Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't see a way to do that.

Maybe we should just win some fucking elections instead.
 

I’m Not SEC Chick* (though I played her on TV), but this reads like a petition to close barn doors a hundred years too late. Unless it is a modest propsosal in a Swiftian sense, in which case it’s just not entertaining.

*I sorta am Not SEC Chick, though, amirite?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Just to argue with a heading, there are plenty of places for ideologues on Appellate Courts. Con Law is meant for ideologues. Who else is really going to dig deep on it. Much of this, as Not SEC Chick has already said, is about shutting a barn door that was opened a long time ago (probably about the time of the English Civil War, actually).

But I do wish expertise in specific areas of law beyond litigation and con law were valued. We could use some patent lawyers or tax lawyers or trade lawyers or actual corporate lawyers somewhere in the process hearing cases on taxes, trade, IP, or corporations. And, maybe, if we valued other stuff as much as we do the goring of constitutional oxes, it would lessen the degree of polarization just because the sole focus wouldn't be how issue X affects the litmus test concerns.

Dear Help Desk
 

For 17 years, you have made emails from federal judges go to my junk folder, but now it includes all Pacer emails. Please stop.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You realize that to bring mood affiliation into a discussion here basically blows up the place. Seventy percent of what people put here is cherry picked to suit their narrative of the world.

I could cite an article by Ta Nehisi Coates or Krugman in which they advocated cannibalism and it'd be lauded here. There are darlings of this place, exclusively progressive or liberal, whose works are treated with reverence. Murray deserves no quarter, but Harris? I think Harris' body of work on varied topics, most of which I've read, evidences a strong, open-minded intellect. And yet because he offended GGG's sensibilities (er, narrative) in his exchange with a buffoon like Ben Affleck, and chose to touch the third rail of censorship of Murray, he's a "bigot," a "racist."

Who's observing mood affiliation there?

Somebody needs to be the skeptic here. Because from what I see, there's an enormous amount of mood affiliation on this board.

Not so much from you. You're a son of a bitch to debate with, but you don't seem to have a strong ideology (or at least not one that isn't subject to change). So this is not in any way aimed in your direction.

"Don't you dare take shots at a view that I hold sacred" is never a wise posture. That's passion eclipsing clinical examination of issues. Klein would support this by the way, as he believes we should consider feelings. I'm not unsympathetic to that view. But facts are facts, and however deeply held a position might be, if there are holes in it, it should be criticized. I think identity politics is one of those areas. Generalizations are like abortion. Needed, but best avoided, and used rarely.

It's telling so many people here would happily call themselves progressive, as they have. Maybe you think you're one (your affection for free markets renders this impossible, by the way). I think myself one in some regards. But I'm conservative in other regards (like you). I know I'm socially liberal. But on fiscal policies, I go policy by policy. Sometimes, I like liberal ideas, sometimes conservative. My mind changes from day to day.

With the exception of a few bedrock concepts regarding individual freedom, I'm pretty much a relativist on everything, viewing theories and policies like a buffet. I think everyone is secretly the same. And yet here, to disagree with often doctrinaire liberal sacred cows earns one a massive pile-on.

I'd be careful discussing mood affiliation here. You are correct that I have knee jerk impulse to want to tell Klein to shut up. And that's perhaps unfair. But it's the same knee jerk reaction one receives here when questioning certain strident liberal or progressive opinions, or the darlings who offer them -- "I'm right, dammit... You're trolling!" Neither is true.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Aw! That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is our local high school. Incredibly bizarre and disturbing. And once again shows that justice is dependent on budget.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

It must be amazing to be the one person--the ONLY person--who can view differing arguments with any degree of skepticism and who can objectively evaluate different positions from a wholly unemotional and unbiased standpoint. We're lucky to have your perspective here.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Holy shit. From 3000 miles away I find this disturbing; it's got to be bizarre to be there. Are any of your kids near the same age?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I think there were some others on the board who reacted pretty strongly to the Maher/Harris display with Ben Affleck. I'd dismissed both Maher and Harris as rabid racists long before that - I mean, they've both kind of made it their calling card. So don't think that show interrupted my "narrative" in any way - it was just the clowns doing their usual performance.

Harris was on the show because he was one of Maher's Islamaphobic bros. The whole point of was to get a couple of racist haters who like trashing Islam but know jack-shit about it together with a prominent liberal to get attention for their little hissy-fits. Usually, my reaction to such things is to ignore them, but in this case they were sufficiently over the top so a lot of people finally came to the conclusion I'd come to years before with respect to Maher in particular.

Everyone here is eager to engage with people with a wide range of intelligent opinions. Please don't mistake these clowns for that, though; if you do, you'll be down the Trumpian twitterhole pretty quickly. Soon you'll start telling me about how we're going to win this trade war, or explaining how Hilary sold uranium to the Russians. And how Obama shouldn't be able to buy groceries without a long-form birth certificate.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is an example of generalizing run amuck. What you've done here is dangerous, and demonstrates a lot of what is fucking up our national discourse.

I'll have to unpack it, because there's a lot wrong here.

First, you cannot call someone racist because he's an alleged Islamaphobe. A racist hates people of a certain race, not of a certain religion. I suspect you are using racist where "xenophobe" or "religious bigot" is appropriate because it confers more moral authority. "Racist" has bite those terms do not. (But not for much longer, if people keep intentionally misusing it as you have here. Recklessly throwing any hyperbole around desensitizes people to it.)

Second, Harris is not an Islamaphobe. Nor is Maher. Both men look down their noses at all religions. The only reason they're labeled Islamaphobes is because they have stated that Islam is the most violent religion currently, the "problem child" of religions of the moment. That's fact. You cannot dispute that. Citing a fact does not make one a religious bigot.

That Maher brought Harris on to make a fool of Affleck is immaterial to this discussion. But since you raise it, I'd say it was a public service. Affleck should be mocked for being ludicrous and illogical, and for offering hyperbole in service of sophomoric virtue signalling.

Your last comment is truly dangerous generalizing. There, you take all of these disparate issues and lump them under the Trump banner. Trump has nothing to do with Harris or Maher (both of whom detest Trump, by the way). This is you conflating issues to confuse the discussion. Everyone hates Trump, so I shall link all these things to Trump and that will be my winning closer! Nevermind that Harris and Maher were critiquing religion long before Trump was on the campaign trail.

I do not agree with tariffs, or the trade war. I do agree that Islam is the most violent religion of the moment. I think Trump is a disaster, a national embarrassment. But I do not think that banning Muslims is a "racist" policy. It is a stupid religiously-bigoted and xenophobic policy. These are unique issues, unique offenses, and unique positions. There is no credible way to lump them under one umbrella, and your attempt to do so is transparent and comes off as disingenuous.

You have to stop with the generalizations and start looking at things on an issue by issue basis to have intelligent discussions about this stuff.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Look, what both Maher and Harris do is make wild generalizations and stereotypes about Islam, the Middle East, Arabs, etc. Unpacking where they're being bigoted based on race and where on religion is tedious and unproductive and usually results in the answer "both". They each know jack shit about the region and its history. They cast aspersions against a wide range of people with no basis but their genetic pool and/or religion. You've obviously picked up many of their views from the above.

If you have problems with generalization, you really ought to puke at those two and stop with it yourself.

What a fucking waste of time. And yes, this sort of intellectually lazy bigotry (aka, "Economic Distress") is what Trump is all about.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You have to look at these things issue by issue.

That National Review article saying we must never view Trump in an issue-by-issue fashion is perhaps one of the dumbest things I have ever read. It is intellectually indefensible.

For eight years, conservatives took the position that everything Obama did was bad. It was total war -- even when he pushed their own policies, they fought him. It was a national embarrassment, a degradation of our democracy.

I totally understand progressives (and apparently Buckley conservatives) detesting Trump and wanting to take the same approach. But that doesn't make it wise.

Policy is a buffet. You get behind what you like, fight against what you don't (or find a way to circumvent it). You also have to apply skepticism to every policy, as this is the only way to try to avoid the law of unintended consequences. No sane person says, "I am progressive, and therefore any policy that trends progressive is fine with me." This is, again, generalizing.

Being a relativist is a good thing. Religious freaks hijacked the term and made "moral relativism" a pejorative. I think we should embrace it and defend it. It's the first step toward true enlightenment, and the end of our sclerotic political parties.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Maher and Harris said all religions are nonsense. The sole unique thing they said about Islam is that it is the religion causing the most violence of all religions today. They have repeatedly said that, if they were writing 200 years ago, they would say the same thing about Christianity.

Christianity was the most violent religion of the period from 1400 to the 20th century. Do you have a problem with me saying that? Does that make me bigoted toward Christians?

Islam has been the religion responsible for the most violence of any religion from 1980 to present. That is simply a fact.

If you wish to debate how US foreign policy was involved in that, we can have that discussion. But that's a different issue.

It's not a waste of time at all. You are generalizing, and it is dangerous. And yes, Trumpian.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Careful... If you admit relativist tendencies, the pile-on's coming for you next.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

So here are a few generalizations for you to think about among all those others. The two largest groups of immigrants from the MENA region are Lebanese and Iranians.

Both groups are generally among the most peaceful, well educated, and wealthy immigrant groups to the US. With one exception, no Lebanese, Iranian or Lebanese-American or Iranian-American has ever been involved in a deadly terrorist attack in the United States. The one and important exception is a single Lebanese participant in the 9/11 attacks. So Lebanese must be more threatening than Iranians, right, even though most Lebanese in the US are Christian, right?

It is not hard to make a case that many other immigrant communities commit more violence in the US, are less educated, and came in with less wealth. Certainly, based on the statistics, the case could be made (and in the past has been made, by the bigots of different ages) for Russians, Sicilians (hi Hank!), Cubans, Irish, Vietnamese...

But why is Iran the only one of these countries today whose people are barred from the US? What animosity drives that and who drives that animosity (Hi Maher and Harris!)? What leads people screaming about Muslims and Arabs to be so frightened of Iranians? Looked at objectively, Iranian immigrants mostly want to come to the US and provide us healthcare - what is it that leads them instead to be cast as a bunch of violent religious fanatics who want to kill us?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You'll find zero daylight between us on criticism of US policy toward Iran. It's ludicrous, and we should be doing everything we can to foster better relationships with the Iranian people, who are not our enemies and are exactly the types of immigrants we should be encouraging to come here.

But our policy is not the fault of people like Maher or Harris. Hatred of Iran goes back to the days of the Shah's overthrow and the hostage crisis. It's also borne of Trump's coziness with the Saudis and Israelis. I don't need to explain that stuff. You know it as well if not better than I do.

I actually agree with your criticism of anyone citing Muslims generally, as if they behave monolithically. I also don't like the criticism that peaceful Muslims have a duty to police radicals. Maher loses me there. (Harris does not offer that criticism.) But I think in an assessment of which religions are causing the most problems today, it's not unfair to say Islam is being hijacked as a justification for some awful behavior more than other religions at the moment. And I certainly don't think saying so should invite the charge of racism. (Not only because it's not a bigoted comment, but also because its not regarding any "race.")

If anyone says all Muslims are violent, or that the religion is uniquely violent as opposed to others, I think calling such a person a religious bigot or xenophobe would be reasonable. But citing an uncomfortable fact - that Islam has had a problem with violence in its name far greater than any other religion in the last 30 or so years - is just noting a sad fact. Prominent Muslims have said as much themselves.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is the "fact" used to tar a whole lot of Iranians (Muslim and non-Muslim) who have had nothing to do with that violence. That's the point.

And, ah, yes, cue the cite to the "Prominent Muslims". Sheesh.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don’t agree with that. I think bad policy toward Iran has multiple causes, most of them strategic and political (Saudis and Israelis drive a lot of it).

But for sake of debate, I’ll agree with you. Suppose criticism of Islam as being abused by violent radicals is the entire cause of our bad Iran policy. What are you suggesting? That we ban discussions of facts? That we shame people for comparing religions in a way that brings negative light on Islam?

There are numerous Muslims, many lapsed I assume (as most sane people give up religion of all kinds) who acknowledge there’s a crisis ongoing in which Islam is being co-opted, uniquely, by lunatics as cover for violent ends.

You’re getting very close to policing what facts are and aren’t appropriate for discussion. You can do that with opinion, but with facts, you cannot. Facts simply are, and they don’t go away because someone doesn’t like them.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I like to talk to people with more knowledge than is on a cue card about facts. It's time to leave you and your buddies on the reddit threads to talk about the islamaphobic bros.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You seem to think you are doing God's work in policing a distinction between racial and not-purely-racial forms of bigotry. Why is that? Pedantry in the defense of _________ is no vice? What is _________?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I like to talk to people who don’t smash issues together because emotion and bias cloud their reasoning and then regress to insult when it’s pointed out to them.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You seem to be quite a stickler for adherence to black letter definition when it comes to “censorship” (or any other word, really, when it suits your position), and yet this misapplication of a word gets a pass? You’ll pardon my snickering.

And yes — it’s quite important here to observe the strict definition. Stealing that word and overusing it: (a) insults the concept of actual racism and those who suffer it; (b) cheapens its value as a criticism/charge; and, (c) desensitizes people to its use.

(And you know he was using it to hyperbolize, which is bad faith.)

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The fact is that defining "white" for racial purposes usually ties into other bigotries. Here's a good snapshot of some of the racial issues implicated: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...is-complicated

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You need to stop reading so much alt right and libertarian crap, where this is a distinction worth stating.

I don't know crap about Harris, but Bill Maher most definitely is.

We've had this conversation before, but it still remains that just because you are completely ignorant of what happens outside the U.S. does not make the scope of your personal knowledge a fact.

Nor does generalizing about a billion people based on conduct of a small few.

Trump sells the same Islamophobic crap they do. How is that unrelated?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

2. The more reasoned of Holocaust survivors I have met were quick to point out: "Sure Hitler hated our religion, but say what you will, the man was not a racist."

But I may have been the only one to actually listen to the interview with the Columbia student, so let me just drop a reminder here- Harris starts with "liberals want to act like no blacks commit crime." Okay, get that, I think the "all blacks good, all whites bad" posts here are the dumbest.

Then Harris starts summarizing crime stats and gets to "young black men are way more likely to commit crimes." I don't know, to me stats are sort of silly- if someone in my fam is the victim of a violent crime I don't think where we fit in on the "likelihood/stat" spectrum will make me feel much.

But then he takes the stats and says they justify mistreating/suspecting the next young black man that walks into your store. The Columbia student seems supportive of the thought, so maybe it's just me. BUT implying ALL black men are likely criminals, and in particular, the one you are now encountering, feeds the fear that leads to men with their hands in the air being shot, doesn't it?

And just as bad, treating a random black kid default as a criminal leads to the kid maybe deciding "might as well be," doesn't it?

Maybe this Harris guy was just adrift that day, maybe he walked it back the next interview, but I do think that sort thought is dangerously racist. IMHO.

Point is, so not sure of the need for arguing out this distinction?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Webster's:

Definition of racism

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 a : a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
b : a political or social system founded on racism
3 : racial prejudice or discrimination

Show me the authority stating religions are races. Otherwise, the term is misapplied. You are using "bigotry" now, I see, which is the correct term to describe people who discriminate based on religious background.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I was all ready to get excited about the idea of Hitler not being a racist - I mean, he had a detailed racial analysis, even if his notion of an "Aryan" race might conflict with notions of a "white" race.

But then you give a really nice explication of exactly how a generalization (Sebby's "fact") becomes a stereotype becomes bigotry. So let's focus on that. This is exactly right.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I won't defend everything Harris says, but I am comfortable stating that his work taken in aggregate does not demonstrate a racist bent. And certainly his comment on Maher regarding Islam does not (even if one allows for the inaccurate characterization of Islam as a race).

The distinction is huge and important. If I say I hate Asians, I'm a racist. If I say I hate Catholics, I'm a religious bigot. And I'd say the former is far worse than the latter as the Asian has no choice but to be what he is. The Catholic has taken some step which can be undone. Both are odious forms of hatred, but one is more cruel and arbitrary than the other.

And in the US, with our legacy of slavery, and jailing of Japanese in internment camps, racism is a word with very unique meaning. I don't think it should be casually expanded to grant unwarranted heft to arguments of the more reckless advocates on the Left.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

So the rules should be:

We must shun discussions which lead to certain religions being seen in a negative light.

I believe a number of Catholic Bishops have been arguing that same point for the last 15 or so years. They've even had lawyers argue it against the Boston Globe and NYTimes. You should look up their work... probably filled with great cites.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You have any relatives who've met with the state depts of middle eastern nations recently? You're the one in short pants here.

I agree. I think that's bigoted and said as much. Reread.

GGG shoehorned in a comment about Trump's tariffs, stating I'd be arguing they're a good idea because I'm a right wing crank. Much as you did here. That's relevant to a discussion of Islamaphobia how...?

I do not read alt right shit, and everyone sees what you're doing there. Stop it.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Again, this is bizarre. "All you have to do to make me stop hating you is change your fundamental belief system so that's not as bad as racism" is a meaningless distinction to most normal people.

So unique you can get it from dictionary.com. ETA: Oops! Webster's. It was elsewhere someone was citing dictionary.com.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Dude you cited Cernovich right here on this very forum. You clearly do, although you may be in such a bubble that you don't realize it when you do it.

I also suspect that Harris can fairly be characterized as alt right, but I refuse to educate myself about him enough to be able to confirm.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

There are two issues in here, one a philosophical one: if we begin by saying race is a social construct, what variety of social construct is it? Is racism bigotry based on skin tone? Based on hair color (Blond! Aryan!) Based on other features (big noses, height, eye shape, head shape)? How is the choice of features related to cultural or historical differences? Thus, the debate on the US census about whether to list people from MENA or Hispanics as separate races or "adjuncts" of other races.

The other is a broader one: how do various bigotries reinforce each other. You don't often find someone who is just a racist without being full of all kinds of other form of bigotry. The KKK's list of people they hated and why was impressive, and by no means limited to race. These bigotries tend to reinforce each other.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Harris is one of the group of people who describe themselves as liberal while pushing racism (ugh, sorry, bigotry). Put him in with Dawkins and Maher.

I mostly know him from some early really old ignorant articles he wrote on the middle east and his appearances on Fox when I'm at various family members houses where they watch that shit. He tends to be on as a liberal who agrees with Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson and explains to Bill or Tucker why all other liberals suck but Bill and Tucker are bros.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

If Donald Trump said to you, Sheriff Sebby, I want to offer you an amazing blowjob, would you say yes?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You telling anyone else they’re in a bubble is somewhere between the Onion and Monty Python level satire.

I didn’t even know who Cernovich was. The other 99.999% of what I’ve written contains no reference to anything even close to alt right.

You’re fighting dirty, and you’ve no business opining on what the rest of the world thinks.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Depends. Would a priest be offering me a better one?*

I like to shop for the best head.

———
* This is not a suggestion any one religion is more deviant than another. We must never engage in such conversations, per the Handicapper General’s Rules of Conversation.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Those are worthwhile questions to consider. But still, we must always come back to the consideration, If I say I hate Episcopalians, have I engaged in racism? And if I say I hate Asians, would that be religious bigotry?

I think we’re talking past each other because your criticism seems to be how issues regarding race and religion are raised. You seem to be saying a discussion of Islam’s current violence problems should only be raised in context including exculpatory facts. I’m not sure that’s needed because the criticism raised isn’t of Islam, but of those hijacking it. I see nothing controversial in saying a peaceful religion has been bastardized by lunatics for bad ends. That’s not the religion’s fault. That’s the fault of the lunatics.

I don’t know why saying this is always met with, “You’re an Islamaphobe saying all Muslims are violent!” That’s not what’s being said at all. It’s not even close.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You're doing parody now, right?

No, I'm telling you that if you read and cite Cernovich without knowing who Cernovich is, you might have alt right stuff making it into your reading pile without realizing it, because, well, that first bit of this sentence. Also because you sometimes repeat weird conspiracy theory stuff (mostly if it's about Hillary).