Real debate is no longer possible when platitudes become indistinguishable from policies.
The problem with making a gross generalization is that it takes only one exception to invalidate it. So, let me be more precise in offering the major contention of this essay. It isn't that genuine debate in this country had become utterly hopeless 100% of the time. It's only utterly hopeless 99.99999% of the time.
Why have I drawn this conclusion? After more than three years of writing essays and participating in debates at the Intellectual Conservative — not to mention participating in other discussions and forums leading up to the 2008 presidential election — I can count on one hand the number of legitimate debates I've had with, shall we say, people of opposing political views.
At the IC, two individuals come to mind who exemplify the best in debate, Raymond Ingles and yonkel. I've disagreed vehemently at times with both of these men (particularly Mr. Ingles), but unlike other Liberals/progressives/moderates/non-conservatives who react to things I and others have written, they bring more than their emotions and feelings to the table. As a consequence, every time they enter the discussion the issue gets thoroughly explored and advanced. They may not convince me of their position, but at least they laid it out in an adult manner for others looking in on the discussion to judge for themselves. And that, after all, as Dennis Prager is fond is saying, is a key purpose of debate: to achieve clarity rather than agreement.
And what about the others? Exempting the utter fools and drive-by flamethrowers who only enter debates to see how inane they can be in supporting their candidate or position, there is only a small number of additional people who appear genuinely sincere — but completely confused — when expressing their opinions.
Again, this isn't about agreeing with what I say. If a guy who wrote a Catholic novel can compliment an atheist for his intellectual honesty, then we're way beyond that point. Rather, these are people who feel strongly about an issue, but otherwise have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. All of this came together in the perfect self-assessment from one of these folks whose name is unimportant, but whose sentiment typifies the new Obama-nation that's been years in the making. Thinking is hard. Studying is even harder. And putting the two together before offering an assessment is too challenging to consider. Therefore, simply express a feeling and call it an analysis.
Think I'm being too hard? Here's the exact quote. "Now, I could open another internet page and google whatever information I need to answer any questions you pose that I might not be able to answer myself, and do it with great skill and in very fine detail. That's one of the joys of modern technology and a forum such as this. Then it would be fact countering fact, rather than platitudes, sloganeering and irrational emotion vs. sound, unbiased, logical analysis and reasoning. (You see, I agree with you.) But the point is there's an incredible amount of information out there. The more you read, the more confused you get. And then you find yourself right back where you started."
My translation of the above statement: "I could actually try to educate myself on the matter, dig through conflicting facts, check the sources and underlying assumptions that give rise to them, try to separate the real issues and facts from the BS, but this is hard work. So, I'll just find the best sounding platitude and stick with that."
This is what has come to pass for informed debate by too many people on the Left. So, as a public service to those folks who actually want to know something before they offer a judgment, let me review a few things that we on the Right already know and embrace, and attempt to practice whenever we state a position.
A good debate consists of at least three main elements. First, the individual making a statement relies on something other than his/her own personal opinion to form a point, or moves beyond nice-sounding platitudes and slogans when offering a conclusion. Second, the debate isn't a series of competing facts and figures thrown back and forth, but rather facts and figures placed in some kind of relevant context. A 5% unemployment rate, for example, may be an accurate figure, but it matters greatly whether the previous year's employment rate was 1% or 20% before drawing any conclusions from this fact. Finally, even when we've moved beyond platitudes and out of context facts and figures, it's still important to consider a third element to informed debate. Namely, what exactly are the sources and assumptions behind this information?
Of the three, this component involves the most work. To pick a superficial example, I'm not going to rely on a Neo-Nazi website to educate me about the extent, or relevance of, crime statistics by minority offenders. In the same vein, I won't take at face value statistics about smoking-related illnesses from a tobacco company website. But similarly, I'll also treat with similar suspicion any statistics I get on global warming from the Natural Resource Defense Council, or any facts on animal cruelty from PETA.
While our friends on the Left seem to intuitively understand my hesitation about looking at Neo-Nazi and Tobacco Company sources, from what I've discerned these past few years by looking at the comment section to the Intellectual Conservative postings, the vast majority of them are shaking their head in bemused wonder at my mention of the NRDC and PETA as representative examples of the agenda-driven Left. I spent a lot of time discussing the agenda politics of the NRDC in the latter half of http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/07/31/an-even-more-inconvenient-truth-the-myth-of-man-made-global-warming/, so I won't repeat it all here. And, for those interested in how PETA and other Left-leaning organizations compile their data and offer their judgments, there's always my Looney Liberal Chronicles.
But the real point here is that every side in a political debate begins its assessment with underlying assumptions, and these need to be clearly laid on the table to allow the resulting data to be analyzed and interpreted. The Right does a pretty good job of this, as evidenced in the IC comment sections. Rather than bombard an opposing view with an unending series of out of context facts, more often than not you'll see these facts discussed as part of Constitutional prerogatives and limitations, market-related forces in a capitalist economic system, personal responsibility, personal freedom, and a myriad of other issues and forces that give the data meaning.
Illegal immigration, as one example, is discussed from the standpoint of federalism, border security, its economic implications, its implications on free and fair elections, its impact on healthcare and education costs, and so forth. It's even been discussed by some on the Right as a matter of racial preference; and when it has, I and others have attacked these underlying assumptions as a legitimate means of challenging some of the conclusions their advocates have drawn.
Contrast this with the standard approach of the Left, which discusses illegal immigration from the standpoint of "fairness." I can tell you what's in the Constitution. I can tell you where interpretations of the Constitution differ based on strict construction or court activism. I can tell you how an uncontrolled border threatens the physical security of the country. And I can even show statistically the impact illegal aliens have on increased education and health care costs.
But I can't tell you what "fairness" is, because "fairness" is an emotion, not a policy. It means different things to different people at a very fundamental level. Arguing from a position of fairness is simply offering a personal opinion. As I've commented on this subject before, instead of relying on some consistent, definable (dare I say "legal") criteria, some people evaluate everything on their (or their group's) own subjective notion of "fairness." They apply one set of fairness criteria to judging elections, another set of criteria to international relations, another to domestic situations, and yet another to a different situation. Thus, any decision they arrive at is "fair," because it only has to be consistent insofar as that particular situation, since in the final analysis it's merely a subjective evaluation on their part anyway. "Fairness" is simply the process that supports the outcome they desire.
Why has it come to this? Why has the notion of intuitive reasoning supplanted the need to actually know something about a subject? It's a phenomena that's been decades in the making, and to quote the good Reverend Wright, its chickens have finally come home to roost. In fact, I wrote about this in my first essay at IC, and it bears repeating.
People who think with their emotions aren't bad people, or even consciously ideological. I tend to refer to them as idiots not to insult them personally, but rather to describe the utter lack of introspection and content to their thought process.
But to be perfectly clear, it isn't so much that they are incapable of real thought, as they have been conditioned not to think. They don't question the underlying assumptions that left-wing activists use to draw their conclusions, and they accept at face value the often draconian solutions these activists maintain are the minimum requirement for sound environmental policy.
Why is this? To use the example of man-made global warming, why would otherwise rational, intelligent people accept the notion that a car's exhaust is heating the Earth to a dangerous level, but never once ask how this conclusion was derived, whether there are other factors that better account for this phenomenon, or whether the Earth is really warming at a rapid rate – or getting hotter at all?
The answer, I believe, can be traced to our shared value system, which provides a common frame of reference to address these and other issues. It is the shorthand, connect-the-dot reasoning we all engage in to navigate through daily life. Critical thought is only needed when the matter at hand is something unique, and we've been talking about – and worrying about – global climate change for at least 40 years.
These values and reference points are not bestowed upon us at birth, like Moses receiving the Holy Tablets. Rather, they are taught to, absorbed by, and reinforced within each individual through a life-long process that begins with our earliest years and extends throughout the remainder of our life. For example, we're all taught from an early age that the environment is fragile. As children we write school papers on this subject and participate in community projects to "save the environment." When we get older, we get our news from journalism school graduates who show us pictures of melting ice caps or drought-stricken farmland and talk about the importance of driving hybrid cars, practicing resource conservation, and signing the Kyoto Treaty.
As adults we happily segment our garbage to cut-down on environmental pollution, and set our thermometers at uncomfortably high or low levels to "save energy" – thereby reducing the nasty, dirty fossil fuel emissions needed to produce our electricity. The world, and our role in it, is put clearly in focus, as are the notions of "good" or "bad" behavior regarding our treatment of the environment.
This common frame of reference allows us, as a group, to make certain judgments that are universally accepted. Windmills are good. Solar energy is better. Conservation is best. The internal combustion engine, to quote Al Gore, is an example of man seeking to "artificially enhance our capacity to acquire what we need from the earth . . . at the direct expense of the earth's ability to provide naturally what we are seeking." By manufacturing "millions of internal combustion engines [that] automate the conversion of oxygen to CO2, we interfere with the earth's ability to cleanse itself of the impurities that are normally removed from the atmosphere." [Earth in the Balance, by Al Gore, p. 207]
No one laughs at the main theme of this passage which presumes to know intrinsically what man "needs" from the Earth, and what is an "artificial enhance[ment of his] capability" to acquire natural resources "at the direct expense of the earth's ability to provide naturally what we are seeking." No further justification is required to support these value-laden judgments, because they're not seen as expressing anything controversial. They're just obvious statements about obvious matters that are plainly obvious to any thoughtful, thinking individual.
From this basis it's a logical conclusion that cars are "interfering" with the natural state of affairs of Mother Earth, which leads to an equally obvious policy objective to deal with this cancer. As for the finite supply of fossil fuels that are mined, drilled, and otherwise gouged from the Earth to feed these poison-producing internal combustion engines, they serve only one purpose: to make Dick Cheney richer, and help George Bush justify an illegal, immoral war against Saddam Hussein whom we're all glad is out of power, even though Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction and ought to be impeached.
Because our schools, celebrities, TV anchorpersons and other opinion leaders accept these observations as fact, who are we to disagree? Since 1975 (my earliest memory on this subject) I've been told repeatedly that the world is running out of oil. There's only so much dead-dinosaur juice in the ground, and it will all be gone in 20 years or less. Thirty years later, the same 20-year prediction is still being made. If we don't switch to hybrid cars, solar-powered electricity, or wind-driven generators, we'll use up all the world's oil by 2030, or 2040, or 2050, or [pick a date] sometime in the near future. And when all the oil is gone, and coal is too dirty to burn, and nuclear power is too unsafe to produce, where will we be? Ergo, we need to start changing our lifestyles NOW!
At no point in this conventional wisdom analysis does anyone stop and say, "but wouldn't there be plenty of oil if we're willing to pay $100 a barrel to recover it?"
The Earth isn't running out of oil. It's running out of easily-acquired $20 a barrel oil. There's plenty of oil off the shores of California and Florida, in Alaska, Mexico, the Middle East, the North Sea, Russia, and a whole bunch of other places in the world, including oil locked in shale. It's harder to get, and therefore more expensive to acquire. But it's there.
This doesn't argue against practicing conservation or pursuing alternative means of energy production. A solar power car would be great – if there's a strong enough market demand to justify the billions of dollars of research and development needed to expedite its arrival. Windmills are a fantastic source of cheap, clean energy, unless they happen to spoil Ted Kennedy's oceanfront view, at which point good old fashioned gas guzzling cars will do just fine.
If Al Gore's prescription for responsible environmental management makes sense, he should be able to propose it without the intellectual legerdemain of over-hyped, value-laden judgments disguised as impartial analysis. It's one thing to illustrate a point with a dramatic example. It's quite another to have the example itself stand as a substitute for any further thinking about the matter. If the issue is real, the evidence will support it.
But to get the evidence, one first has to collect all the relevant data. When dealing with an issue as monumental as global climate change, 10, 20, 50, even a 100-year "trend" is nothing more than the blink of an eye in geological terms. If global warming actually exists, and further, if man is the principal cause of its existence, there should be clear, convincing evidence of this before we begin substantially rearranging important chunks of our current way of life. Why spend thousands of dollars to place your house on stilts so it won't be flooded if you're living in the middle of a desert? Such an expenditure may be perfectly reasonable for those homes along Gulf Coast beaches. But before I dip into my life savings to retrofit my house, I'd like to see a little evidence that central Utah is about to get inundated with water.
When confronted with this question, the typical answer we get from the Protectors of the Planet is that we can't afford to wait until all the data is in. By then it will be too late, so we must act now! That's why it was so important in the 1970s to take strong measures against a fast-approaching ice age – that is, until global warming became the problem. So, now we're told that we need to work just as quickly in 2006 to stop the warming of the earth, except recent studies have indicated that we may be in for a mini-ice age after all.
Apply this same reasoning to any subject — illegal immigration, universal health care, name the subject — and genuine debate becomes possible. Ignore the assumptions and sources of the data used to promote those assumptions, and all that's at stake are opinions.
And as I've said more than once, opinions are like the exit point of the human digestive system. Everybody has one.
Phil:
Being concerned about affirmative action in college admissions, I read the article by Chung, and it reminded me of one by Lino Graglia, Professor of Constitutional Law at U of Texas Austin, http://law.wustl.edu/journal/54/Graglia.pdf in which he exposes the fallacies of the “underrepresentation” argument.
The one thing I have not been able to find anywhere is the drop-out rates for the various racial groups. I suspect they are kept secret because their revelation might expose affirmative action for the “fraud” Graglia says it is.
As far as equalizing the criminal justice system, a very interesting analysis that dashes liberal perceptions is “The Color of Death Row” http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/DP.htm .
Obama, @3:09, “spread the wealth around.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwtnPi7hi0U
Watch the whole thing. Obama argues that wealthy people can afford to give up some of their money in higher taxes so that Obama can cut the taxes of “average Americans.” In other words, make things more even by taking money from some and giving it to others.
Jeez, Travis, are you really that dense, or do you just want to argue things for the sake of argument?
And by the way, snarky sarcasm is not appreciated.
—Jeez, Travis, are you really that dense, or do you just want to argue things for the sake of argument?—
Actually both.
Sorry about the sarcasm. It’s just my writing style. I’ll work on it.
T
See, though, quoting Obama’s ‘spread the wealth around’ comment, as though it were not common knowledge to any sentient American, just highlights my point.
Nothing in that comment suggests he wants to ‘make everyone equal’, just that he wants to redress some of the more egregious gaps between the very, very rich class — which is getting richer all the time, to my knowledge — and those who are really struggling. It is only in the conservative fun-house mirror that it reflects rank socialism and a desire to make everyone equal. That’s why none of the examples you folks are providing are persuasive–you’re just quoting your own exaggerated echo-chamber talking points and confusing them with facts and evidence.
TT
Travis:
I remind you of your original claim: “I can’t seem to find anyone who is in favor of ‘making sure everyone comes out the same’. I’d like to request a little help finding them, so I can jump on this bandwagon”
Interesting that I gave you 5 sources, the first being an Oxford University Press book on the general subject, and the second dealing with quota systems in general across a broad spectrum of the US society.
In your search to finds something, anything, to substantiate the claim that equality of outcome is both (a) a real issue, and (b) practiced — or attempted to be practiced — in the US via government policy, you ignore both of these and focus only on the three following sub examples.
You’ve done this because points 1 and 2 give you the specific examples you claim to not find on a broad, pervasive, systemic basis. Following the first link I gave you http://books.google.com/books?id=IdjogsQwXMgC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=court+cases+equality+of+outcome&source=web&ots=NU8H3qUNia&sig=kcsvNNNHmBgjPg20FvHla96jCNo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result would have also told you exactly what “equality of outcome” is from a public policy standpoint. Words mean things, and you can’t just apply your own notion of fairness to this term when it in fact has a rather precise meaning. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to have an absolutely identical outcome. It’s a specific philosophy that focuses on the removal if inequities (equality of outcome), rather than the enhancement of possibilities (equality of opportunity)
By ignoring points 1 and 2 that I made, you can’t seem to see any equality of outcome issues in a policy that’s characterized by “whole notion that EVERYONE’S A WINNER and everyone gets a trophy.”
If everyone “winning” and everyone getting a metaphorical “trophy” isn’t equality of outcome, then what exactly is? That answer, by the way, could have been easily discerned for both this and court cases by clicking on the first link I provided, which discusses exactly what this term means from a policy standpoint.
And, of course, to your tangential point that equality of outcome policies by public officials and/or rulings by a court are controversial — of course they are! THEY’RE IDIOTIC, which makes them controversial. But the idiocy of these rulings wasn’t the claim you made. You said “I am now so incensed and passionate about the issue, I’ve been trying to seek out people who are in favor of this lame and illogical concept, so that I can issue them strongly-worded letters. I’ve run into some difficulty, though—I can’t seem to find anyone who is in favor of ‘making sure everyone comes out the same’.
You wanted prove the existence of this equality of outcome idiocy. I showed you the evidence.
You wanted to see it in action. I showed you where it is being applied.
This is all you wanted to write your “letter”.
Now, you want to discuss whether it’s controversial or not, whether the “whole notion that EVERYONE’S A WINNER and everyone gets a trophy” really means what it says, whether “a discrepant outcome can signal underlying and unacceptable inequities, etc. Regarding the latter point, perhaps it can — and perhaps it isn’t [i.e. maybe it's just that more black people are on death row because more black people committed murder]. BUT THAT ISN’T THE ISSUE YOU RAISED! And if you want to talk about this at some point, discrepant outcomes is not the same subject matter as equality of outcome policies.
You asked a question, and it was answered. Either read the evidence I gave you and dispute it with something other than your own personal notion of fairness (or a layman’s definition of terms to allow you to make your points), or concede the point and write your letter. Don’t proceed to tell me the examples I raised don’t meet the standard when you won’t even educate yourself as to the standard, and ignore the main evidence I provide.
That isn’t honest debate.
Travis: Oh, and by the way, both my wife and daughter are special ed teachers, so if you want to play the “learning disorder” card, be prepared to have the issue placed in its relevant policy context. I know all about ARDS are conducted and how these official classifications are made, how grades are given in both special ed, resource, and voc ed classes, how federal and state funds are calculated based on these assessments (which can incentivise school districts to increase certain classifications to receive extra aid), etc.
Travis:
Re: “I can’t seem to find anyone who is in favor of ‘making sure everyone comes out the same’.”
Here’s a perfect example of Leftist equality of outcomes:
“The proposal to dismantle the Gifted and Talented Education, or GATE, Program at the [Vista, CA, Unified] school is supported by the Latino parents, opposed by parents of the GATE students. … “All students should be treated equally,” Latino parents said in a letter to the board and district administrators. “[B][I][U]We believe that the school should not create differences between students who know more and students who know less[/U][/I][/B].” [Emphasis added]
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20050519-9999-1mi19vusd.html
My last sentence should read, “We believe that the school should not create differences between students who know more and students who know less.”
Sedona: Here’s the dirty little secret about drop out rates (I ran an education task force a few years ago in the Dallas Texas public school system).
If a person completes X years of highschool, then moves to a new school district without notifying his old school of his new address, he/she is listed as a “dropout” — even though they may complete HS in another town.
There’s no requirement that families notify an old school of a new address. [You can get a certified copy of transcripts before you leave school, or just take new placement tests at the new school].
Many of these transient students are from lower socio economic groups, or children of illegals. So, even though you know the number of students not graduating from their original school, you can’t conclude that they didn’t graduate school elsewhere.
Thus, there are no real accurate statistics on minority dropout/graduation rates.
Phil:
That’s interesting, but I was thinking of affirmative action minority drop-out rates in higher ed.
Phil, I haven’t yet really looked at the rest of what you posted, but the notion that I was ‘playing the learning disability card’ is a little puzzling to me. I was just pointing out that as a parent of a child who routinely gets Fs because of his disability, I can sympathize with those who suggest easing up a little on that. In the case of my son, it’s demoralizing and depressing and accomplishes nothing. But hey, life is hard. Won’t be the last or the worst of the problems he has in store. If you read my post, I gave that strategy only a tepid endorsement anyway.
All that stuff about ARDs, incentives, etc, that’s just out of left field. I don’t know anything about that stuff, nor why you connected it to anything I said. Don’t really care, either, since my son’s disability isn’t really my favorite topic of conversation. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.
My point was, again, there are reasons for many of these policies that go beyond the shallow caricature of ‘libr’ls tryin’ to make everybody equal.’ I’ll look at the rest of that stuff later.
TT
Sedona — oh, in that case, I can tell you anicdotally what the situation was about 30 years ago. I taught two courses at Depaul University and was told that I could not fail any affirmative action students, so they all passed.
The reason for it was that they had special funding to cover these people. So, as long as they were in school, the school benefitted financially.
By the way, one of the classes I taught consisted primarily of education majors — future teachers. I still to this day remember the essay I gave an F to and had the grade overturned by the Administration. It began with “The President, he be the leader of Congress.” Factually incorrect, gramatically incorrect, but school policy was that any essay deserved at no less than a D because there were words on that piece of paper, and those words (even wrong) were worth something.
>All that stuff about ARDs, incentives, etc, that’s just out of left field. I don’t know anything about that stuff, nor why you connected it to anything I said.
*** Well, it’s because if you’re going to illustrate a potential alternative explanation by relying on what you know about assigning Fs to learning disabled kids, I have to counter with my anecdotes about the kids I know who deliberately score low so they can get out of harder classes and be with their friends.
Neither of these anecdotes prove anything, particularly when I’ve pointed you to more objective data. But it leads into your second point — “My point was, again, there are reasons for many of these policies that go beyond the shallow caricature of ‘libr’ls tryin’ to make everybody equal.’”
Once again, as I’ve lectured John Ross, platitudes are not analysis. I and others have supported what we said. There is always a theoretically possible alternative explanation for everything. You’ve been given direct evidence to support the contention that there is a movement in the US (and frankly elsewhere too — like the UK, Europe and Australia — to promote equality of outcome policies, and in fact some policies have in fact been enacted.
You claim to find no evidence of this at all. This is the focus of my comments. Until you refute my evidence (not just raise hypothetical alternatives), or concede the point, I will remain focused on this singular issue.
It took me 8 months to get some right wing loon to admit that his “kith and kin” sloganeering was just that, a slogan and not a real policy. I am nothing if not relentless.
Phil, when you say this:
It doesn’t mean that everyone has to have an absolutely identical outcome. It’s a specific philosophy that focuses on the removal if inequities (equality of outcome), rather than the enhancement of possibilities (equality of opportunity)
I appreciate the clarification. What I was responding to primarily, were comments like this one above:
Comment # 43: Let’s also define “fairness” the way that it is moving in our schools…equality of outcome. Consider a race on the track: equality of outcome = dead heat.
I don’t know you folks, so I assumed that expressed the common understanding of equality of outcome: dead heat, as the fellow says. So I imagine you would disavow and correct #43′s misunderstanding of the concept?
TT
> equality of outcome = dead heat.
Travis: I believe that was a metaphor (like the “trophy” quote I cited), not a textbook definition.
The way I would understand the dead heat analogy is this: the liberal goal is that everyone ends up with pretty much the same grades, the same amount of money, the same education, and it’s all dragged down to the lowest common demominator, under the supposed liberal sob-sister notion that everything has to be ‘fair’. That’s silly and exaggerated, is my point. It’s a polemic, intended to activate resentments. It precludes meaningful dialogue about actual intentions and beliefs, as does referring to its alleged adherents as ‘idiots’.
To me, all of that stuff is just like I were start braying piffle like this: “Neoconservatives are highly emotional in their reasoning–much more so than liberals. Due to their hysterical fear of Muslim terrorism, they are unable to think rationally. In other words, they are ‘idiots.’ Neoconservatives believe that we have the right to invade anyplace we want, anytime, for any reason or no reason, and to hell with any established norms of international relations and behavior. They don’t care how many innocents die.”
There are grains of truth to that, and I could link any number of websites as support, but it’s a polemic, not an accurate description of their theories or principles. I disagree with them, but there are subtle and nuanced reasons for the bellicose milatarism the neoconservatives have advocated these last 8 years. Floating this exaggerated notion and then using it as evidence that neoconservatives are over-emotional ninnies would be silly, and again, a straw man.
The original point made was that a liberals are highly prone to the cognitive error of thinking with their emotions, evidently far more so than right-wingers. I said I saw no evidence of that, and I was educated that supposedly liberals are so silly that they can’t see anything beyond a simplistic yearning for ‘fairness’, which was concretely defined as ‘everybody must be equal’ and all endeavors must end in a ‘dead heat’.
Seems exaggerated to me. Don’t really see that people think like that. Also can’t fathom the notion that liberals are more likely to think emotionally than right-wingers. To me, the liberal tendency to be fixated on ‘fairness’ can be easily analogized to numerous irrational and emotionally-based fixations of the right. I gave some examples above, and could give more. It’s a human foible, not a liberal one.
TT
Phil, you raise an important point. You seem to be dismissing it as ‘only a metaphor.’ But I believe you yourself said somewhere above that ‘words are important,’ or some such. Should our words shed heat, or light?
The metaphor, dead heat, is strained and exaggerated. And thus I found the main thesis of your article, with respect. Pretty well encapsulates what I have been laboring to express.
Peace,
TT
Phil,
It seems to be getting time to toss this one overboard. He asks for proof of this or that, then when he receives it he moves the goalpost.
He quibbles about tangents, sets up straw men, and when backed into a corner, he changes the subject, changes the criteria, or moves on to another glib platitude as if such things are prima facia true.
Waste of time.
Mickey G,
We’re at comment 70, baby, with no end in sight!
Um, Mountain Man? I can hear you. Might want to step behind a bush or something, out of earshot, if you want to speak ill of me behind my back.
Anyhow, toss me over the side if you wish. I can swim, and besides, I think I’ve won every round. Naturally.
T
I don’t care if you can hear. Your constant evasion, obsession with minutae, and bumping up the bar higher and higher is tiresome and anti-intellectual.
It’s even more troubling that you have such a high opinion of your sorry performance.
Travis; I didn’t write it. I told you how I interpreted it. I said “I believe that was a metaphor (like the “trophy” quote I cited), not a textbook definition.” You’ve chosen to insert another word (“only”) into that phrase to say “you seem to be dismissing it as ‘only a metaphor.’”, thus allowing you to say I was violating my own beliefs that “’words are important,’”.
They are important, which is why I said exactly what I said. I thought it was analogous to the “trophy” illusion from the ABC news quote I gave you, not a formal definition of the term. I didn’t dismiss your question by saying it was “only a metaphor”, and I don’t appreciate it when someone inserts words into my answer to make it seem as if I’m being intellectually dishonest by “dismissing” the issue.
I’ve gone to great lengths to tell you what equality of outcome means, since you’ve professed to be confused by the statement and unable to find any reference to it at all on the Internet.
You can produce all the intuitive reasoning you want to address the issue, and then use that intuition to call it into question, but as I’ve said repeatedly in my original essay and in many posts, a debate isn’t about opinions. When it is about opinions, it’s simply a disagreement. I have lots of disagreements with people (like what movie to go and see, what restaurant to eat at, etc). I’m not interested in trading disagreements on the Intellectual Conservative website. I’ll reserve that for conversations with my family and friends.
You have yet to engage in a real debate. You state that there are exaggerations, polemics, hysteria and the like in the claim that there is a equality of outcome aim among certain policy makers and their intellectual supporters. You cite no evidence of this, and you do not refute any of the specifics in the sources I gave you. All you do is offer an opinion.
Moreover, once again you want to return to the discussion that you see no evidence that “ liberals are highly prone to the cognitive error of thinking with their emotions, evidently far more so than right-wingers.” Of course you see no evidence. I gave you the links on this, which you still have not read.
All you do is offer your impressions and opinions about things. You constantly tell us what you feel, not what you know. What you know is hypothetical (it might be this, it could be that), but you never address or refute a specific issue that I raise.
When people do this on the Right I call them empty suits. When people do this on the left I call them by their first name, Travis.
Once again what I’ve written gets born out in the comment section.
Peace … through superior firepower.
Travis T writes:
“The original point made was that a liberals are highly prone to the cognitive error of thinking with their emotions, evidently far more so than right-wingers. I said I saw no evidence of that, and I was educated that supposedly liberals are so silly that they can’t see anything beyond a simplistic yearning for ‘fairness’, which was concretely defined as ‘everybody must be equal’ and all endeavors must end in a ‘dead heat’.
Seems exaggerated to me. Don’t really see that people think like that. Also can’t fathom the notion that liberals are more likely to think emotionally than right-wingers. To me, the liberal tendency to be fixated on ‘fairness’ can be easily analogized to numerous irrational and emotionally-based fixations of the right. I gave some examples above, and could give more. It’s a human foible, not a liberal one.”
Guys – I’ve been following all this. Wish I had more time to jump in. (Too much work to do!) But I agree with Travis.
>I think I’ve won every round.
It will be lost on Travis, but those of you familiar with my email exchange with Harry in the Looney Liberal Chronicles will remember that Harry felt a similar need to claim victory after many of our discussions.
Like I said before, a real debate is about achieving clarity, which thanks to Travis I’ve been able to do in supporting the tenor of my original article. I’ll leave it to others to decide which line of thought they want to be associated with, and why.
By the way, since I’m not going to get a real debate on this subject from anyone with an opposing view to mine, and since after 70+ posts I find myself wasting my time by providing evidence that is never addressed, and since I have no real interest in trading opinions with other people, I’m going to cut my losses on any further responses and let those who want to simply tell us what they feel go ahead and express themselves. There’s no way to debate an opinion.
Oh, and thanks to John too.
——Mountain Man says: I don’t care if you can hear. Your constant evasion, obsession with minutae, and bumping up the bar higher and higher is tiresome and anti-intellectual.
It’s even more troubling that you have such a high opinion of your sorry performance.—-
I’m sorry, I assumed that you did not intend to be rude, since you’ve twice taken pains to lecture me on my (admittedly atrocious) deportment. :-)
TT
Wow! I started to answer Phil about 70 comments back and then held off after seeing 25 comments in my inbox. So, now I’ll say thank Phil for #2. I see now that you were talking about the country and not just those here when referring to 99.9999%.
However, John Ross brings up a point I wanted to ask you back then. He writes “Seems…to me”; “Don’t really see…”; “Can’t fathom..”; “To me..”; and “Wish I..” and these are all expressions of feeling rather than rationality. Now, I’ll state that I think feelings are a valid expression and opinions are worthwhile as long as we acknowledge that we are expressing feelings and not trying to counter logical arguments with something based on less than facts. Having read “Blink”, “The Tipping Point”, “The Wisdom of Crowds” and several other books on memes, I think we conservatives rely too heavily on reason and neglect those instantaneous gut calls that many successful people use when making decisions. An article on this subject would be very helpful.
I’ve been accused of not being persuaded of much of anything despite the self-evident and irrefutable truth contained in all of those voluminous links to other documents and websites. Some seem to think I am incapable of learning anything despite all of your patient tutelage. Well, I’ll surprise you. I actually learned two things today.
1) Someone up there linked to a news release that described the efforts of some Latino parents to eliminate the Gifted program in a school because it seemed to benefit only…um, gifted people, I guess. I tend to agree that this type of effort seems to want to level the playing field and introduce a ‘dead heat’, and it’s really quite stupid. Naturally, I must add a couple caveats: 1) it appears in my brief skim of the article that this effort was prompted by a parent group, not a liberal intellectual. And 2) that’s about the only thing anybody said, in all 70 posts, that seemed to support the thesis being forwarded. Most everything else seemed to be a swing ‘n a miss. Admittedly, I did not follow all of those links. I’m only human, and I have a job and family, and correcting frivolity I read on the internet is a hobby I have little time for. Nonetheless, I have a lifetime of reading and thinking about these kinds of issues, and feel on solid ground despite my lack of follow-through on your entire suggested reading list.
2. The other thing I learned today was at work, actually:
At a tiresome company Christmas gathering, when asked by the CFO of the company how you plan to spend the holidays, avoid saying “Whoremongering.” CFOs evidently have no sense of humor. So, I know that now, too.
It sounds like the Host has retired to his quarters. Clearly a signal that the party is winding down, tho I’ve sometimes been known to stay until the liquor cabinet is empty–dense, presumptuous, and sarcastic boor that I am.
Best regards to all,
TT
Ivan: I’ll give you the shorthand answer to your question about feelings, then I’m going to shut down for a couple of days to see if there’s any worthwhile, sustained debate to add my 2 cents to.
You offer some good points, but no one is arguing that conservatives should be devoid of feelings. We’re human beings after all, not Vulcans! — it comes with the territory.
My point would be that we need to recognize the difference between individual actions, and those taken on behalf of the public trust (i.e. policy).
I may give $10K to the Christian Children’s Fund because I feel it’s a good thing to do. That’s my right and prerogative as a citizen of the US and human being on planet Earth. But if I was a public official, my motivation for action has to involve more than feelings, emotions, platitudes and hypotheticals.
Before I require all of you to give up some of your money as well, or otherwise act to circumscribe your life, I should have solid, evidence-based reasons for expecting a certain outcome to be met. And, even if I can support that outcome with logic/rationality, my actions still needs to conform to the legal and operational parameters of our society (i.e. be consistent with the constitutional expression of, and limitations on, the exercise of public power.)
I am passionately pro-life, and have written extensively on this. Even though I believe that killing a developing fetus is tantamount to murder, and even though I can support this position logically, not just emotionally (see “What Kind of car would Jesus Drive to take His Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?”), I recognize the constitutional limitations of acting on my emotions and bringing an end to abortion through executive/judicial fiat rather than legislation. My feelings are not sufficient to enact public policy, no matter how strongly I hold them.
My emotions may guide my daily life, and may influence how I express my morality (or immorality). But as a Conservative I recognize the limitations of both acting on my feelings alone, and using my feelings to make public policy.
Travis. I like your sense of humor. It’s one of the main reasons I started my own companies. I won’t fire myself for saying something similar.
Outta here for a while, this time hopefully.
Phil
Thanks Phil…Happy Whoremongering…er, Holidays to you.
TT
83 posts, don’t you guys ever sleep!!!
Thank you for the kind words of appreciation Phillip and thanks to Travis for having argued much of what I might have said with a flair I might have lacked.
Travis, I have toiled in the high cotton on the IC, making your general contention that there are good and intelligent people on both sides of the fence, and that neither liberals or conservatives have cornered the market on either intelligence or stupidity.
These are nice folks though, and it is often an interesting discussion, indeed preferable to many of the liberal blogs where everything is a three sentence zinger or the bipartate blogs where it is a continuous food fight of insults.
I agree you all have exhausted the subject of weather liberals are emotional, which I think will be as fruitful as figuring if frogs have a sense of humor.
So I don’t want to awake the sleeping dog, but much of the latter part of Phillip’s post was about the environment, which I am wont to get emotional about, perhaps proving Phillip’s theory, though I might not qualify as a hard core liberal, an Obomaniphile to be sure, but having cast votes for losing GOP governor and congressman, I can maintain my centrist credentials.
The environment is an issue that should not, but often has been reduced to a debate about the science of global warming, or the propriety of Al Gore.
It goes far beyond this, and has scientific, geopolitical, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions.
On the scientific, I realize that I am not a climate scientist, and could not vet all the technical data of the various opinions, so look to the concensus.
Groups like the National Accademy of Sciences are not hotbeds of radical socialism, and generally conclude that 1) global warming is a real phenomanon, and 2) human activity is contributing to it, and 3) this might cause harm to the inhabitants of the planet Earth.
Might implies a probability, and if we were to poll all the climate scientist one might get come up with a reasonable predictor, I would guess at least a 50% risk of some damage, though this could be anywhere from mild to catastrophic.
The Gorians would be 100% certain that the sky is falling, and the “what me worry crowd” would be 100% sure that nothing could possibly harm us.
I am trained as a medical scientist, and more importantly, as a practicing physician, much of what I do is estimate risks of disease against risks and benefits of treatment.
If I were to tell my patient that since there was only a 25% risk that this little thingy in his hickamabob was a cancer that would kill him, why not ignore it, methinks he would move on to the next doc down the block. We don’t make a habit of playing Russian roulette, and typically risks of even 2-10% often provoke intensive, even risky treatment.
So, if there is even a 20% chance that our environment is at grave risk, or a 40% probability that it is moderate risk, I am inclined to act on it.
But, herein comes the second part of the equation, being the risks and benefits of the treatment. Returning to my patient, if the treatment for this potential cancer consisted of a highly toxic chemotherapy with a risk of death, I would be much less inclined to use it, than if it consisted of eating a Kit Kat bar a day for two weeks.
Now, returning to the environment, sometimes I feel like the non interventionists act like we are asking for everybody to sacrifice their first born, when in reality many of the solutions are anywhere from beneficial to only mildly costly.
If GWB had stepped up to the plate and pushed for higher fuel efficiency standards in 2001, instead of 2008 when it was already a moot point since you couldn’t sell a gas guzzler, not only would we have possibly prevented this debatable risk to the environment, but in the process we would have prevented the transfer of several trillion dollars from our country to Chavez, Putin, Ahmadeenijad, and the Saudi royal family and we would have avoided the destruction of the American car industry and/or this crazy bailout.
And in the spirit of bipartisanship accountability, he was no different than his predecessors of both parties, who all claimed they would reduce oil imports, and absolutely did not. Congress has equally culpability, mostly at the hands of conservatives and UAW Democrats who did the bidding of a self interested but ultimately myopic Detroit that is now begging for our dollars and is one of the reasons I think the world might be a better place without GM.
Yonkel: The link I gave to my “The Myth of Man Made Global Warming” article in the essay above doesn’t appear to work. You can find it though by accessing my name in the IC archives, and go to the very first essay I wrote.
The difference between the Right and the Left on this issue can be summarized in 2 points:
1. Before we invest massive amounts of money and make drastic socio-economic changes to fix a problem, let’s be sure there is a problem. And,
2. If there is a problem, let’s make sure that man’s actions can indeed affect it.
Doing ‘something’ to do ‘something’ is bad policy.
Regarding point #1, from NOAA (the official website on world temperatures):
“The average temperature in October 2008 was 54.5 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 44th coolest October in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade”.
As a matter of fact, the global temp has been falling for the last 8 years. The sun is the quietest (three years of low activity) it has been since the Maunder Minimum, a time of almost no sunspots for over 70 yrs (the little ice age) that ended 250 yrs ago. There is at least a bit of concern among solar scientists regarding the quiet sun. The last 150+ years of warming followed the little ice age. The warming stopped in 1940 and there was cooling for 30 yrs causing a fear of a new ice age in the 70s. The warming resumed in the 80s and stopped again in about 2000.
Global Warming trends depend on where the counter starts. Alarmists picked the late 1800s as their starting point — a period of unusually cold weather. Consequently, every year after showed “warming” … that is, until recent years, when the 100+ year trend was wiped out in a matter of a year or two. All this goes to show is that when looking at “climate”, more than the span of a human lifetime or two is needed to assess a trend. Only man’s hubris would allow him to see a trend with a few years of data [precise global measurements have only been possible since the space age].
Regarding point #2, I summarized a lot of this in my comment 11. Having spent a number of years in Washington, I can tell you first hand that the tendency is to assume that man can fix a problem first, then identify the solution. If man is not part of the solution, then there’s no reason to give money (or power) to people to fix it.
Cleaner burning cars may be a good thing for the environment, and justify the expense on that level. But despite the claim that polluting cars cause global warming, there’s not a lot of real cause-effect evidence.
And this is the real problem for people like me. In the span of 30 years we’ve gone from “global cooling”, to “global warming” to now “global climate change” to identify the problem. Change is not the enemy — it’s the norm. If after 30 plus years of conclusions about the climate, the best we can now get is “climate change” as a reason to act, and the assumption that man is now responsible for this “change” (sunspots and normal climatic cycles be damned), then I for one will oppose any emotional, reflexive, agenda-driven reason to cede more power to bureaucrats or alter my standard of living.
I lay all this out pretty clearly in my global warming essay (which you can also access by going to my website http://www.scifi-jackson and looking under “Scambusters”). I begin my analysis with the simple question — “how do we know that?”
Until we actually know something, it’s just an educated guess. That’s not good enough to justify draconian policy changes.
Like I said, there may be plenty of reasons for wanting cleaner air, cleaner water, etc. But these are not “climatic change” issues — they’re pollution-related issues. It serves no legitimate purpose to over-reach as global warming alarmists have done and tie everything that’s happening with the climate to a preponderance of man’s (specifically the US’) influence.
All this does is foster an innate suspicion about other alarmist claims — some of which might actually have some credibility — but will now have a higher level of proof assigned to them before action because of the agenda-driven politics of the past.
It might help if I actually gave the right web address for my own website. http://www.scifi-jackson.com
Yonkel says–
—-Thank you for the kind words of appreciation Phillip and thanks to Travis for having argued much of what I might have said with a flair I might have lacked.
Travis, I have toiled in the high cotton on the IC, making your general contention that there are good and intelligent people on both sides of the fence, and that neither liberals or conservatives have cornered the market on either intelligence or stupidity.—–
Well put, Yonkel, and thanks. You are more concise than me, obviously … :-)
Travis
Travis:
Re: “Someone up there linked to a news release that described the efforts of some Latino parents to eliminate the Gifted program in a school because it seemed to benefit only…um, gifted people, I guess. I tend to agree that this type of effort seems to want to level the playing field and introduce a ‘dead heat’, and it’s really quite stupid. Naturally, I must add a couple caveats: 1) it appears in my brief skim of the article that this effort was prompted by a parent group, not a liberal intellectual.”
How would you characterize the political mindset of the parent group? Certainly not conservative. A conservative parent whose kid didn’t make the program would encourage and help his kid to study harder and do better, not tear down the ones who did make the grade.
While I recognize that this might be the mischief of a few malcontents who think racism is always the cause of their failure, their attitude comes from the liberal/Leftist obsession with radical egalitarianism. Their attitude need not come from a liberal intellectual to be considered liberal/Leftist, although I do believe that such ideas originate in the academy and migrate out to the population at large. That’s why we have affirmative action, for example, in government and corporate workplaces. And if we could trace its origin, we’d probably find it to be some liberal intellectual[s].
“… And 2) that’s about the only thing anybody said, in all 70 posts, that seemed to support the thesis being forwarded.”
I thank you for your kind words.
Sedona, I agree that those folks probably would be more likely to find comfort and support in to liberal ideology than conservative. (Although I thought that Latinos as a group trend conservative, except for this last election–could well be wrong on that). Liberal ideology, like conservtive ideology, can be distorted, exaggerated, and hi-jacked by all sorts of goofs and malcontents.
I’ve not denied–in fact openly admitted from the start–that there are no shortage of liberal flakes who think with their feelings, fail to examine their assumptions, and reason poorly. My contention has simply been that I’ve seen no evidence this is disproportionately a liberal malady, that in fact, evidence of the same tendencies (in service of a different ideology) can be equally found on the right.
After all, I could point to an organization somewhere in the US that wants to declare the US a ‘white, Christian nation’ and violently attack minorities, and ask you–do you think those bozos vote liberal? I think not. But I don’t claim that violent, senseless racism defines all conservatives, or even a small proportion of them, just because race-baiters these days tend to inhabit the right side of the political spectrum.
TT
By the way, affirmative action is a sticky wicket. I see both sides of it, and don’t have a decided opinion. That’s a luxury I have, since I don’t write political commentary, I can still be undecided about a few things.
But just because I won’t passionately defend modern affirmative action–and haven’t thought really deeply about the matter– doesn’t mean I accept the predominant assumption here that it is a self-evident evil. It’s not, at least not to me.
TT
TT
Travis, your ambivalent comments on affirmative action echo the educators attempt to force all students into a dead heat without regard to that unfortunate nuance of a bell shaped curve of ability. Affirmative action does not select the best qualified candidate, it selects the best qualified of the protected group candidates no matter how qualified they are. Welcome to mediocrity!
Travis:
Re: “I don’t claim that violent, senseless racism defines all conservatives, or even a small proportion of them, …
But I do claim that radical egalitarianism defines the Left. As evidence, I point to the universities and the grotesque forms their affirmative action programs have taken. One might argue that the academy doesn’t represent liberalism in general, and I would disagree because that’s where our ideas come from, and liberalism is an idea.
Re: “…just because race-baiters these days tend to inhabit the right side of the political spectrum.”
Where is the evidence for this? It is a common stereotype whose origin is Hitler’s invasion of Russia. Why? Because these “race-baiters” are self-proclaimed neo-Nazis. The Nazis and the Soviets were enemies in WW-II, and the conclusion has been that it was because they were ideological enemies, and therefore must be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. The fact that they were allies just before they fought each other is forgotten. Only more recently has the idea been explored that they were actually ideological brothers differing only in their fantasies. Therefore, I would characterize the neo-Nazis as a fringe element of the Left.
Mickey G and Travis:
Just to show you the grotesque proportions AA has taken, look at the graph at the end of this article:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/bronner2.htm
And don’t automatically assume the Supreme Court decision changed much.
Sedona, there’s an old riddle, you’ve probably heard it: “How many legs would a dog have if you called his tail a leg?” Answer: “Still only four…calling it a leg doesn’t make it one.”
You can call the neo-Nazis a fringe element of the Left, but that doesn’t make it so. My point was that those folks tend to talk and vote conservative, if they vote at all. Can you imagine a Neo-Nazi or Klansman voting for Barack Obama (unless he was thinking rationally about his economic self-interest :-) ?)
I think racism is slowly dying, due to generational factors, but there are still pockets of racism in the US, and a lot of them are in the South, which still votes overwhelmingly Republican. Remember David Duke? Do you think he would have gotten far in a modern Democratic party? (tedious disclaimers: I know Duke was a Democrat for a time, before achieving success when he switched to Republican. I also know he was disowned by most principled conservatives). Appeals to fly the Confederate flag would go no-where in the Democratic party.
I suppose it’s possible that the perception that southern racists tend to vote with the conservatives is just an unwarranted perception, but I’ve rarely heard anyone on either side argue that case.
By the way, if Nazis are in such kinship with the Left, how does their explicit racism and anti-Semitism mesh with the Left’s supposed radical egalitarianism? Not sure how that’s all supposed to work…
TT
And there’s this, of course:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/09/11/in-their-own-words-the-undisguised-racism-of-the-far-far-far-right/
:-)
Travis
Travis:
Why must racism necessarily be a Rightist characteristic? We can hardly describe people like Robert Byrd and his KKK as Rightists since it came from the Democratic Party, to use your method. And the old Soviet Union [about as Left as you can get] practiced racial discrimination. My concept of the Right/Left political spectrum is total government control on the extreme Left and no government control on the extreme Right. This would place the neo-Nazis on the Left because they differ from radical egalitarians only in which fantasy they want the government to impose on society. Neo-Nazis vote for Republicans/conservatives because they disagree with their ideological brothers on matters of race, not because they agree with the free market, individual initiative, private property, limited government, etc. We saw the same phenomenon with conservatives who voted for 0bama because McCain wasn’t conservative enough. Go figure.
Question:
1. If white people vote for a white candidate because he is white, is this a racist judgment? Answer — The Right: “Yes.” The Left: “Yes”
2. If Black people vote for a black candidate because he is black, is this a racist judgment? Answer — The Right: “Yes.” The Left: “No, it’s an expression of progressive, racial solidarity and perfectly understandable and acceptable.”
3. If a group or individual is denied things of political, economic or social value because of their skin color, is this racist? Answer — The Right: “Yes.” The Left: “Yes”.
4. If a group or individual is given preferential treatment in hiring or other social policy because of their skin color (no need to prove they or their ancestors were former slaves … they could be immigrants from a foreign country and/or the child of a wealthy couple — only their skin color is determinate in assigning the preferential treatment), is this racist? Answer — The Right: “Yes.” The Left: “No, it’s a progressive expression of social policy.”
This is why debate is impossible. Conservatives can answer all four questions clearly and succinctly. We actually believe what MLK said that it’s not the color of a man’s skin that counts, but the quality of their character. The Left has to parse each situation so that “racism” is only defined as white against minority discrimination, but any such actions by or on behalf of a minority against a white person is understandable, excusable, justified, still needed 44 years after the Great Society civil rights legislation with no end in sight to this need, etc.
When you lose the language, you lose the ability to examine real issues and real ideas, and platitudes become policies.
Sounds like a great lead in to an article someone should write.
Robert Byrd, D (KKK member for 40 years, grand kleagle)
George Wallace, D (block the door)
Bull Connor, D (fire hoses)
Woodrow Wilson, D (segregated federal offices)
Orval Faubus, D (governor of Arkansas)
John F. Kennedy, D (voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957)
Robert Kennedy, D (in 1964 assisted the FBI by approving the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr)
The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not have passed if not for overwhelming Republican support that offset extreme Democrat opposition.
I could go on, but this is enough to demonstrate that Travis simply accepts “conventional wisdom” at face value.
Phil:
Re: “The Left has to parse each situation so that ‘racism’ is only defined as white against minority discrimination,…”
Yes. Hispanics are magic chameleons because of this. If a white commits a crime against a Hispanic, it’s racially motivated. If a Hispanic commits a crime against a white, it is a white-on-white crime [if a crime at all], and therefore not racially motivated. Hispanics thus go through a miraculous metamorphosis in the process.
Not only that, but any Leftist-perceived deficiency in society somehow has racism as its roots. I once tried to think like a Leftist and, believe it or not, discovered racism under a rock! The logic went like this: I noticed that the underside of a rock is dark; dark is down; therefore, dark is discriminated against. Ergo, there’s racism under a rock!!!!
The fact is that the discrediting of economic Marxism by the fall of the Soviet Union has not led to the demise of Marxism [heaven forbid]; it has simply been replaced by cultural Marxism. And since Marxism defies all rational thinking, debate is hopless.
MM:
For every white racist Democrat you mentioned, there’s are other shining examples of the Left who make judgments on the basis of a person’s race or religion:
Jessie “Hymietown” Jackson
Louie “I hate Jews” Farrakhan
The Honorable Elijah “White Devils” Mohammed
The Reverend Wright (pick a sermon)
Al “Tawana Brawley was raped by white guys” Sharpton
Malcom “I hate white people” X
And last, but not least, how many black people did OJ kill?
The fact that’s lost on the platitude-mongers is that there are racist assh*les on both sides of the political spectrum in significant numbers.
The difference is that the Right does not try to institutionalize racism by making laws favoring individuals or groups based on their skin color, while the Left seeks to make such laws.
The Left excuses their racism because they assign it good intentions. The Right tries to make conditions favorable for everyone who wants to use their own talents and hard work to succeed, and resists an unending quota or AA system that after almost a half century has no end in sight.