the train car because I'm willing to sacrifice infinitesimal utility in the interest of avoiding a lot of unfairness.
Where people fall on the scale of utility vs fairness is an individual issue that doesn't really jive with black and white morality.
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I'd like to highlight that I'm making a very technical argument out here. A lot of people who are accused of racism are just racists and are "deplorable." I don't think this argument applies to a lot of people that are accused of being racists.
But, when you call someone racist for e.g. making the analysis that I just did, you begin to dilute the term racist imo. And that certainly happens in today's political environment. I would argue it happened to Damore, though I also think the memo's lack of polish led to it being an easy target for misconstrual.
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On August 17 2017 06:54 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:01 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:43 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:29 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:07 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:03 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:59 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:53 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:47 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:45 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
I've had the same experience. And same reaction. I find in-person to be loads better because there's less Kwark and Plansix "you're a racist" distractions, but there's still hurdles in people showing me why they think they're right versus justifying why its right to shut down people who think they're wrong.
Your post was like a breath of fresh air. Dangles, we don't necessarily think that you're a racist, we just think you voted for someone who gave racists boners and you continue to defend the giver of racist-boners even after one of these excited racists killed someone. And you and others think any defense of him should be framed in racism. What, you you don't think he's Hitler incarnate? Way to defend racism, you racist sympathizer. Antifa, on the other end, is the natural consequence when you think speech is violence and call for deplatforming. Time to own up to your own sins, I think. Next week on forgetting the violent riots after Trump's election and the threats and physical assaults from free speech events... (Actually, you're about the quintessential case of what ninazerg addressed. You aren't allowed to defend Trump in any way shape or form because "you voted for someone who gave racists boners and defend the giver of racist-boners even after racists killed someone." Ahem, using political violence to shut down the speech of others is the problem here. You, farva, are part of the problem here.) Sounds like you need a safe space where people won't bring up the fact that you voted for someone who emboldened Nazis. TL doesn't appear to be that place. If you start out, buddy "we don't necessarily think that you're a racist," chances are you're dismissing the thought that any of his actions could be defensible. He'll do mostly things I disagree with, and a handful I agree with, and the difference between you and me is that I can tell one from the other. You're very interested tarring even reluctant defenders with the racism paintbrush, and thus emboldening antifa and sending moderates to the Trump 2020 camp. If a "moderate" decides to embrace Trump and his white supremacist platform because someone called him a racist, well, the person calling him a racist was right. Right and wrong don't change when someone calls you a name. I've been called a fascist for defending free speech by tumblr feminists on facebook before and yet here I am, still a feminist. If your support of racial equality is predicated upon nobody with a different skin colour to yours calling you names, well, you don't support racial equality, you just support people not calling you names. "Embracing" is the political partisanship talking. Daring to conditionally defend is meriting the charges that ninazerg talked about. Dismissing people you want to call racists is a societal malaise. Cool story about tumblr, though, it really does seem you've chosen your mode of emulation well. Danglars, when I say you're being racist, or that Sessions is a racist, I'm not saying it as an easy way to be dismissive. I'm saying it because of the racism. It's not a shortcut, it's not because I have no other arguments to fall back on, it's not being used as a slur to attack anyone I don't like, it's because of the racism. There are lots of people on the left I don't like. And there are people like GH who will insist forever that game theory doesn't apply to first past the post elections to my endless frustration. I don't call them racists unless they're racist. Because of the racism. Please, please believe that I'm not dismissing you as a racist so I don't have to address your opinions. It'd be great if we had the luxury of dismissing racists and their racist opinions, but there are millions of you and you vote and you influence policy and it's a problem that we can't ignore. I'm not trying to call you names. I'm trying to get you to a point in your life where you go "hey, I seem to be getting called racist a lot right now, maybe I should look into that". But at some point some clever conservative commentator decided that he would become incredibly popular within his insular fan base by telling them that "racist" is nothing more than a slur and that you don't need to pay any attention to it when someone says it. Which, of course, is an incredibly comforting thing to hear in your position because it removes all personal accountability and need for introspection and places the blame firmly on the person calling you a racist. People fucking love lies that absolve them from blame and tell them what they always wanted to hear and so here we are, I say you're being racist, you immediately assume it's part of some attempt to dismiss you. It doesn't even cross your mind to take a look at your own beliefs and wonder why someone might think them racist. Honestly, we've been through this before. I claim your various assertions (that conservative posters here are racist, Trump supporters are mostly racists, people who didn't vote Obama are mostly racist) are puerile. You defend that calling everybody racists is justified because everybody's actually racist, and the solution is for people to be less goddamn racist. Kind of like your tumblr example, I can get along just fine if political partisans like yourself think I hate black people or feminist protestors think I'm anti-woman. Both opinions are laughably insane and will hurt your coalitions and political causes the longer you hold them. I'm working through my shock when people try to double-dip back into reasonable opinions ("we're not calling all Republicans barely removed from the KKK/neonazis/white supremacists"), after they've seen fit to label myself xDaunt and broad swaths of voting Americans racist bigots. It's not consistent, but I'm finding the rules get changed with every switch of political party in control. Good luck reaching the far left on this. You simply cannot expect a rational response, and the first rational responses from the left on this stuff won't be made to people on the right. Professor Lilla from Columbia (he's very liberal) has been criticizing the left regarding its overuse of identity politics ever since Trump won. He just released a book in which he elaborates on his thoughts, and is now making the rounds giving interviews to support the book. One of the most interesting and poignant things that I've seen him say is this: Show nested quote +One of your most important insights is that liberal politics, by becoming driven by identity, have largely ceased to be truly political, and have instead become effectively religious (“evangelical” is the word you use). Can you explain?
We are an evangelical people. How we ever got a reputation for practicality and common sense is a mystery historians will one day have to unravel. Facing up to problems, gauging their significance, gathering evidence, consulting with others, and testing out new approaches is not our thing. We much prefer to ignore problems until they become crises, undergo an inner conversion, write a gospel, preach it at the top of our lungs, cultivate disciples, demand repentance, predict the apocalypse, beat our plowshares into swords, and expect paradise as a reward. And we wonder why our system is dysfunctional…
Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people – African Americans, women – seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. It was about enfranchisement, a practical political goal reached by persuading others of the rightness of your cause. But by the 1980s this approach had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow self-definition. The new identity politics is expressive rather than persuasive. Even the slogans changed, from We shall overcome – a call to action – to I’m here, I’m queer – a call to nothing in particular. Identitarians became self-righteous, hypersensitive, denunciatory, and obsessed with trivial issues that have made them a national laughing stock (drawing up long lists of gender pronouns, condemning spaghetti and meatballs as cultural appropriation,…). This was politically disastrous and just played into the hands of Fox News.
What the new identitarians demand is more than mere recognition, though. They demand that you see this country exactly as they do, reach the same moral judgments about it, and confess your sins (which is what the word “privilege” is a secular euphemism for). The most recent books by Ta-Nahesi Coates and Michal Eric Dyson are quite explicit about this need for repentance. The subtitle of Dyson’s is A Sermon to White America. And the use of the term woke is a dead giveaway that we are in the mental universe of American evangelicalism not American politics. Source. This kinda puts the incoherent SJW nonsense that we see from the likes of Kwark, Plansix, and others in proper perspective, doesn't it?
lol I didn't even get to the part where it lumped Ta-Nahisi and Dyson together and I already thought it was obviously written by someone who doesn't know the actual political terrain of black people on the left. That just confirmed it.
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On August 17 2017 06:54 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:01 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:43 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:29 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:07 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 05:03 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:59 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:53 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 03:47 farvacola wrote:On August 17 2017 03:45 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
I've had the same experience. And same reaction. I find in-person to be loads better because there's less Kwark and Plansix "you're a racist" distractions, but there's still hurdles in people showing me why they think they're right versus justifying why its right to shut down people who think they're wrong.
Your post was like a breath of fresh air. Dangles, we don't necessarily think that you're a racist, we just think you voted for someone who gave racists boners and you continue to defend the giver of racist-boners even after one of these excited racists killed someone. And you and others think any defense of him should be framed in racism. What, you you don't think he's Hitler incarnate? Way to defend racism, you racist sympathizer. Antifa, on the other end, is the natural consequence when you think speech is violence and call for deplatforming. Time to own up to your own sins, I think. Next week on forgetting the violent riots after Trump's election and the threats and physical assaults from free speech events... (Actually, you're about the quintessential case of what ninazerg addressed. You aren't allowed to defend Trump in any way shape or form because "you voted for someone who gave racists boners and defend the giver of racist-boners even after racists killed someone." Ahem, using political violence to shut down the speech of others is the problem here. You, farva, are part of the problem here.) Sounds like you need a safe space where people won't bring up the fact that you voted for someone who emboldened Nazis. TL doesn't appear to be that place. If you start out, buddy "we don't necessarily think that you're a racist," chances are you're dismissing the thought that any of his actions could be defensible. He'll do mostly things I disagree with, and a handful I agree with, and the difference between you and me is that I can tell one from the other. You're very interested tarring even reluctant defenders with the racism paintbrush, and thus emboldening antifa and sending moderates to the Trump 2020 camp. If a "moderate" decides to embrace Trump and his white supremacist platform because someone called him a racist, well, the person calling him a racist was right. Right and wrong don't change when someone calls you a name. I've been called a fascist for defending free speech by tumblr feminists on facebook before and yet here I am, still a feminist. If your support of racial equality is predicated upon nobody with a different skin colour to yours calling you names, well, you don't support racial equality, you just support people not calling you names. "Embracing" is the political partisanship talking. Daring to conditionally defend is meriting the charges that ninazerg talked about. Dismissing people you want to call racists is a societal malaise. Cool story about tumblr, though, it really does seem you've chosen your mode of emulation well. Danglars, when I say you're being racist, or that Sessions is a racist, I'm not saying it as an easy way to be dismissive. I'm saying it because of the racism. It's not a shortcut, it's not because I have no other arguments to fall back on, it's not being used as a slur to attack anyone I don't like, it's because of the racism. There are lots of people on the left I don't like. And there are people like GH who will insist forever that game theory doesn't apply to first past the post elections to my endless frustration. I don't call them racists unless they're racist. Because of the racism. Please, please believe that I'm not dismissing you as a racist so I don't have to address your opinions. It'd be great if we had the luxury of dismissing racists and their racist opinions, but there are millions of you and you vote and you influence policy and it's a problem that we can't ignore. I'm not trying to call you names. I'm trying to get you to a point in your life where you go "hey, I seem to be getting called racist a lot right now, maybe I should look into that". But at some point some clever conservative commentator decided that he would become incredibly popular within his insular fan base by telling them that "racist" is nothing more than a slur and that you don't need to pay any attention to it when someone says it. Which, of course, is an incredibly comforting thing to hear in your position because it removes all personal accountability and need for introspection and places the blame firmly on the person calling you a racist. People fucking love lies that absolve them from blame and tell them what they always wanted to hear and so here we are, I say you're being racist, you immediately assume it's part of some attempt to dismiss you. It doesn't even cross your mind to take a look at your own beliefs and wonder why someone might think them racist. Honestly, we've been through this before. I claim your various assertions (that conservative posters here are racist, Trump supporters are mostly racists, people who didn't vote Obama are mostly racist) are puerile. You defend that calling everybody racists is justified because everybody's actually racist, and the solution is for people to be less goddamn racist. Kind of like your tumblr example, I can get along just fine if political partisans like yourself think I hate black people or feminist protestors think I'm anti-woman. Both opinions are laughably insane and will hurt your coalitions and political causes the longer you hold them. I'm working through my shock when people try to double-dip back into reasonable opinions ("we're not calling all Republicans barely removed from the KKK/neonazis/white supremacists"), after they've seen fit to label myself xDaunt and broad swaths of voting Americans racist bigots. It's not consistent, but I'm finding the rules get changed with every switch of political party in control. Good luck reaching the far left on this. You simply cannot expect a rational response, and the first rational responses from the left on this stuff won't be made to people on the right. Professor Lilla from Columbia (he's very liberal) has been criticizing the left regarding its overuse of identity politics ever since Trump won. He just released a book in which he elaborates on his thoughts, and is now making the rounds giving interviews to support the book. One of the most interesting and poignant things that I've seen him say is this: Show nested quote +One of your most important insights is that liberal politics, by becoming driven by identity, have largely ceased to be truly political, and have instead become effectively religious (“evangelical” is the word you use). Can you explain?
We are an evangelical people. How we ever got a reputation for practicality and common sense is a mystery historians will one day have to unravel. Facing up to problems, gauging their significance, gathering evidence, consulting with others, and testing out new approaches is not our thing. We much prefer to ignore problems until they become crises, undergo an inner conversion, write a gospel, preach it at the top of our lungs, cultivate disciples, demand repentance, predict the apocalypse, beat our plowshares into swords, and expect paradise as a reward. And we wonder why our system is dysfunctional…
Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people – African Americans, women – seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. It was about enfranchisement, a practical political goal reached by persuading others of the rightness of your cause. But by the 1980s this approach had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow self-definition. The new identity politics is expressive rather than persuasive. Even the slogans changed, from We shall overcome – a call to action – to I’m here, I’m queer – a call to nothing in particular. Identitarians became self-righteous, hypersensitive, denunciatory, and obsessed with trivial issues that have made them a national laughing stock (drawing up long lists of gender pronouns, condemning spaghetti and meatballs as cultural appropriation,…). This was politically disastrous and just played into the hands of Fox News.
What the new identitarians demand is more than mere recognition, though. They demand that you see this country exactly as they do, reach the same moral judgments about it, and confess your sins (which is what the word “privilege” is a secular euphemism for). The most recent books by Ta-Nahesi Coates and Michal Eric Dyson are quite explicit about this need for repentance. The subtitle of Dyson’s is A Sermon to White America. And the use of the term woke is a dead giveaway that we are in the mental universe of American evangelicalism not American politics. Source. This kinda puts the incoherent SJW nonsense that we see from the likes of Kwark, Plansix, and others in proper perspective, doesn't it?
I haven't seen you convincingly defend your claims, or attack any of the 'SJW nonsense' ever. I don't need ardently follow this thread, but certainly recently you just seem to evade and distract. Even the criticism you linked seems, to me, to be a criticism in terms of political expediency - not whether or not SJWs have a point. A lot of what I've seen you post seems like the sort of thing racists do post, and when Kwark and others challenge you you never directly respond.
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United States42965 Posts
It's okay Danglars, xDaunt said you're not racist, you're in the clear. Go ahead and dismiss any further accusations. But before you do that you need to return the favour. Doing anything else would be selfish. Please go ahead and assure xDaunt that he's definitely not racist. Then you can high five and go back to promoting white privilege within society.
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On August 17 2017 06:59 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:38 KwarK wrote:On August 17 2017 06:33 mozoku wrote:On August 17 2017 06:20 Plansix wrote:
mozoku: You might want to consider the idea that sexism and racism are ever present in our lives and combating them requires talking about them. Even progressives to racist things. The difference is that when we are called out on them, I don't see it as someone calling me a racists. Just that I did something that was racist, likely without meaning to. I think it's more a fundamental difference of how socially progressive 'conservatives' and socially progressive progressives see the world. I asked this question earlier: Is it racist to see a random Chinese person and a random white person and speculate that the Chinese person is probably better at Mahjong? Statistically, it's effectively demonstrable that the Chinese person is likely to be better at Mahjong. This creates a "stereotype" or a "prejudice" and would be considered racist by a lot of progressives I think. I don't see that as racist though. How society handles this a tradeoff: stereotypes are efficient/provide utility in a lot of ways (i.e. if you're making a bet), but they're also "unfair" in the sense that a white person has to provide extra evidence to prove he might be better at Mahjong that his Chinese opponent. Efficiency vs fairness is a value proposition that depends on individual judgment, or the collective judgment of many individuals when it comes to governance. It isn't as simple as "stereotypes" = immoral and bad. This doesn't at all excuse actual racists, and I denounce them whenever I'm confident I've found one. But when the Left starts calling everyone who has stereotypes as "racist" it dilutes the term because of what I said above. You're conflating a culturally specific skillset with character. I don't think it's racist to think that an Asian person is more likely to be familiar with a game that is historically Asian. I don't know anyone that would think that. But the concept of statistical populations and the differences between them aren't at all limited to Mahjong and cultural skillsets. For reasons that are likely at least partially due to historical injustices, crime rates among African Americans from the South Side of Chicago are x times higher than they are among the general US population. If I'm sitting on a train car with 5 African Americans from the South Side of Chicago, I can observe that I'm x times more likely to be the victim of a crime than if I were sitting among five random members of the general US population. Therefore, I feel more threatened on this train car. It's literally the same example as Mahjong, but now it's politically sensitive. No, it's not fair to the African Americans on the train. And I would be irrational to assume I'll likely be the victim of a crime on that train, since base crime rates are very low. But I'm still logically and mathematically justified in feeling more threatened on that train car than I would with 5 other random US citizens. Now does that mean we should treat African Americans differently? Again, that's a judgment between utility and fairness. Mathematically, I would be maximizing utility for myself in terms of safety by choosing the random train car passengers. It's irrational in terms of utility to choose the African American train car. On the other hand, I'm aware that the base probability of being a victim of a crime is still low, even on that train car, so I as a human being I don't mind being on the train car because I'm willing to sacrifice infinitesimal utility in the interest of avoiding a lot of unfairness. Where people fall on the scale of utility vs fairness is an individual issue that doesn't really jive with black and white morality. ----------- I'd like to highlight that I'm making a very technical argument out here. A lot of people who are accused of racism are just racists and are "deplorable." I don't think this argument applies to a lot of people that are accused of being racists. But, when you call someone racist for e.g. making the analysis that I just did, you begin to dilute the term racist imo.
The analysis is racist though. It completely neglects that arrest and conviction rates are NOT crime commission rates. We know for any crime people admit to that white people commit it at the same or higher rates than black people and yet are arrested and convicted at a far lower rate.
If you're on a train with 100 random Americans, there will be more white criminals on the train than black ones.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
So I'm kind of curious what people are trying to get at with the "elections have consequences" meme. Are we trying to say that all this is the fault of people who just weren't willing to suck it up and vote Hillary, that we could have avoided all this had we made the right choice? Or is something else meant entirely?
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It baffles me greatly how often religious-minded people try to discredit things by "reducing" their opposition to evangelicals. They'll say atheism is just as faith based as theism. Science is built on faith. Apparently identity politics is now a religion.
It's like this bizarre tacit argument that their own religious frameworks of belief are bunk, but at least the opposition is on an equally baseless level of bunk.
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Nazis in the street with a President spinning for them but the real problem is that progs talk too much about race.
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I think it means just that. This is what you voted for. Own it. Don't shift blame. This administration is a dumpster fire. Now it's on you to fix it.
The same would have been made if the left had won and it was equally as terrible (at least from me)
Danglars, I'm still waiting for an answer as to how you can defend trump based solely on his "presidential" actions alone, these ~200 days in office. What has he accomplished that you can say, "I'm proud I voted for him."?
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On August 17 2017 07:07 LegalLord wrote:
So I'm kind of curious what people are trying to get at with the "elections have consequences" meme. Are we trying to say that all this is the fault of people who just weren't willing to suck it up and vote Hillary, that we could have avoided all this had we made the right choice? Or is something else meant entirely?
In reference to Charlottesville?
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On August 17 2017 07:07 LegalLord wrote:
So I'm kind of curious what people are trying to get at with the "elections have consequences" meme. Are we trying to say that all this is the fault of people who just weren't willing to suck it up and vote Hillary, that we could have avoided all this had we made the right choice? Or is something else meant entirely?
Would Hillary have equivocated between SJWs and Nazis?
EDIT: would John McCain have equivocated for Nazis?
Yes, elections have consequences.
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On August 17 2017 07:07 WolfintheSheep wrote:
It baffles me greatly how often religious-minded people try to discredit things by "reducing" their opposition to evangelicals. They'll say atheism is just as faith based as theism. Science is built on faith. Apparently identity politics is now a religion.
It's like this bizarre tacit argument that their own religious frameworks of belief are bunk, but at least the opposition is on an equally baseless level of bunk.
All things reliant on language implicate faith, but yeah, the folks you're describing aren't getting at that 
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United States42965 Posts
It baffles me greatly that the claim that white people benefit from social advantages in modern America that black people do not is portrayed as some extreme leap of faith and not simply an observable fact. Only someone like xDaunt could insist that privilege is a religious belief.
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On August 17 2017 07:07 LegalLord wrote:
So I'm kind of curious what people are trying to get at with the "elections have consequences" meme. Are we trying to say that all this is the fault of people who just weren't willing to suck it up and vote Hillary, that we could have avoided all this had we made the right choice? Or is something else meant entirely?
If Hillary was elected, she would have her own personal collection of screw-ups. As would a Democrat congress/senate. Whether it would be better or worse is a different matter entirely.
But nonetheless, yes, the screw-ups that are happening in present day reality could have been avoided by a different election result.
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On August 17 2017 07:10 Wulfey_LA wrote:
Nazis in the street with a President spinning for them but the real problem is that progs talk too much about race.
I had a feeling my sig would be an evergreen.
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On August 17 2017 06:32 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:03 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:59 Plansix wrote:On August 17 2017 05:54 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:35 Plansix wrote:On August 17 2017 05:30 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:09 farvacola wrote:
Why would anyone who witnessed the Republican tact of "obstruct everything Obama does" opt to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a nuanced (lol) perspective on Trump? Y'all can't cry out that the well is poisoned while doing your best to avoid admitting that you may have poured some in not long ago. Now it really seems like your caterwauling about obstruction was envy that Republicans got to do it first. The Democrats haven’t stone walled anything beyond a health care bill they were not allowed to work on. Unless you counter the Supreme Court nominee, which everyone should have seen coming after 2016. Trumps appointments are now in line with Obamas for politics positions, but Schumer's invoked the 30hour rule for confirmations, obstructing to a pace that would have unconfirmed nominees four years later. Still up to their tricks. Do you think I am stupid? Do we really need to go over how much judges were held up by McConnell? Do we need to compare it to the last 40 years of history? He reaps what he sows. Get new leadership in the senate and maybe things might be nicer. But right now, the Turtle gets exactly what he asked for. Obamas had like 180 confirmed at this point, GWB 130, and Trump's got about the same appointed but only about 50 confirmed. Start accepting the results of an election you lost, and let Trump have a shot at having his political appointees run things. It's literally that simple. PS, elections have consequences, and the republican refusal to have a vote on garland as a resul tof the election was wrong. I presume you're still unable to admit that it was wrong and a blight upon the constitution and our democracy that the republicans did so. you don't get to complain about other people doing something YOU started.
"You don't get to have a staff in your executive wing" is a pretty extreme measure. You're emboldening the exact same play done right back at you. You never expect to win the executive again? Or are you just indifferent to escalation and shortsighted?
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United States42965 Posts
On August 17 2017 07:16 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2017 06:32 zlefin wrote:On August 17 2017 06:03 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:59 Plansix wrote:On August 17 2017 05:54 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:35 Plansix wrote:On August 17 2017 05:30 Danglars wrote:On August 17 2017 05:09 farvacola wrote:
Why would anyone who witnessed the Republican tact of "obstruct everything Obama does" opt to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a nuanced (lol) perspective on Trump? Y'all can't cry out that the well is poisoned while doing your best to avoid admitting that you may have poured some in not long ago. Now it really seems like your caterwauling about obstruction was envy that Republicans got to do it first. The Democrats haven’t stone walled anything beyond a health care bill they were not allowed to work on. Unless you counter the Supreme Court nominee, which everyone should have seen coming after 2016. Trumps appointments are now in line with Obamas for politics positions, but Schumer's invoked the 30hour rule for confirmations, obstructing to a pace that would have unconfirmed nominees four years later. Still up to their tricks. Do you think I am stupid? Do we really need to go over how much judges were held up by McConnell? Do we need to compare it to the last 40 years of history? He reaps what he sows. Get new leadership in the senate and maybe things might be nicer. But right now, the Turtle gets exactly what he asked for. Obamas had like 180 confirmed at this point, GWB 130, and Trump's got about the same appointed but only about 50 confirmed. Start accepting the results of an election you lost, and let Trump have a shot at having his political appointees run things. It's literally that simple. PS, elections have consequences, and the republican refusal to have a vote on garland as a resul tof the election was wrong. I presume you're still unable to admit that it was wrong and a blight upon the constitution and our democracy that the republicans did so. you don't get to complain about other people doing something YOU started. "You don't get to have a staff in your executive wing" is a pretty extreme measure. You're emboldening the exact same play done right back at you. You never expect to win the executive again? Or are you just indifferent to escalation and shortsighted?
He could try nominating some people with some kind of professional experience relating to the department they're meant to be managing. That might help.
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EPT
