We are all Slave now.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You join a group of friends who plan to rob a liquor store, knowing that someone might get hurt but not planning or wanting yourself to hurt anyone. The robbery goes off and the clerk gets killed. You didn't intend to hurt anyone, but it happened. You may not have wanted to murder anyone, but you are guilty of felony murder.

This is what we are talking about, except that about 1/5 (or 1/2, or 1/10, or 3/4 -- whatever) of the group is pretty inclined to kill someone if they get a chance, and no one in the group is particularly inclined to stop them. Under those circumstances, if you join that group, you have no business claiming later that you aren't a murderer because you didn't personally pull the trigger.

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.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I agree except I'd replace "most" with "the loudest." It's really a jackass minority that loves the racist shit. It's big, no doubt. But it's punching way above its weight right now. I'd say 1/5 of conservatives truly like the racism.

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

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

By definition, conservatives prefer the status quo. The status quo is racist. Conservatives therefore prefer racism.

Yes, most of them don’t think of it that way and/or deny that the status quo is racist. You see a meaningful distinction between these people and your 1/5. When taking about how large groups of people vote, I do not.

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.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

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

So now wanting manufacturing jobs kept here is racist?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So now wanting manufacturing jobs kept here is racist?

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

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

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

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

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.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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

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

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

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).