Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Sure you do. Of all the loathsome laws the law 'n urder sorts love, the ones that hold the drivers of getaway cars or lookouts as guilty of murder as the robbers who actually kill people are uniquely indefensible.

Under your reasoning, if I live in State A and vote for a moderate R for senate, I'm nevertheless racist because other R senate candidates from other states are racist. Your reasoning approaches the Scottish rules on scotch: Even a drop of another malt into a bottle of single malt renders the entire bottle an adulterated blend.

Your reasoning would also hold that one may never vote R under any circumstance until the R party removes all racists from its ranks. By extension, as many Southern Ds support racist policies, one cannot vote D either, as he'd be supporting a party infected by racists.

This purity contest becomes theater of the absurd pretty quickly.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

No less than 35% of this country is irretrievably racist and votes Republican faithfully because that party caters to them and their racism. Period.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You and I preferred the current economic status quo to Trump's populist trade policies. Does that make us racists?

Using your reasoning, supporting globalization is racist, as it takes jobs away from lower income groups, many of which tend to be minorities.

When you use impact as the defining metric, almost every policy can be claimed to be bigoted toward some group. Unless, of course, you're discussing some exceptionally unique policy that provides exclusively positive results to all groups.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

We're not talking about a handful of racists in the Republican party. We're talking about the Republican leadership in Congress whom your "moderates" (really? where?) would be voting for being openly racist, about their bill, their platform, the head of their party....

You're at the point of trying to argue that one shouldn't be considered a Catholic just because they're a member of the Roman Curia.

Are there times one might vote R? Sure, I can think of the Weld-Silber race in Massachusetts, where Silber was a racist ass and Weld was just an elitist ass, as being one. But it's been quite a while since we saw any of those races. You have to be pretty old to remember that Republican party.

Come on, dude. Get real. The Pope is Catholic, and Republicans are Racists. If you have any doubt, just go recite their respective catechisms.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You can’t be this stupid. Do you think trade has moved manufacturing to Norway?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

So now wanting manufacturing jobs kept here is racist?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

If you make common cause with a bunch of racists, it is fair to call you a racist unless you work pretty hard to distance yourself from and undo the effects of their racism. Just saying, I'm not a racist doesn't do the trick.

I agree that there is a problem with the felony-murder rule if you think that you signed up to commit tax fraud and then you find out that your co-conspirators are also knocking over a liquor store and -- whoops -- they killed a guy with a gun you didn't know they had.

But where a significant portion of the group is committed to violence, and you hint to them that you support them and keep putting them in roles where they get to act out -- you know they are going into the liquor store with a gun -- you don't get to say, well, I didn't mean for anyone to get shot. That's pretty much what you signed up for -- there's no playing innocent because you let someone else do the dirty work.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Why do you do stupid shit like this? You just need someone to respond? You trying to help Seb out? What is the point of this ridiculousness?

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I get it. Of course the R party has turned into a shitshow in which racists are running around like gremlins, wrecking the place and killing off the establishment Rs.

But as you noted, the establishment Rs are a different lot. And there are a lot of them still out there, wandering, lost and confused. They still vote R because they don't like the alternative, but they don't like the crazies within their party, either.

Adder'd lump them under the term "racist." Seems unfair to do that to the old guard. I recall a time when moderate Ds and moderate Rs weren't all that unlike. I'd never label of those moderate Ds a "socialist" or some other excessive descriptive. In that same spirit, I'd never call an old establishment R a "racist." It's a bit too much.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The point is to show Adder is a bit absurd in the way he frames these things. Too extreme.

GGG just framed the "Rs tend to be racist" point the right way. Adder's absolutist approach is silly. It's what causes people to mock identity politics. Mostly, it's about semantics and walking ones self into contradictions.

Hank's point was actually pretty funny. You can do this stuff all day long with extreme views. When you make impact a metric, you warp the debate so badly a critic is immediately armed with endless responses.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Before we go making a saint out of establishment Republicans, let's remember that establishment Republicans like George H.W. Bush, Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes trucked in their share of racism to win the Presidency.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm totally comfortable with stating that a Trump voter who's doing so for tax reasons aids and abets racism. I don't see any way around that.

I'm not comfortable calling him a racist, however. He might not be one. He might just be a greedy, soulless sort.

The real problem is bluntly and broadly using impact as the metric. Direct impact I think is a fine metric. If you vote for a local sheriff because you like his platform of jailing all the illegals in gulags, you're a bigot. If you're a contractor working on Keystone XL and you vote for Trump to aid your bottom line, you're a rational economic actor.

Adder desires to use impact too broadly. That's when we walk into Absurdistan (thanks, Taleb). Because if impact in its most blunt sense is the measuring stick, a butterfly in China might be bigoted.

Now, of course, Adder knows better. He'll say a reasonableness standard is implied, and I think that's fair. But whose standard is that? When does the impact become too tenuous? How in the hell do you make that finding?

And if we struggle with that issue, what about the average voter, idiot that he is? On the right and the left, our polarized warring factions are offering some godawfully stupid arguments. Should we let academics decide where impact is too tenuous to assert bigotry? Nope. These people have navel gazed themselves into imbecility on these subjects. Should we hand it over to legislators? Fuck no. They're often dumber than the average voter, and half the time only interested in job preservation. Maybe we should give it to lawyers... They write laws, right? Well, we clearly can't think clearly on it.

Maybe we'll just use NY Times v. Sullivan: We know direct impact when we see it.

I don't have the answer. But I know it's not Adder's.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm not really interested in arguing this with you. You have shown either an unwillingness or inability to hear anything I say on the topic, but the Republican Party all over this country has historically enacted and is enacting the most blatantly, outright racist laws at every turn. Those who vote for a party that is continually acting in such a manner is either a fucking racist or doesn't give a fuck about supporting racism through their vote as long as they get what they want for themselves. There is absolutely no getting around that.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

These two sentences constitute the perfect example of the problem with 90% of white people in this country.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Fair enough. Willie Horton was some rancid shit, but that was more Atwater than anything else. Bush 41's record on race matters was otherwise decent. (Even crediting his wife's dumb comments on Katrina to him.)

W's hit job on McCain's daughter in 2000 was far worse. I don't give him a pass like the old man. I think he knew what he was doing and is just a hyper-competitive prick.

But generally, old line GOP voters simply did not pay attention to matters of race or sex. They were pocketbook voters. Call them clueless, criticize them for their ignorance -- that's all fair. But my fucking 90 year old grandparents who only voted R because they had a business and that's what you did when you had a business back then weren't racists. They were just people who figured it was always better to pay less in taxes. They'd have never voted for someone like Trump (because they were Eastern European immigrants who knew what demagogues looked like).

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The conversation we are having is, why does Sebby insist that some people who knowingly and intentionally do racist things are, nonetheless, not "racists"?

Saying that you are "not comfortable calling him a racist" nicely gets at the key to this little debate, which is that it's about your comfort rather than some distinction in other people's behavior that you can describe or explain.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Actually, you and I agree. You cite two sub-groups of conservatives. (I'd cite three, including "just don't care about race issues," but that's immaterial here.)

Adder sees all conservatives as racists. That's cuckoo pants.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You spelled "Shteyngart" wrong.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....4,203,200_.jpg

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

As that article explains, Bush talked about Horton on the stump for months before the ad was made. You are so uncomfortable calling someone a racist that you are unwilling to call them a racist when they go in front of large crowds repeatedly to say racist shit, and then pay employees to turn it into a TV commercial. From what I can tell, you are unwilling to call someone a racist unless they go and say bluntly, I am a racist. (Then you think they deserve the label for being so déclassé as to admit it openly.)

Yes, it's a total mystery why Bush talked about Horton on the stump, or Atwater and Ailes ran those ads -- all those pocketbook voters were just ignoring the fact that Horton was black, and the ads didn't really explain how he was going to prevent them from fully deducting their business expenses.

So that we can have a more useful conversation about this, I am willing to stipulate that NOTHING I say about anyone, at any time, has anything to do with your grandparents unless I explicitly say so, or unless I say something nice, however unlikely that is.

And so does Adder.
 

Accepting your definition of the term "racist" just for this post only, I completely agree with you.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I explained it perfectly. A contractor voting for Trump purely so he can get work on Keystone XL? Racist?

You can't get around that, so you say it's a distinction without a difference, because impact is impact. I say, agreed in part. I think impact can be a basis on which to call someone a racist.

The question is how do we measure when the threshold for such impact to allow for such indictment has been met?

This stuff gets terribly subjective. And yet so many seem so certain they know. You yourself don't even know the answer to that question. just a few posts ago, you recognized the difference between aiders and abettors of racism and racists, but could not offer a rule as to when one bled into the other.

My only point is Adder's rule, where almost everyone was a racist, is not wise way to make the measurement. If you disagree with that, I think you're viewing this issue a bit illogically.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

No, I agree that not everyone who voted for Trump can fairly be called a racist. What I have been saying has been more aimed at people who identifying with the GOP, who continue to support and represent the party even though it keeps doing racist stuff. The difference between us is that it takes much less for me to decide that someone is complicit in racism when they work to make common cause with and empower racists. You're not wiling to call someone a racist even if they turned William Horton into Willie Horton to get elected President.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't know what Seb is typically trying to say, so i am usually not trying to help him out.

I took Adder's point to be wanting to keep jobs in the US as opposed to being shipped to Asia as being racist, since the workers that "benefit*" in Asia would be Asian? But isn't keeping work here possibly something one can wish for simply for the benefit of this country- I mean lots of union folks- black/white/brown support that concept- the MAGA hats are not the only ones on the boat.

*and from lots I've read there are a lot of working condition horrors out there, so "benefit" is surely not certain.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Let me ask you a serious question. If Trump murdered 30 people with his bare hands because they looked at him funny and ran on the fact that he loves murder, and that same contractor voted for Trump purely so he can get work on Keystone, are you willing to concede that that voter is okay with murder as long as he gets what he wants?

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Yes.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

But you stop at the point when someone says his vote is a vote for murder because he's just okay with his President being a murderer and doesn't enjoy murder himself.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You cannot call him a murderer or even pro-murder. He’s selfish, shitty, immoral.

A good analogy would be an investor in opioid manufacturers, or cigarette makers. They aren’t pushers. But they aren’t acting in a decent manner, either.

And it gets more complicated with politics. A number of truly sincere people place other issues, like abortion or trade policy (bringing jobs back) above racism and sexism.* So to them, voting for Trump is not only morally preferable, but morally required.
___
*ETA: These people are deeply misguided, but if you’ve met pro-lifers or bring urn jobs back folks, you know, they’re earnest and believe their causes are most important.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Are there any circumstances in which you are comfortable calling a white person a "racist" where he or she has not openly advocated for white supremacy or self-identified as a racist?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

To be clear, I don't think you're succeeding in making the points you think you're making. I am just trying to distill exactly how you think about this shit.

As far as I'm concerned, if you continue to support someone like Trump you have decided that you don't give a fuck about racism at best. Your values system allows you to make a judgment that if you get what you want, you're okay enough with that such that you understand your support enables outright racism. Every decision has repercussions. You don't get to vote for a racist piece of shit and discount his racism when he starts doing racist shit. You own that. But, hey, at least you got what you wanted.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I’m trying to find the window during which you think there was a GOP that wasn’t in favor of racist policies. Are you talking before the Civil Right’s Act? Seems unlikely look at that era and think ”not racist.” Was it after that as all of the old southern, racist Dems migrated over? Was it Nixon? Couldn’t be Reagan and the welfare queen myth or HW and the Willie Horton ads.

I’ll grant you 1) there was a period in this century where it became politically toxic to be viewed as racist, leading to conservatives who denied that their despire to shrink government wasn’t motivated by the wrong people getting benefits, and 2) some members of the pundit and political classes sincerely believe it of themselves, most like because they’ve never really examined their own biases or bothered to listen when people talk about systemic racism being a broader thing than overt animus (that last bit should sound familiar to you).

Regardless, that’s not what’s going on among the mass of voters, who hear, understand and like the dogwhistles.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You are arguing that people of your grandparents generation were not racist. Have you any understanding of history?

Leaving aside that everyone’s grandparents were racist, you’re talking about people who lived in Jim Crow America and when racism was bipartisan.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This would be where I rest my case.

What can you do with this kind of thinking? It’s generalizing to an extent which would be hard to believe if not written on the page in front of me.

It’s also a reading comp failure. I’m arguing my grandparents, an example of most northern GOP voters of the time, were classic tax voters. They didn’t even think about racism or sexism. They were transactional immigrants.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You are totally OK with generalizations of such scope, so long as they are absolving white people of racism.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

? Some whites are racist, some aren’t. Some conservatives are racist, some aren’t. We can argue percentages, but none of those statements are controversial.

You seem to miss that you and I agree.

Adder’s the outlier here, repeatedly arguing that ALL conservatives and all people of a certain generation are racist. That’s an objectively indefensible position.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Agreed. You are an enabler if you don’t care.

But what if on your laddering of moral issues, overturning Roe tops all else? I don’t know what to call that person.

My sole thinking here is Adder is using too broad a standard. I think we all know that, but there’s reluctance to acknowledge it.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Here’s a good question to ask yourself - how would your grandparents react if they were told that their daughter was dating a black man?

Heck, my father went batshit crazy when my uncle jokingly suggested that my sister was dating a black dude when she was in college. My Irish cop great uncles and grandfather would have arrested the guy (“loitering” or “vagrancy” were terms of art for cops in the pre-war fiefdom of Patsy McCall) and beaten the shit out of him.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You are having an argument about semantics and/or the burden of proof, and you keep imagining that you are disagreeing about what people actually think.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm sorry if I confused you by referring to things you said earlier today. Let me help.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Adder said ALL people of my grandparents’ (and presumably his) generations were racist, and ALL modern conservatives are racist. My generalizations were as to quite finite groups. He spoke for an entire generation. There just a lil difference there. Just a tad...

But you knew that. Regroup. Take a different shot.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

OK. Since you weren't answering it anyway, take this question as rhetorical instead of serious: