Protecting the truly important stuff
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@Sutherlands said:
Are you saying you heard all about TM and GZ, but not that TM beat his head against the sidewalk?
Yeah, nothing at all. Not a peep. The picture in my mind up until this thread was that GZ was 100% the aggressor and TM tried to defend himself with a ziplock bag of weed or something.
Now, I haven't done any active research either, just the cliffnotes that diffused their way into my sphere.
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@Snooder said:
@FrostCat said:
@RobFreundlich said:
@Sutherlands said:
Talking to someone about what they're doing in your neighborhood is not illegal, and should not be, and I would encourage it from anyone in my neighborhood. I'd much prefer that to someone calling the police if they don't recognize someone.
Me too. But once you call the police, you have to do what they advise. Zimmerman placed the call, and then ignored their advice.
Except that that's not true in this case: the dispatcher has made clear she was NOT giving him instructions, just suggestions. They carry no legal weight, and Zimmerman was not bound to follow them.
The point isn't whether they have legal weight or not, it's that it was good advice and Zimmerman chose not to follow it. It's his right and perogative to do so, but the ultimate result of his decision was that a 17 year old died.No, you dumb fuck, Trayvon Martin died because he picked a fight with Zimmerman. I'm beginning to understand why people like Blakey and Morbs are always screaming around here--it's because of the stone-cold weapons-grade stupidity and imperviousness to reason displayed by people like you.
Zimmerman didn't have to follow Martin around. Martin--let's see if you can get this through your thick skull--didn't have to double back and confront Zimmermand. If he had just gone home and stayed there--or called 911 himself and said "I'm walking back from the store and some guy's following me"--he'd still be alive. Of course he wasn't going to do the latter, because he had just bought the makings of a nice high.
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@dhromed said:
@Sutherlands said:
Are you saying you heard all about TM and GZ, but not that TM beat his head against the sidewalk?
Yeah, nothing at all. Not a peep. The picture in my mind up until this thread was that GZ was 100% the aggressor and TM tried to defend himself with a ziplock bag of weed or something.
Now, I haven't done any active research either, just the cliffnotes that diffused their way into my sphere.
Well, then, you seriously need to go back and find out what actually happened. Zimmerman lost Martin and headed back to his car. On his way back, Martin had turned around and confronted Zimmerman, then knocked him down, straddled him, and started pounding his head into the sidewalk.
The only possible justification for that is Rachel Jeantel's supposition that Zimmerman, a "creepy ass-cracker[1]," was a potential homosexual rapist. But nobody in the media wants to examine that too closely, because for that to have been a justification for Martin to beat up Zimmerman, then homophobia is OK when it comes from black people. Anyone wanna open that can of worms?
[1] I hyphenate it this way, instead of the more usual "creepy-ass cracker," because Jeantel insisted "cracker" wasn't a racist term, but (by implication) a homophobic one.
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@FrostCat said:
@Snooder said:
@FrostCat said:
@RobFreundlich said:
@Sutherlands said:
Talking to someone about what they're doing in your neighborhood is not illegal, and should not be, and I would encourage it from anyone in my neighborhood. I'd much prefer that to someone calling the police if they don't recognize someone.
Me too. But once you call the police, you have to do what they advise. Zimmerman placed the call, and then ignored their advice.
Except that that's not true in this case: the dispatcher has made clear she was NOT giving him instructions, just suggestions. They carry no legal weight, and Zimmerman was not bound to follow them.
The point isn't whether they have legal weight or not, it's that it was good advice and Zimmerman chose not to follow it. It's his right and perogative to do so, but the ultimate result of his decision was that a 17 year old died.No, you dumb fuck, Trayvon Martin died because he picked a fight with Zimmerman. I'm beginning to understand why people like Blakey and Morbs are always screaming around here--it's because of the stone-cold weapons-grade stupidity and imperviousness to reason displayed by people like you.
Zimmerman didn't have to follow Martin around. Martin--let's see if you can get this through your thick skull--didn't have to double back and confront Zimmermand. If he had just gone home and stayed there--or called 911 himself and said "I'm walking back from the store and some guy's following me"--he'd still be alive. Of course he wasn't going to do the latter, because he had just bought the makings of a nice high.
As I have said earlier in this thread, Martin's choice to confront Zimmerman was also a poor one. They both made poor decisions.
Look, I'm not arguing against the verdict. Nor am I saying that Martin was a saint or that Zimmerman was a villain. All I'm saying is, two people made unfortunate decisions that resulted in someone's death. Either or both of them could have chosen not to escalate the situation.
And saying shit like "he had just bought the makings of a nice high" or "Martin was a dangerous thug" about the guy who died is just fucking unbelievably asshole-ish. To the point where you have to start wondering whether the person saying it is just that much of an asshole in general, or reserves his assholery just for dead black guys.
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@Snooder said:
And saying shit like "he had just bought the makings of a nice high" or "Martin was a dangerous thug" about the guy who died is just fucking unbelievably asshole-ish. To the point where you have to start wondering whether the person saying it is just that much of an asshole in general, or reserves his assholery just for dead black guys.
I'm sorry, but any person who, for any reason, thinks it's OK to bash a man's head against the pavement, under any circumstances, is a dangerous thug.
Edit: Yes, even in self-defense. As someone else already mentioned, if you're in a position to bash someone's head into the pavement - you've already won the fight. At this point you're attempting homicide.
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@joe.edwards said:
I'm sorry, but any person who, for any reason, thinks it's OK to bash a man's head against the pavement, under any circumstances, is a dangerous thug.
Edit: Yes, even in self-defense. As someone else already mentioned, if you're in a position to bash someone's head into the pavement - you've already won the fight. At this point you're attempting homicide.
Ok, that's a decent clarification of your stance. I respectfully disagree, because I think trying to second-guess decisions like that made in the heat of a fight is always fraught with peril, but I can understand where you are coming from. I still think it's a bit assholey to say it, since he is dead and all, but at a much more believe and understand level than the rabid douchery it seemed at first.
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@FrostCat said:
[1] I hyphenate it this way, instead of the more usual "creepy-ass cracker," because Jeantel insisted "cracker" wasn't a racist term, but (by implication) a homophobic one.
Personally I like to think the defense lost the case because the jury was offended that their intelligence was insulted in this way.
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@joe.edwards said:
I'm sorry, but any person who, for any reason, thinks it's OK to bash a man's head against the pavement, under any circumstances, is a dangerous thug.
Lots of 17 year old boys are aggressive, have poor anger management skills, poor risk assessment skills, and act without adequately considering the consequences. Most of us were lucky enough to have the opportunity to grow out of that. From the tone of many of the comments here, it seems that some of us have failed to take full advantage of that opportunity.
GZ shooting TM was a tragedy, not some God-given opportunity for a bunch of finger-wagging greater Internet fuckwads to out-tough-talk each other. Crowing about the death of a 17 year old boy who has been killed as a consequence of doing something aggressive and stupid - that is, behaving like a 17 year old boy - is immature, obnoxious, spiteful, disrespectful to the boy's grieving family and completely unnecessary.
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@flabdablet said:
Lots of 17 year old boys are aggressive, have poor anger management skills, poor risk assessment skills, and act without adequately considering the consequences. Most of us were lucky enough to have the opportunity to grow out of that. From the tone of many of the comments here, it seems that some of us have failed to take full advantage of that opportunity.
True, but I can't think of a single one that I knew personally that bashed someone's head against the pavement and said to that person "You're going to die tonight."@flabdablet said:
GZ shooting TM was a tragedy, not some God-given opportunity for a bunch of finger-wagging greater Internet fuckwads to out-tough-talk each other. Crowing about the death of a 17 year old boy who has been killed as a consequence of doing something aggressive and stupid - that is, behaving like a 17 year old boy - is immature, obnoxious, spiteful, disrespectful to the boy's grieving family and completely unnecessary.
I can't think of a single person that is celebrating his death. The closest you have is morbs, who basically said it's better that he die than kill someone else (and he likely would have that night had GZ not had a gun). What most of the people that you're arguing against are doing is correcting all the misconceptions and misinformation that people have, and NOT blaming the victim. What people that you're arguing for are doing is saying "well he got beat up, but it was his fault," which is the exact opposite as if it had been a woman that got raped. The sides seem to be:Pro-TM: GZ caused this by following an innocent boy just because he was black! *Wild speculation about the events and false posturing about Stand Your Ground that doesn't apply*
Pro-GZ: GZ did nothing illegal, was not a racist, and only shot TM to defend his life from almost certain death after TM viciously attacked him. GZ was determined not-guilty by a jury of his peers, and the original case and all the "cases" now are race-baiting.
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@Snooder said:
And saying shit like "he had just bought the makings of a nice high" or "Martin was a dangerous thug" about the guy who died is just fucking unbelievably asshole-ish. To the point where you have to start wondering whether the person saying it is just that much of an asshole in general, or reserves his assholery just for dead black guy.No it's not, it's an accurate statement of what happened, and your attempts to shut down the conversation by screaming "RACIST!" are noted.
Martin had been repeatedly been in trouble for criminal activity. His twitter and phone and facebook feeds show he was using drugs and looking to obtain a gun. He was caught in possession of stolen jewelry. The stuff he'd bought at the store was all stuff that could be mixed with drugs. (Iced tea + skittles + codeine. Look up lean.) He'd apparently gotten someone to buy him a cigar, too, of a kind that is basically only used for smoking pot.
None of this means he deserved to die. But his unfortunate choice--to engage in an unprovoked attack that appeared to have the aim of deliberately killing someone--was far worse than Zimmermans.
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@Snooder said:
Ok, that's a decent clarification of your stance. I respectfully disagree, because I think trying to second-guess decisions like that made in the heat of a fight is always fraught with peril, but I can understand where you are coming from. I still think it's a bit assholey to say it, since he is dead and all, but at a much more believe and understand level than the rabid douchery it seemed at first.I was going to make a snarky comment about Stalin, but fortunately, you opined it's assholey to speak ill of the dead, even if they're a bad person.
You know what the real problem is? 50+ years of Progressive/liberal culture destroying the family unit of inner-city people, particularly Blacks. They're inherently stupider or more violent than any other race, but they got a raw deal when they let themselves be convinced being wards of the state wasn't a bad thing. "Obeying the law be white." This is possibly the most moronic thing anyone has ever said anywhere. Are the Black people in Europe, who seem to get along decently with the Whites, race traitors? Were the grandparents of the current generation?
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@heterodox said:
@FrostCat said:
[1] I hyphenate it this way, instead of the more usual "creepy-ass cracker," because Jeantel insisted "cracker" wasn't a racist term, but (by implication) a homophobic one.
Personally I like to think the defense lost the case because the jury was offended that their intelligence was insulted in this way.
Well, the prosecution lost, but whatever. Jeantel was the worst of a bad[1] lot of witnesses.
[1] For the prosecution, that is. Witness after witness was called up to paint Zimmerman as an angry, racist control freak cop wannabe, and they all debunked that picture the prosecution tried to make.
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@Sutherlands said:
Pro-TM: GZ caused this by following an innocent boy just because he was black! *Wild speculation about the events and false posturing about Stand Your Ground that doesn't apply*
Pro-GZ: GZ did nothing illegal, was not a racist, and only shot TM to defend his life from almost certain death after TM viciously attacked him. GZ was determined not-guilty by a jury of his peers, and the original case and all the "cases" now are race-baiting.
BTW, Stand Your Ground, which, as has been said, wasn't relevant here, is actually GOOD for blacks. In Florida, where they make up ~1/6 the population, they have successfully used it to defend themselves in ~1/3 of the cases where it was used as a defense.
There's nothing whatsoever controversial about SYG to anyone with a couple of functioning brain cells who believes you have the right to protect yourself from someone attacking you, even if you wind up using disproportionate force. The idea of proportionate response is absolutely insane. If a guy breaks into your house or place of business, you're not dealing with a fucking <I>duel</I>! You're dealing with someone who, as far as you know, wants to kill you! If you can subdue or drive him off without killing him, well, that's great, but if you have to do so, well, then do what you fucking have to do!
In places where SYG isn't the law, you wind up with absurd cases like, a guy working in a store is confronted by a robber. He runs into the back storeroom, where he's followed, and he shoots the robber. The robber sues him, and has a better lawyer, who says to the jury, "here's a picture of the storeroom. See that little window up at the ceiling? In theory, the storekeeper could've climbed out that window, and he didn't. Therefore, he didn't follow his duty to retreat, therefore he was not justified in shooting my client." If you're in a real fight for your life, you don't have the luxury of coolly analyzing whether you have safe, viable retreat points, but a good lawyer can, in the calmness of a courtroom, claim that you should have been able to, and could put you in jail for years for trying to keep someone from killing you. You tell me how that's just.
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@Snooder said:
... was that a 17 year old died.
Quickie Q - why do all the media photos of TM protray him as an angelic 12 yr-old? Where are all the more recent photos of him as a 17 yr-old? Surely in this era of facebook et alia there must be at least one....
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@Sutherlands said:
Are you saying you heard all about TM and GZ
I read that and thought you were talking about timezone handling. Which is very WTFy, but off-topic by even the standards of this particular discussion.
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@Sutherlands said:
What most of the people that you're arguing against are doing is correcting all the misconceptions and misinformation that people have
If that's the aim, a gentle reminder that Wikipedia exists, as do these photos, seems sufficient to me. There is absolutely no need for all the sturm und drang and the taking of sides. This was a nasty little street fight ending in death, not a fucking baseball game.
@Sutherlands said:
NOT blaming the victim.
Insistent characterisation of the boy who got shot as an irredeemable thug is absolutely "blaming the victim". So is painting the man who shot him as a dickhead vigilante. People who attach their names to writing that does either of these things do their own credibility a disservice.
None of us were there. None of us knows exactly how the tragedy unfolded. None of us knows what was in the minds of the only two people who did, and now nobody is ever going to know what was going on in the dead boy's head.
Many of us apparently think we know what happened because we've heard a snippet of phone log audio or seen a snippet of surveillance video. We don't know. We weren't even on the jury, so we haven't even seen all of such evidence as is available.
None of us is justified in passing judgement on the character of the two people involved. If we went off half-cocked like this when debugging, we'd never find a defect and code doesn't even matter compared to the violent death of a person.
There is a fully justifiable target for rage and anger here: those in the media who decided to spin this story in ways devoted not to furthering the public interest they piously claim to serve, but to maximising outrage and therefore media revenue. Those people are genuine thugs, and they're still doing that with every story that comes across their desks, every. fucking. day. And just because that kind of manipulation is glaringly obvious when it comes from outlets whose ideology doesn't fit your own, that doesn't mean your own favoured media are squeaky clean: far from it. If you're furious about something you heard on the news or read in the paper, there's a 90% chance you got that way because somebody wanted you to.
The media don't serve the public. Perhaps they once did; they don't any more. The media serve the media. It pays not to forget it.
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@FrostCat said:
@Snooder said:
And saying shit like "he had just bought the makings of a nice high" or "Martin was a dangerous thug" about the guy who died is just fucking unbelievably asshole-ish. To the point where you have to start wondering whether the person saying it is just that much of an asshole in general, or reserves his assholery just for dead black guy.No it's not, it's an accurate statement of what happened, and your attempts to shut down the conversation by screaming "RACIST!" are noted.
To my way of thinking, there's a huge difference between attempting to shut down a conversation by screaming "RACIST!" (which in any case is not happening here; the conversation is ongoing) and wondering whether somebody who has passed an asshole comment is an asshole in general or reserves his assholery for a dead black guy. Given the lamentable state of race relations in the US, and considering the frequency at which the tone in TDWTF forums generally and this thread in particular has swung toward the YouTube end on the assholometer, it's a completely reasonable thing to be unsure of.
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@flabdablet said:
Given the lamentable state of race relations in the US
It's bizarre. We've actually made a ton of progress, but of course there is now an entire industry and political party reliant on fostering racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice.
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@boomzilla said:
racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice
I'd appreciate being convinced that this is not the expression of straight-up unexamined privilege it appears to be.
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@flabdablet said:
Insistent characterisation of the boy who got shot as an irredeemable thug is absolutely "blaming the victim".
EXCEPT HE'S NOT THE VICTIM. HE'S THE PERPETRATOR.@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
How about this?racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice
I'd appreciate being convinced that this is not the expression of straight-up unexamined privilege it appears to be.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice
I'd appreciate being convinced that this is not the expression of straight-up unexamined privilege it appears to be.
Bullshit. Anyone who uses "privilege" like this doesn't want to be convinced. The case we've been talking about is pretty unremarkable, except that race hustlers like Al Sharpton made a big deal out of it. As for political party involvement, consider the common Democratic response to any opposition:
You don't want to raise taxes? RAAAAACIST!
You don't want to get involed in a Libyan civil war? RAAAAACIST!
You think we gave guns to Mexican drug cartels? RAAAAACIST!
You think we shouldn't borrow a trillion dollars to blow mostly on Democratic special interest groups? RAAAAACIST!
You think vote fraud is bad? RAAAAACIST!
You used the word Chicago? RAAAAACIST!
You called the president skinny? RAAAAACIST!
You talked about the president golfing a lot? RAAAAACIST!
It's hard to parody these guys, because whatever you come up with, they've already done something sillier.
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@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
Given the lamentable state of race relations in the US
It's bizarre. We've actually made a ton of progress, but of course there is now an entire industry and political party reliant on fostering racial grievances that if
you weren'tI wasn't paying attention,you'dI'd never notice.
FTFY.I agree with you that race relations have come a long way. And a lot of the things that most people scream racism about, probably isn't. But the truth is that a lot of things might bother someone else in a way that doesn't bother you because we each view the world through our own unique lenses. And having someone say "hey, this thing bothers me," even if it's wholely within their subjective interpretation, is not necessarily a bad conversation to have. The problem only comes when people take that subjective feeling for objective truth. That is, when you go from "hmm, you seem like you're being an asshole" to "that's RACIST. The first is good because it encourages people to think about how things they do and say might affect someone who isn't like them. The second is bad because it discourages discourse.
Also, keep in mind, there are still some straight up racists in this country. I can't remember the thread, but there was a post from some guy in this forum about how at an interview his employer straight up told him that they didn't hire black guys. I believe his quote was "If it's brown, shut it down."
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@FrostCat said:
Well, the prosecution lost, but whatever. Jeantel was the worst of a bad[1] lot of witnesses.
Sorry, that is of course what I meant. I blame caffeine deprivation.
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@Sutherlands said:
How about this?
While that's quite silly (I've never even seen asparagus sold in a pan of water), a "news" organization led by Glenn Beck is hardly one I would consider to have objective commentary about... anything, much less race relations.
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@Snooder said:
I believe his quote was "If it's brown, shut it down."
"If they're brown, you know to take 'em down. If they're white, you know they're alright."
There was in fact a user here who, in a discussion on interviewing an resumes, mentioned in an off-hand remark that a coloured-sounding name would be "unemployable".
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@electronerd said:
@Sutherlands said:
While that's true, the content in question is aggregated from another site. For another example of anyone who doesn't agree with the left being a racist, start reading at this page.How about this?
While that's quite silly (I've never even seen asparagus sold in a pan of water), a "news" organization led by Glenn Beck is hardly one I would consider to have objective commentary about... anything, much less race relations.
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@electronerd said:
@Sutherlands said:
How about this?
While that's quite silly (I've never even seen asparagus sold in a pan of water), a "news" organization led by Glenn Beck is hardly one I would consider to have objective commentary about... anything, much less race relations.
Really? How do you buy fresh asparagus? It always seems to be in water to keep it fresh, just like cut flowers are kept in a store. Your ad hominem notwithstanding, this has been covered all over the place, and it doesn't get less stupid. The moron admitted he that on the day this happened he was spoiling to start a fight.
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@boomzilla said:
Bullshit. Anyone who uses "privilege" like this doesn't want to be convinced.
Are you saying that because you don't consider privilege a thing?
Here, specifically, is the fragment of this conversation I'm asking you about:
@boomzilla said:@flabdablet said:
Given the lamentable state of race relations in the US
It's bizarre. We've actually made a ton of progress, but of course there is now an entire industry and political party reliant on fostering racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice.
You appear to be claiming here, unless I've badly misunderstood what you wrote, that race relations in the US have now improved to the extent that legitimate racial grievances are now no longer noticeable unless you deliberately go looking for them or have your attention drawn to them by "an entire industry and political party". If that's not something you think is true, please clarify.
But if that is indeed a fair paraphrase, it seems to me that for your opinion to carry any weight at all, the onus is on you to explain how a well paid white male IT professional has come by enough information about the level of negative discrimination less privileged people experience to speak authoritatively on whether or not any resulting grievance is "noticeable".
For what it's worth, I agree that there is indeed an entire industry that feeds on the creation of spurious grievance in all forms, not just racial grievance: that would be commercial media, notably the Murdoch press, whose tools include carefully selective quotation and straightforward rabble-rousing via opinion pieces posing as news. As for your major political parties, both seem evenly matched in the fear-mongering stakes to this outside observer.
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@Snooder said:
But the truth is that a lot of things might bother someone else in a way that doesn't bother you because we each view the world through our own unique lenses. And having someone say "hey, this thing bothers me," even if it's wholely within their subjective interpretation, is not necessarily a bad conversation to have.
I don't disagree with this, but I think we've gone a lot farther in this direction than is reasonable.
@Snooder said:
Also, keep in mind, there are still some straight up racists in this country.
Definitely. OK, that's partly joking, but the reality is that it's not generally acceptable any more, and pretending that it is does a disservice, and makes it more difficult to talk about remaining problems.
Somewhat related: I still can't believe that no one has filed a disparate impact lawsuit against Planned Parenthood.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
Bullshit. Anyone who uses "privilege" like this doesn't want to be convinced.
Are you saying that because you don't consider privilege a thing?
It's based on my experience observing of people who tend to use that sort of language. It's like if someone espouses the labor theory of value, I know they aren't interested in real economics.
@flabdablet said:
Here, specifically, is the fragment of this conversation I'm asking you about:
@boomzilla said:@flabdablet said:
Given the lamentable state of race relations in the US
It's bizarre. We've actually made a ton of progress, but of course there is now an entire industry and political party reliant on fostering racial grievances that if you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice.You appear to be claiming here, unless I've badly misunderstood what you wrote, that race relations in the US have now improved to the extent that legitimate racial grievances are now no longer noticeable unless you deliberately go looking for them or have your attention drawn to them by "an entire industry and political party". If that's not something you think is true, please clarify.
Yes, you've badly misunderstood. The problem is all of the red herrings. I gave some examples previously, but you can look at pretty much anything Al Sharpton says. There are definitely still issues, though they're less serious and more complex. For instance, instead of lynchings, we're more concerned with resumes getting less consideration than they merit.
@flabdablet said:
For what it's worth, I agree that there is indeed an entire industry that feeds on the creation of spurious grievance in all forms, not just racial grievance: that would be commercial media, notably the Murdoch press, whose tools include carefully selective quotation and straightforward rabble-rousing via opinion pieces posing as news. As for your major political parties, both seem evenly matched in the fear-mongering stakes to this outside observer.
I don't know much about the "Murdoch press" in Australia, but the opposite is clearly true here in the US, where the NY Times and NBC News are some of the biggest grievance mongers. I disagree on your perception of the major US political parties, you won't be surprised to hear. And this isn't new. The Democratic party has relied on racist appeals for over a century and a half, and shows no signs of slowing. Lest you imagine I wrote things I didn't, I'm not saying that there aren't sections of the Republican party that have issues, but the problems are much smaller and definitely less monolithic, and they don't support harmful things like affirmative action in education, for example.
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@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
Bullshit. Anyone who uses "privilege" like this doesn't want to be convinced.
Are you saying that because you don't consider privilege a thing?
It's based on my experience observing of people who tend to use that sort of language.Then allow me to offer myself as a counter-example.
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@boomzilla said:
I'm not saying that there aren't sections of the Republican party that have issues
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@boomzilla said:
I don't know much about the "Murdoch press" in Australia, but the opposite is clearly true here in the US, where the NY Times and NBC News are some of the biggest grievance mongers. I disagree on your perception of the major US political parties, you won't be surprised to hear. And this isn't new. The Democratic party has relied on racist appeals for over a century and a half, and shows no signs of slowing. Lest you imagine I wrote things I didn't, I'm not saying that there aren't sections of the Republican party that have issues, but the problems are much smaller and definitely less monolithic, and they don't support harmful things like affirmative action in education, for example.
Actually, the modern Democratic party has very little resemblance to the Southern Democrats of yesteryear. That wing of the party defected en-masse and turned into the Republican party in the 50s and 60s when it was clear the the rest of the Democratic party supported civil rights.
And by "grievance mongers" he means people who try to convince you that affirmative action in education is a threat to anything. There are plenty of white folks in college. Adding one or two black people just for diversity's sake, even if they don't really deserve it, isn't going to suddenly turn the Ivy League into a sea of dark-skinned folk. (Which ignores that generally, they DO deserve it. There just aren't enough slots for the people qualified to get into top schools so you have to winnow somehow) Woo, one guy maybe, possibly, got in with a 3.7 GPA instead of a 3.9. What about all the dudes who got in because their dad knows the dean of admissions? Or because they wrote a sob-story about their mom getting cancer? Or just because they went to high school out in the boonies where making valedictorian is easy as fuck? See, to anyone who isn't already primed to agree with you, complaining about Affirmative Action just makes you sound as dumb and gullible as the guy complaining about minor acts of possible racism sounds to you.
And it's the same with plenty of other stuff. Obamacare? Woo, the scary government is going to make you get health insurance. Big fucking deal. You should have it already, right? But nope, it's all "death panels" and "get the government out of my medicare" bullshit. Economy doing better but not quite as well as projected? Obama ruined the economy and now China will turn us all into slaves. Better buy gold NOW before your money stops being worth the paper it's printed on. Story about a 1-in-a-million home invasion robbery? We're all gonna DIE!! Better buy some guns and ammo before Obama makes it illegal to defend yourself.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
I'm not saying that there aren't sections of the Republican party that have issues
Yes, thank you for yet another example of liberal Americans playing the race card where it makes no sense. I'm not sure why you quoted the wrong part of my post, though.
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@Snooder said:
Actually, the modern Democratic party has very little resemblance to the Southern Democrats of yesteryear.
This is true.
@Snooder said:
That wing of the party defected en-masse and turned into the Republican party in the 50s and 60s when it was clear the the rest of the Democratic party supported civil rights.
The first part of this is waaay overblown and the second is plain wrong. It's true that there were a few Democrats who switched parties, but it wasn't the most common thing, and those guys who didn't switch were the main opposition to civil rights.
@Snooder said:
And by "grievance mongers" he means people who try to convince you that affirmative action in education is a threat to anything. There are plenty of white folks in college. Adding one or two black people just for diversity's sake, even if they don't really deserve it, isn't going to suddenly turn the Ivy League into a sea of dark-skinned folk.
This is a perfect example of not understanding the issue. Here's the problem. Affirmative action causes people who are not qualified to try to complete a program in which they have very low odds of success. So they tend to fail. Some of these people are qualified and do succeed (e.g., Clarence Thomas). Many fail. Or they are passed through without achieving and then get revealed as not qualified later. But the biggest problem is that so many of them fail in the more prestigious programs when they could have succeeded in something less ambitious and gotten better value than they ultimately did.
But your first order analysis is as far as the typical Progressive goes, which is one reason why their ideas are so terrible and don't work like they think they should. That's giving them the benefit of the doubt, BTW, that they're just not as smart as they think they are and not evil.
@Snooder said:
And it's the same with plenty of other stuff. Obamacare? Woo, the scary government is going to make you get health insurance. Big fucking deal. You should have it already, right? But nope, it's all "death panels" and "get the government out of my medicare" bullshit. Economy doing better but not quite as well as projected? Obama ruined the economy and now China will turn us all into slaves. Better buy gold NOW before your money stops being worth the paper it's printed on. Story about a 1-in-a-million home invasion robbery? We're all gonna DIE!! Better buy some guns and ammo before Obama makes it illegal to defend yourself.
TDEMSYR. I guess at least you didn't link any of this to racism, though, so I'll count it as progress.
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Is this something to do with white asparagus versus green asparagus?
Because those green fuckers should go back where they came from, the dirty buggers.
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@boomzilla said:
This is a perfect example of not understanding the issue. Here's the problem. Affirmative action causes people who are not qualified to try to complete a program in which they have very low odds of success. So they tend to fail. Some of these people are qualified and do succeed (e.g., Clarence Thomas). Many fail. Or they are passed through without achieving and then get revealed as not qualified later. But the biggest problem is that so many of them fail in the more prestigious programs when they could have succeeded in something less ambitious and gotten better value than they ultimately did.
A) That's not generally the argument used.
B) Sure, a lot of them fail. A lot of EVERYONE in prestigious/rigorous programs fail. It's still better for them to get the chance.
And your use of Clarence Thomas illustrates a point I made in the parenthesis. That most of them ARE qualified. Thomas was a honors student in college who graduated cum laude. Sure, Yale probably tried their best to get in as many black people as possible, but that doesn't mean they had to pick some idiot who barely graduated college. Just means that Thomas got in instead of some other random dude that moved to the reject pile.@boomzilla said:
@Snooder said:
And it's the same with plenty of other stuff. Obamacare? Woo, the scary government is going to make you get health insurance. Big fucking deal. You should have it already, right? But nope, it's all "death panels" and "get the government out of my medicare" bullshit. Economy doing better but not quite as well as projected? Obama ruined the economy and now China will turn us all into slaves. Better buy gold NOW before your money stops being worth the paper it's printed on. Story about a 1-in-a-million home invasion robbery? We're all gonna DIE!! Better buy some guns and ammo before Obama makes it illegal to defend yourself.
TDEMSYR. I guess at least you didn't link any of this to racism, though, so I'll count it as progress.
I listen to a lot of talk radio. (As well as a lot of NPR. I generally prefer hearing voices to listening to music in the car.) And yeah, that's really how a lot of them sound. It's especially hilarious to hear some blowhard talking about how the latest economic figures are a sign of the impending fiscal apocalypse and then seconds later hear a commercial for investing in gold. Always makes me wonder if it's just really good targetted advertising from some marketing exec, or a particularly shameless cash-in by the host.
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@eViLegion said:
Is this something to do with white asparagus versus green asparagus?
Because those green fuckers should go back where they came from, the dirty buggers.
@Warren Hutcherson's father said:"Look at dis, boy. Every time you go to the grocery store, the white man is playin' with yo mind. It's all subconscious, all subliminal. Ask yourself: why must I be cuckoo for Coco Puffs? You see? They're trying to tell you the black shit will make you crazy. See what goin' on here: the frosted flakes—they're white, they're great....
"Look at here, this is regular rice but it's brown, so they call it wild rice. What's so wild about it? Is Uncle Ben chasin' Aunt Jemima 'round the shelf?...
"Look at these olives, why these black olives in a can? You see these green olives, they not in a can. The green olives in a jar. Why they have to lock thse black olives up?
"They tryin' to tell you you're cuckoo, you're wild, and you need to be locked up!"
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@Snooder said:
A) That's not generally the argument used.
There are other reasons, like, "Let's not discriminate on the basis of race." And of course, doing so propagates discrimination both explicitly and by the reactions of people affected by it. But it's a pretty common argument against.
@Snooder said:
B) Sure, a lot of them fail. A lot of EVERYONE in prestigious/rigorous programs fail. It's still better for them to get the chance.
Yes, nothing says "I care" like sabotaging the future.
@Snooder said:
And your use of Clarence Thomas illustrates a point I made in the parenthesis. That most of them ARE qualified. Thomas was a honors student in college who graduated cum laude. Sure, Yale probably tried their best to get in as many black people as possible, but that doesn't mean they had to pick some idiot who barely graduated college. Just means that Thomas got in instead of some other random dude that moved to the reject pile.
Yes, he was one who was legit. But they end up picking many more who are not in order to fill out a quota, or whatever legal fiction has replaced them. You haven't justified putting people into situations for which they are unqualified, which is what modern educational affirmative action does.
@Snooder said:
It's especially hilarious to hear some blowhard talking about how the latest economic figures are a sign of the impending fiscal apocalypse and then seconds later hear a commercial for investing in gold. Always makes me wonder if it's just really good targetted advertising from some marketing exec, or a particularly shameless cash-in by the host.
Duh. It's both. Though I'm not sure what's hilarious about talking about how the world is going to shit and then ads for something advertised as a way to hedge against it (NB: this isn't an argument regarding efficacy of the hedge).
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@boomzilla said:
Yes, he was one who was legit. But they end up picking many more who are not in order to fill out a quota, or whatever legal fiction has replaced them. You haven't justified putting people into situations for which they are unqualified, which is what modern educational affirmative action does.
No they don't. Maybe you just don't understand how the college application process works these days. There simply are not enough slots for the number of people qualified to go any more. You could pick through the reject pile of just about any top school and find plenty of people smart enough or hard working enough to do just fine there. After a while it just becomes a toss-up. Affirmative Action does not and never has meant that the college admissions department would go trawling through the bottom of the barrel for folks. Just that guys on that 50/50 maybe, maybe not edge would get in. And the fact that you believe otherwise makes you just as unreasonable as the "race-baiters" you despise.
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@Snooder said:
@boomzilla said:
Yes, he was one who was legit. But they end up picking many more who are not in order to fill out a quota, or whatever legal fiction has replaced them. You haven't justified putting people into situations for which they are unqualified, which is what modern educational affirmative action does.
No they don't. Maybe you just don't understand how the college application process works these days. There simply are not enough slots for the number of people qualified to go any more. You could pick through the reject pile of just about any top school and find plenty of people smart enough or hard working enough to do just fine there. After a while it just becomes a toss-up. Affirmative Action does not and never has meant that the college admissions department would go trawling through the bottom of the barrel for folks. Just that guys on that 50/50 maybe, maybe not edge would get in. And the fact that you believe otherwise makes you just as unreasonable as the "race-baiters" you despise.
I never said they were scraping the bottom. Just loosening standards, which they have to be more creative about as the courts have muddled up the law in this area.
Why is there such a discrepancy in graduation rates? This applies to things like law school, too. Looking at facts and making sense of them doesn't make me unreasonable, but insisting on a policy that objectively makes things worse because it looks like it's working to solve a problem or inequity seems unreasonable to me.
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@Snooder said:
Yes. They really do. What colour's the sky in your world today?@boomzilla said:
Yes, he was one who was legit. But they end up picking many more who are not in order to fill out a quota, or whatever legal fiction has replaced them. You haven't justified putting people into situations for which they are unqualified, which is what modern educational affirmative action does.
No they don't.
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@flabdablet said:
The facts as established by the court: GZ shot TM in self defence.
Other important self defense legal tips.
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@PJH said:
@Snooder said:
Yes. They really do. What colour's the sky in your world today?@boomzilla said:
Yes, he was one who was legit. But they end up picking many more who are not in order to fill out a quota, or whatever legal fiction has replaced them. You haven't justified putting people into situations for which they are unqualified, which is what modern educational affirmative action does.
No they don't.
The important bit that you are missing there isHe said that focusing on A-level grades alone “may not identify the best students with the most potential”
Just having high test scores alone doesn't necessarily make you qualified. There are other things that come into play, like how ambitious you are, how disciplined and willing to grind out day-to-day exercises, how focused you are, how important your career goals are. Trust me, as a guy who has pretty much coasted on high test scores most of his life, there are much, much better indicators of success out there.
For example, is the salutatorian at an inner-city high school whose parents didn't spend 2 grand on SAT tutors more or less qualified than the guy hovering around the top 25% mark at a private high school with better SAT scores? Is the guy whose parents pay for tutors and coaches, hover constantly to make sure his homework gets done, and do half of his projects anyway any more likely to succeed once his on his own than the girl who had to walk an hour each way to a public library just to study and hold down a job to pay the bills for her family at the same time. Yeah, the guy will have better test scores, and possibly even better grades, but I'll bet you a dollar he'll just end up coasting through the rest of life while the girl, if given a chance, might actually accomplish something new or great. Could also be the other way around too. She could end up falling in love with some dude and getting pregnant or he could become the next Bill Gates. There are no certainties or easy answers here. But saying that Affirmative Action always, or even often results in more incompetent people isn't true.
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@Snooder said:
Just having high test scores alone doesn't necessarily make you qualified. There are other things that come into play, like how ambitious you are, how disciplined and willing to grind out day-to-day exercises, how focused you are, how important your career goals are.
That's trivially true, but in every study I've seen, test scores seem to be the best predictor.
@Snooder said:
But saying that Affirmative Action always, or even often results in more incompetent people isn't true.
Whew. It's a good thing no one said that, then.
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@flabdablet said:
Filed under: Adults usually weigh at least 200kg
That's ridiculous.
Kilograms are a unit of mass, not weight.
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@joe.edwards said:
@flabdablet said:
Filed under: Adults usually weigh at least 200kg
That's ridiculous.
Not for Americans
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@boomzilla said:
Anyone who uses "privilege" like this isn't worth arguing with.
FTFY
