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Originally Posted by rhaikh
What a worthless, low effort retort.

Scale matters, and history matters. To move past the racist history of the Republican party, they need to show something resembling remorse. What they've done instead, consistently since Nixon, is double down on the Southern strategy's play of stopping just on the other side of cutting out the Actual Racism from their dog whistle policies. They vote for a racist president, they happily take collection from certified racists, they present policies which measurably and surgically serve to disenfranchise minorities, they downplay the prevalence of racism - and the punchline is they get injured when we call it for what it is.

All the students involved in Evergreen should take a 10 hour lecture on freedom of speech and academic freedom.

All members of the Republican party should dissolve or acknowledge everything they've done to empower racism.


Low effort retorts are a natural response to low effort posts. You are the one who made the comparison of Evergreen to Southern Strategy, as if the two things somehow bore comparison, or the presence of one excused or somehow mitigated the other. Also, scale matters when examining the magnitude of effects of a particular incident - however scale is irrelevant when evaluating the moral implications of the same. If suddenly, only ten robberies occurred in a year, would it thereby become a moral act? Or perhaps less immoral than it previously had been, when thousands of robberies occurred in a year? I think not.

The problem with Evergreen is what it represents, and the fact that similar thoughts and sympathies currently infect the self-identifying left. Thus, when comparing, it should be a given that moral quality is the issue and not magnitude.

Your attitude towards people who hijack race for their own political gain and social power-grasping is obviously skewed in favor of those you feel a more general sense of comradery with. In this, at least, you are not dissimilar to the political bloc you are attempting to pillory. In fact, your typical responses to bad-faith actors closer to your own social-political sphere are "yeah they did X, but So-and-so did Y" which is rather similar, in my view, to how a certain Trump supporter around here responded to criticism of Trump with tales of what Hillary or Obama did. As is the presence of one had anything to do with the other. One coin, two sides. I find it particularly unimpressive because I also believe much of the GOP platform in recent years is garbage. However, instead of thinking that GOP garbage mitigates the garbage coming out of the new left, I instead feel somewhat depressed at the overwhelming amount of overall garbage.


As for talking about showing remorse, one has to wonder what good that would do? It seems to be an admission on your part that the goal going forward is not a re-alignment of policy, but rather, moralistic posturing.


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Originally Posted by Derid

Low effort retorts are a natural response to low effort posts. You are the one who made the comparison of Evergreen to Southern Strategy, as if the two things somehow bore comparison


They do in the context of this thread and the Atlantic article posted.


Originally Posted by Derid
or the presence of one excused or somehow mitigated the other


They don't, which is why I prescribed remedies for both.


Originally Posted by Derid
Also, scale matters when examining the magnitude of effects of a particular incident - however scale is irrelevant when evaluating the moral implications of the same. If suddenly, only ten robberies occurred in a year, would it thereby become a moral act? Or perhaps less immoral than it previously had been, when thousands of robberies occurred in a year? I think not.


I strongly disagree with this, and this is central to my point, because the actions of the Republican party are not discrete. They build upon a foundation of racist history and racially motivated political power, and without major reversal or acknowledgement of the damage done - universal Rubio-like affirmation - future policies which could reasonably be described as having racist effects might as well have all the moral implications of the racist policies from the civil rights era which they replaced.

Originally Posted by Derid
As for talking about showing remorse, one has to wonder what good that would do? It seems to be an admission on your part that the goal going forward is not a re-alignment of policy, but rather, moralistic posturing.


Again, when you remove facts and figures from your policy analysis, you have to accept what is left over. The policies of the current Republican party are about moralistic posturing, not about fixing problems and addressing reality, this is demonstrable. I would rather that all sides agree with the scientists, statisticians, and accountants before they come to the table offering moral posturing; but of all the remedies I've offered here, this seems the most unlikely to occur.


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There is a strong social norm that it is wrong to judge someone simply for how they were born. That is a good thing as it allows for stigmatization of actual racists. But now the left is abusing the same term we traditionally used for violating THAT norm, to describe 'Doing things one believe might contribute to inequality in society. These people will soon discover that accusations of racism carry no weight and have no stigma attached. You already can see this, as accusations of racism did nothing to harm Trump's standing.

More so, what constitutes 'things that might contribute to inequality in society' is not settled even on the left, least throughout wider society. Consequently, the more radical one's interpretation of this concept, the more opportunities one would have to accuse others of racism. Such misuse allows "Judge someone … how they were born" people to pretend they are being criticized for "Doing things … contribute to inequality" and normalize themselves within society. This is universally undesirable outcome and is largely the result of the radical left's misuse of Racism! label.


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Originally Posted by rhaikh

All members of the Republican party should dissolve or acknowledge everything they've done to empower racism.

Originally Posted by rhaikh

I strongly disagree with this, and this is central to my point, because the actions of the Republican party are not discrete. They build upon a foundation of racist history and racially motivated political power, and without major reversal or acknowledgement of the damage done - universal Rubio-like affirmation - future policies which could reasonably be described as having racist effects might as well have all the moral implications of the racist policies from the civil rights era which they replaced.


History is an awful place with many bad things done to many people. For example, democratic party supported slavery and impeded and even reversed reconstruction effort. Originally, KKK was an arm of Southern Democratic machine. Today all of this is irrelevant, as this isn't the same Democratic party.

What is not irrelevant is trying to paint entire movement of conservatism as racist. Not only this is grossly, maliciously inaccurate, it also prevents any kind of discourse or finding a common ground that is necessary to govern. Unless you think dissolution of The United States is a good thing, you shouldn't engage in such behavior or thinking.

---

Now, lets play a game. I will call out ideas, until Rhaikh loses it and calls me a racist, then I demonstrate how he is not justified in doing so.

1. Islam is NOT religion of peace



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I offer that common ground is truly made inaccessible by those denying the realities of history, and the dynamics of power which have resulted from them, from being presented as relevant to how we've ended up in our status quo. Modern conservatism wishes to maintain status quo using almost exclusively moralistic rhetoric, but refuses to acknowledge how we got there since it's morally dubious and inconvenient to their argument.

Religion is construct for the enforcement of morals and subduing progressivism, and as such cannot be fundamentally peaceful


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Originally Posted by Sini
History is an awful place with many bad things done to many people. For example, democratic party supported slavery and impeded and even reversed reconstruction effort. Originally, KKK was an arm of Southern Democratic machine. Today all of this is irrelevant, as this isn't the same Democratic party.


The ham fisted implication here being that neither is the Republican party, which is such a broad rewrite of history that I almost refused to acknowledge it, but here I am.


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Originally Posted by rhaikh
They do in the context of this thread and the Atlantic article posted.


And I answered to the relevant concern - the moral one. Just because there was an issue in the past with one side, is not reason to passively watch as a deadly cancer metastasizes and spreads on the other side.

Originally Posted by rhaikh
I strongly disagree with this, and this is central to my point, because the actions of the Republican party are not discrete. They build upon a foundation of racist history and racially motivated political power, and without major reversal or acknowledgement of the damage done - universal Rubio-like affirmation - future policies which could reasonably be described as having racist effects might as well have all the moral implications of the racist policies from the civil rights era which they replaced.


Racially motivated political power? I think you assume far too much about peoples motivations, which are generally far more selfish. Most of what you are calling actual racism, is actually just side effects of longstanding social and political jockeying. Just because Politician-A does something that say, impact all poor people in a negative way does not make them a racist, even if some minority groups have a higher percentage of poor people than majority group.

Let me ask you this - if more people who lacked proper ID voted GOP, would the GOP in some areas still be trying to institute voter ID laws? I think not. Therefore, though that policy is one I would agree is shitty, it doesn't follow that it is racially motivated.

Also, and this is the most important point: politics is complex. Many people who vote or voted GOP agree with many on the left about a great many things. However, there are still some things that the left and Democrats in particular wish to do that are drastically unpopular among large swaths of voters. Like Obamacare, anti-gun rights, abortion rights, and so forth. None of which touches of race. Same thing goes for tax policy, which most people will vote on based on reasons that have nothing to do with race.

To wit: just because many people do not put racial concerns as their over-riding issue by which they make political decisions, does not make them racist. (If they did, even the Democrats would look drastically different. For all their talk, it is still mostly that - talk. Minority vote is more or less taken for granted, to be perfectly honest about it. )


Originally Posted by rhaikh
Again, when you remove facts and figures from your policy analysis, you have to accept what is left over. The policies of the current Republican party are about moralistic posturing, not about fixing problems and addressing reality, this is demonstrable. I would rather that all sides agree with the scientists, statisticians, and accountants before they come to the table offering moral posturing; but of all the remedies I've offered here, this seems the most unlikely to occur.


Neither major party has much of anything positive to offer the world at the moment. What is your point? That the Deep South GOP has more recently been racist than an equivalent percentage of Democrats? Ok, fine - point granted. It still doesn't make most contemporary GOPers racist, and it still doesn't make the moralistic flag-waving by the new left any better. Its mostly all cynical posturing and social power-grabbing on both sides.


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Originally Posted by Sini
There is a strong social norm that it is wrong to judge someone simply for how they were born. That is a good thing as it allows for stigmatization of actual racists. But now the left is abusing the same term we traditionally used for violating THAT norm, to describe 'Doing things one believe might contribute to inequality in society. These people will soon discover that accusations of racism carry no weight and have no stigma attached. You already can see this, as accusations of racism did nothing to harm Trump's standing.



Much this. I can't imagine Trump's racist shenanigans having no impact on election if it wasn't for the bitter ACA fight, where far too many loud voices tried to pin opposition to Obama's policies and legislative prerogatives on the fact that Obama has some African descent, which was absurd. In retrospect, I think this is really where both sides started to break down and start terminally malfunctioning. Both the left and the right spin machines went into overdrive, with neither caring much for objectivity nor sanity any longer. When opposing the president becomes racist, then suddenly half the country is racist, and it no longer carries the same stigma. (edited to change /seriously malfunctioning/ to /terminally/ - our political system began to seriously malfunction after the NYC Twin Towers)


Of course, after Romney lost is when the right continued a decoupling from any objective reality in terms of policy or rhetoric. The patient has taken over the asylum, and conservative talk radio is now the tail wagging the dog... and the results aren't pretty.

As an aside, I don't find it a coincidence that both Hillary and Romney were expected to win (at least by their own party, though Hillary by mostly everyone) leading to inner complacency - followed by an immense inner breakdown and loss of whatever sanity each party had left, after their respective failures.



Last edited by Derid; 04/30/18 08:34 PM.

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Originally Posted by Derid
And I answered to the relevant concern - the moral one. Just because there was an issue in the past with one side, is not reason to passively watch as a deadly cancer metastasizes and spreads on the other side.


Yet again you ascribe dichotomy where none exists.

Originally Posted by Derid
I think you assume far too much about peoples motivations, which are generally far more selfish.


Both racism, and unexamined privilege, are side effects of narcissism and selfishness.

Originally Posted by Derid
if more people who lacked proper ID voted GOP, would the GOP in some areas still be trying to institute voter ID laws?


This question is a tangent. The right question is, why are the people who are effectively disenfranchised by voter ID laws minorities? I've already provided the answer.

Originally Posted by Derid
Also, and this is the most important point: politics is complex.


I agree. Which is why, to move on from constant claims of racism, which were accurate in the past and have provided the Republicans a position of power, they need to now actively disclaim it. The GOP needs to affirm the realities of the situation and it needs to analyze their policies from this perspective. Which they blanketly, historically and contemporaneously not only refuse to do, but backpedal and complain that the notion that this is in any way necessary is in itself unfair. It denies the common ground as I said above.


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Originally Posted by rhaikh
Yet again you ascribe dichotomy where none exists.


Dichotomy exists in how you and many SIL (self-identifying leftists) treat the situation, occasionally publicly reprimanding some of your more psychotic brethren in a gentle manner with a wink and a nod that signifies you actually mostly approve of the behavior. Similar in many regards to how the larger conservative movement would occasionally chide, but generally encouraged its own brand of wingnuts. We saw how that ended up, its currently sitting in the White House. Would like to believe the SIL would learn from this example before its too late.

Originally Posted by rhaikh
Both racism, and unexamined privilege, are side effects of narcissism and selfishness.


Actually, fear lies at the heart of most actual racism. Sure, narcissism and selfishness are not precluded from influencing racism by any means, but to say racism is a side effect thereof is wholly incorrect. Besides, selfishness is inherent in all humans.

Also, the left lost any qualifications to have meaningful conversation about 'privilege' when it collectively decided that the ultimate answer to perception of privilege was tear others down instead of build others up.

Originally Posted by rhaikh
This question is a tangent. The right question is, why are the people who are effectively disenfranchised by voter ID laws minorities? I've already provided the answer.


Incorrect, on both counts. You are ignoring cause and effect here. Both parties are happy to disenfranchise and abuse anyone if they can achieve their goals in the process. When politics devolves to zero sum game, this is result.

Originally Posted by rhaikh
Which is why, to move on from constant claims of racism, which were accurate in the past and have provided the Republicans a position of power, they need to now actively disclaim it. The GOP needs to affirm the realities of the situation and it needs to analyze their policies from this perspective. Which they blanketly, historically and contemporaneously not only refuse to do, but backpedal and complain that the notion that this is in any way necessary is in itself unfair. It denies the common ground as I said above.


GOP disavowed racism for years, but its just words. Words you don't seem to take seriously, and in this aspect, I don't particularly blame you. Doesn't change the fact that accusations of racism are ultimately politically motivated for posturing and advantage, and in most regards, the Democratic party is not much better when it comes to policies that have racial disparity in outcomes. Isn't it somehow odd that elements of GOP were the ones spearheading political efforts to bring some sanity to racially disproportionate DOJ practices? Efforts that Obama and most Democrats received in a very lukewarm manner, because political considerations were king and allowing the GOP to take any credit for race issues would be rather counter productive to Dem goals of maintaining iron grip on minority voting blocs.

Both parties actually operate in much the same manner, using similar calculus. Singling one party, and especially conservatives in general, out as racist due to some realpolitik matters from half a century ago is somewhat disingenuous. Just because the GOP is shitty, and racism is shitty, it does not follow that the GOP is racist.


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