So let people hate women, but punish them when they break a law.

Why not let people hate other races, but then just punish them when the break a law?

Isn't this the answer? Strictly enforce laws and make sure that the laws enforce equality but don't bother trying to change people from being racist. As long as they're not hurting someone, unduly denying someone a home or a job, or doing any of the other shit that's against the law, what's the problem?

And if they are doing that shit, then punish them. BAM, we have a society where people can stop worrying about whether someone else says the "N-word" or hates white people.

2/5/2010 5:03:34 PM

Quote :

"all racists are conservatives"

lolwut? oh shit why the hell did i address a mambagrl post

2/5/2010 5:26:06 PM

^^I know you really like that approach, disco_stu. You talk about it a lot, and I can see how it would be compelling.

Some of us prefer the education/protesting approach. I mean, if a dude gets on TV and claims homosexuals are destroying America, some of us have to talk about it. If a religious leader advises men to monitor and correct their wives' behavior, I'ma have to talk about it. If a neighborhood holds a meeting to discuss concerns about property values after two Latino families move in, we gotta say something. We can't just sit back and ignore it...it's impossible to ignore.

I know I get overly excited about calling people out and getting in their faces for being racist, and I certainly can do better in this regard, but there are positive ways to promote self-awareness when it comes to prejudice. And it's not even really about changing people from being racist, just tryna make people aware so the playing field will level a bit...if teachers and cops and bankers and store owners prance along all blissfully unaware, we shouldn't be surprised if nothing ever changes.

2/5/2010 5:33:39 PM

^^racism in itself is a conservative quality. I'm not sure what else to say. Racism in this country was held on to big time by the republican party which was made up of many kkk members. The same politicians that fought hard against the civil rights movement have fought hard against social reform to this day. Its no surprise conservatives don't want the federal government meddling in state affairs (slavary, segregation, welfare, education, etc) and its also no surprise a very minute number of minorities associate themselves with conservatives or the republican party. now im not saying all are racists because there are other factor but the vast majority of them are conservatives.

^religions are not the same thing as races and you are treating them as if they are. Sure, there are racists everywhere but there isn't institutionalized racism in these countries. We are only 40 something years removed from slavery in this country. Thats a huge difference than not being able to build a fancy chimney at your place of worship.


You are also stuck in the american frame of mind of freedom of religion and everyone should have a right to practice their religion. Well thats just what our authors thought and doesn't make it the way of the world. In predominately atheist left nations, religion is viewed as the greatest source of evil and it needs to be held in check.

Quote :

"You were arguing about "socialist" nations, not where they were located"

socialist is a general term. techinically we could be considered as socialist. its all relative which is why i named specific countries that i was talking about and then named other specific nations that were "socialist" like us. hell, why do you think there is usage of "swiss banks" they don't even have tax evasion laws.

2/5/2010 8:27:38 PM

Quote :

"mambagrl: ^religions are not the same thing as races and you are treating them as if they are."

No, I'm not.

Quote :

"mambagrl: Sure, there are racists everywhere but there isn't institutionalized racism in these countries."

Please describe what you mean by "institutionalized racism."

I'm not sure you know what the fuck you are talking about.

Quote :

"mambagrl: We are only 40 something years removed from slavery in this country. Thats a huge difference than not being able to build a fancy chimney at your place of worship."

A little more than 40, but WTF are you trying to say here anyway?

It's like you're arguing a point that I never made.

Quote :

"mambagrl: You are also stuck in the american frame of mind of freedom of religion and everyone should have a right to practice their religion. Well thats just what our authors thought and doesn't make it the way of the world. In predominately atheist left nations, religion is viewed as the greatest source of evil and it needs to be held in check."

Freedom of religion is not an American frame of mind. If some Europeans have somehow deluded themselves into thinking religious oppression is okay, that doesn't make "freedom of religion" an American concept. In fact, it's a human concept...we wrote it down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights following the fucking Holocaust.

Quote :

"mambagrl: socialist is a general term. techinically we could be considered as socialist. its all relative which is why i named specific countries that i was talking about and then named other specific nations that were "socialist" like us. hell, why do you think there is usage of "swiss banks" they don't even have tax evasion laws."

I'm not going to argue about just how socialist Switzerland is. I think it's more like Denmark/Sweden than the United States...you're going to tell me I'm wrong so you can have something to say.

By the way, I like socialism, and I don't like "institutional oppression." We agree here.

I'm disagreeing with any point you make that relies on comparing the United States of America to Sweden and Denmark. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?

2/5/2010 8:46:56 PM

Quote :

"I'm disagreeing with any point you make that relies on comparing the United States of America to Sweden and Denmark. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?"

Thats where you go wrong. Capitalism is a system in which the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. If you've had racism the victims of said racism continue to feel its effects for generations to come because wealth is not being redistributed.

In welfare states, redistribution of wealth would cancel out institutionalized racism. The point most people miss and this is the bigun is that just beause slavery segregation and denial of basic civil rights has been outlawed, doesn't mean people aren't still feeling the effects of institutionalized racsim because in capitalism, once you knock somebody down, they are down until you pick them back up again.

So in essence, there still is institutionalized racism in the us on a major scale until wealth is redistributed.

Redistribution of wealth doesn't even need to be done for a certain group of victims either. In Sweden, anyone who was a former victim of any type of opression doens't feel the lingering effects nearly as long and certainly not into the next generation because everyone is granted a high quality of life (education, healthcare and basic needs)

2/5/2010 9:03:52 PM

Quote :

"Capitalism is a system in which the rich get richer and the poor stay poor."

ahahah, because the poor in the former USSR, DDR, Communist China and Communist Vietnam as well as the present day PRK are/were doing so much better than the poor in the Western world.

2/5/2010 10:15:06 PM

who mentioned china, cccb, or communism?

2/5/2010 10:28:09 PM

^^ those are communist countries. it's easy to point at failed systems, generalize your opponent's position, and claim victory.

but the more socialist-leaning countries with representative democracies, such as Sweden Netherlands Finland Germany Belgium etc., all have higher overall quality of life and standards of living than the US. As measured by any metric.

2/5/2010 10:52:54 PM

They're also all "capitalist" economies, which is what I was responding to. It is entirely possible to have a nation with a functioning social safety net and still have a functioning free market.

Switzerland is actually a pretty good example as it mandates that all citizens purchase health care and mandates that companies may not make a profit on said health care. It also has over 200 companies competing for health care business and the subsequent non-basic add ons (other forms of non-regulated / non-mandatory insurance) which the companies can make a profit on. (For the record, the only politician I've heard bring up this possibility has been Al Franken).


If you're going to make the asinine assertion that the poor in all capitalist countries get poorer, you need to demonstrate that they do, in fact, get poorer relative to their initial state. Instead the argument is based on the idea that the rich get richer and the poor don't get richer as fast, which ignores the fact that the poor in western free markets have almost universally fared better than those in command economies. We're dying because of hyper-consumption of food, not starvation (a situation which is, ironically from the command economy standpoint, partially enabled by the subsidization of corn farmers by the Federal Government).

2/6/2010 1:26:57 PM

who the fuck are you talking to?

2/6/2010 4:08:09 PM

Quote :

"^^racism in itself is a conservative quality. I'm not sure what else to say. Racism in this country was held on to big time by the republican party which was made up of many kkk members. The same politicians that fought hard against the civil rights movement have fought hard against social reform to this day. Its no surprise conservatives don't want the federal government meddling in state affairs (slavary, segregation, welfare, education, etc) and its also no surprise a very minute number of minorities associate themselves with conservatives or the republican party. now im not saying all are racists because there are other factor but the vast majority of them are conservatives."

"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

-- Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate", in a letter written in 1944, after he quit the KKK.

More documented quotes here, starting from Co-founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson, until present leadership:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110011033

P.S. I'm black and conservative.

2/6/2010 6:54:55 PM

Like I said, I'm sure there are exceptions. Just the same way you are a black conservative.

2/6/2010 6:56:32 PM

Just gonna leave this here for the whole "Why can't Black people just move past skin color like White people have?" people in this thread:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3263388

2/7/2010 5:59:32 PM

Quote :

"Just gonna leave this here for the whole "Why can't Black people just move past skin color like White people have?" people in this thread:"

wait what? White people have moved past skin color? cool! That was part of the problem...so i guess we're half way there!

2/8/2010 3:13:49 PM

We agreed on it at the last meeting. You aren't invited to our meetings because you're not white.

Quite a dichotomy we have here.

2/8/2010 3:44:58 PM

Quote :

"Some of us prefer the education/protesting approach. I mean, if a dude gets on TV and claims homosexuals are destroying America, some of us have to talk about it. If a religious leader advises men to monitor and correct their wives' behavior, I'ma have to talk about it. If a neighborhood holds a meeting to discuss concerns about property values after two Latino families move in, we gotta say something. We can't just sit back and ignore it...it's impossible to ignore."

I don't see why it can't be ignored, unless your end-goal is to tell other people how they should and shouldn't think. There is nothing wrong for stating your opinion on TV, in a pulpit, or in a community meeting, even if your opinion is racist.

Just like there is nothing wrong with pulling said TV show's sponsorship because you don't want to be associated with a show that spouts racism. Or leaving a congregation that supports racism. Or not attending stupid neighborhood meetings...etc...Our society already fairly firmly rejects racism.

Anything that can't be addressed by law does not need to be addressed.

2/8/2010 4:14:58 PM

i thought this was an appropriate place to post:

Quote :

"How to Raise Racist Kids Step One: Don’t talk about race. Don’t point out skin color. Be “color blind.” Step Two: Actually, that’s it. There is no Step Two. Congratulations! Your children are well on their way to believing that <insert your ethnicity here> is better than everybody else. Surprised? So were authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman when they started researching the issue of kids and race for their book NurtureShock. It turns out that a lot of our assumptions about raising our kids to appreciate diversity are entirely wrong: It is tempting to believe that because their generation is so diverse, today’s children grow up knowing how to get along with people of every race. But numerous studies suggest that this is more of a fantasy than a fact. Since it’s Black History Month, I thought it would be a good time to talk about race, particularly some of the startling things I found in this particular chapter of NurtureShock. What Bronson and Merryman discovered, through various studies, was that most white parents don’t ever talk to their kids about race. The attitude (at least of those who think racism is wrong) is generally that because we want our kids to be color-blind, we don’t point out skin color. We’ll say things like “everybody’s equal” but find it hard to be more specific than that. If our kids point out somebody who looks different, we shush them and tell them it’s rude to talk about it. We think that simply putting our kids in a diverse environment will teach them that diversity is natural and good. And what are they learning? Here are a few depressing facts: * Only 8% of white American high-schoolers have a best friend of another race. (For blacks, it’s about 15%.) * The more diverse a school is, the less likely it is that kids will form cross-race friendships. * 75% of white parents never or almost never talk about race with their kids. * A child’s attitudes toward race are much harder to alter after third grade, but a lot of parents wait until then (or later) before they feel it’s “safe” to talk frankly about race. We’re very comfortable now talking to our kids about gender stereotypes: we tell our kids that women can be doctors and lawyers. Heck, Barbie can be a computer engineer! What Bronson and Merryman point out is that we should say the same thing about race: doctors can be any skin color. A (half-)black man can be President. Black people can be very cool geeks. So, in honor of Black History Month, talk to your kids about race. Need some help? Parenting.com recently posted 5 Tips for Talking About Racism With Kids. I would argue, though, that “most important” should be say something, because simply “being a role model” is apparently not having the effect we think it does. Oh, and also? Make sure if you use that eggs analogy that your kids don’t think you’re encouraging them to crack people open. "

http://tinyurl.com/yern3d4

[Edited on February 20, 2010 at 10:28 PM. Reason : title]

2/20/2010 10:28:00 PM

Quote :

"disco_stu: I don't see why it can't be ignored, unless your end-goal is to tell other people how they should and shouldn't think. There is nothing wrong for stating your opinion on TV, in a pulpit, or in a community meeting, even if your opinion is racist. Just like there is nothing wrong with pulling said TV show's sponsorship because you don't want to be associated with a show that spouts racism. Or leaving a congregation that supports racism. Or not attending stupid neighborhood meetings...etc...Our society already fairly firmly rejects racism. Anything that can't be addressed by law does not need to be addressed."

If there is nothing wrong with stating your opinion on TV, in a pulpit, or in a community meeting (even if your opinion is racist), then why are you saying there is something wrong with me for wanting to state my opinions agains the superracist dude's opinions. Since their opinions can't be addressed by law, they don't need to be addressed? We can't even address their opinions with other opinions? The only people who can express their opinions are racist people, and everybody else needs to shut the fuck up since the law can't address the racist people?

What is wrong with your brain?

2/20/2010 10:53:45 PM

Quote :

"ahahah, because the poor in the former USSR, DDR, Communist China and Communist Vietnam as well as the present day PRK are/were doing so much better than the poor in the Western world."

state capitalism

[Edited on February 21, 2010 at 3:25 AM. Reason : .]

2/21/2010 3:25:39 AM