Post deleted by Mat Sklansky

[AndyFaggotFox]

[nicky g]

I'm guessing he was referring to this:

"The role of women is not really a function of my opinion, or even of a unanimous opinion. People have had majority and near-unanimous opinions regarding the role of Jewish people in money-lending for maybe 2,000 years, for instance. And yet here we are today, Jewish people are still in the money-lending business."

To be honest, I don't follow your point well enough to say whther it's antisemitic or not, which is standard for your posts (me not understanding them). But if you want to persuade people that you are neither a bigot nor an insult merchant, signing up under the handle "AndyFaggotFox" may have been an error.

[MMMMMM]

I think Andy may have overreacted somewhat in that thread. Attributing--or erroneously misattributing--something to a group of people is not in itself racism. If the statement you made is correct, then it is not racist. If it is incorrect, then it is simply wrong. It is only racist, in my opinion, if it is both incorrect and is being used for racist purposes. Here eLROY was trying to show that the role of various people is not arrived at by consensus but rather by forces that are much stronger, such as economic forces.

The fact that such attributions have often been used for racist purposes does not make every instance of such attributions racist. I don't knows exactly what your purposes were there, but I don't think that statement alone qualifies as a racist statement.

Some might say that blacks tend to dominate professional sports in the USA today, and be correct. However maybe in 50 or 100 years that will no longer be the case, and the statement will become incorrect. That doesn't mean it would become a racist statement in 100 years though; it just might become inaccurate.

Now whether it is true that, historically, Jews have been involved in the money-lending business more than others, I don't know. It seems to me that could probably be objectively determined and then categorized as correct or incorrect. I don't see how factual discussion is racist, even if such discussions have often been used for racist purposes.
I don't think subject matters should be taboo, because that does nothing to clear away the cobwebs and arrive at definitive conclusions.

Now did eLROY on other occasions make truly anti-Semitic remarks? I really don't remember.

I also do not consider Andy as one of the most guilty of making personal characterizations on this forum. In particular, Chris Alger seems especially overeager to attribute many statements and views to racism, and ACPlayer and Cyrus do to a significant extent as well. I hereby rebuke you guys for focusing on personal characterizations rather than on discussion of the subject materials at hand in multiple instances. You seem to so to fear racism, or to so attribute things to racism, that you cannot hold a purely factual discussion in some instances. The proper idea is to derive the Truth, not to derive feel-good conclusions which might confirm your view of the world. The scientific approach to analysis should be applied as far as practicable when it comes to socio-political matters, too. Nothing shoulds be exempt from questioning or analysis, and no subject should be taboo because it might upset too many people.

[Chris Alger]

Saying that you don't "consider Andy one of the most guilty" is a gross understatement. He is, as far as I have seen, unfailingly polite, virtually the opposite of his attacker.

[ QUOTE ]
I hereby rebuke you guys for focusing on personal characterizations rather than on discussion of the subject materials at hand in multiple instances. You seem to so to fear racism, or to so attribute things to racism, that you cannot hold a purely factual discussion in some instances. The proper idea is to derive the Truth, not to derive feel-good conclusions which might confirm your view of the world.

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't grasp why there's little hope of sensible discourse with a racist. It's not merely because racists are ignorant and stupid, it's because racism tends to presume the answer to all arguments. If someone claims that the Arab or Islamic mentality or culture is fundamentally flawed, then there's no point of trying to convince that person that we should try plan X or option Y, they'll always be able to "defend" whatever it is they want to do (usually, inflicting cruelty) by returing to their presumption of inherent, irremediable flaws within the population they're targeting. So you have to get the racist assumptions off the table first before you can move on to anything sensible.

I've been very specific about why I think you're a racist and that I've defended those reasons at length. Two persistent threads run through most of your posts:

1. You have often denigrated huge groups -- hundreds of millions of people -- on the basis of their "culture" and which you've characterized in the terms typically invoked by racists ("savage, barbaric"). You've defended this transparent bigotry on the grounds that culture, as opposed to race, is a legitimate topic for discussion and debate, which by extension means that group defamation on cultural grounds is fair game. It is obvious to the most casual reader that you're merely substituting "culture" for the physical obsessions of slightly cruder racial and national supremacists.

2. You refuse to apply the same standards to the same groups. For example, when informed of prior acts of indefensible terror and mass violence by Americans or their proxies, you dismiss this as irrelevant for it's having taken place in the past. "That was then, this is now" you once said. Yet you never allow time to discount the atrocities of Arabs and Muslims. Indeed, you apply a sort of opposite standard whereby past bad acts proves a propensity for more of the same generations later. Decades old transgressions (real and imagined) by Iraq, the PLO, and Egypt weigh heavily on your assessment of the rights of their remote political heirs, while even less distant but even more horrific acts by your country are dismissed as irrelevant by virture of being history. Your excuse for applying such double standards is the argument that similar standards for judging behavior amounts to the a priori determination that all conduct is morally equivalent, which is obvious specious nonsense.

Another example: you contend that Israelis have an inalienable right to self-determination and self-defense from outside aggression and terror. Palestinian Arabs, however, when faced with colonization, external aggression, oppression and violence are, as you've put it many times, foolish for refusing to face up to their powerlessness and recognizing their need to move elsewhere. Only racists think like this.

Another example: the national rights of Palestinians must be discounted by the presence among their number of those hostile toward Israel. By contrast, you refuse to apply any such qualification to the national rights of Israelis and Americans. This is despite the prevalence in those socities, including among the highest levels of their political and cultural elite, of people who refuse to acknowledge any national rights of Palestinians at all.

[ QUOTE ]
The scientific approach to analysis should be applied as far as practicable when it comes to socio-political matters, too.

[/ QUOTE ]
Here's your idea of the "scientific approach": Arabs attacked Israel 40 years ago, therefore Israel has the right to control the lives of future Arab generations born and living on any land that Israel seized as a consequence. And what scientific reason compels people continue to suffer for acts they didn't commit and which they had no control over, having not been born at the time? Because, apparently, they're just a bunch of lousy Arabs.

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
You've defended this transparent bigotry on the grounds that culture, as opposed to race, is a legitimate topic for discussion and debate, which by extension means that group defamation on cultural grounds is fair game.

[/ QUOTE ]

No it doesn't. Cultural groups can be multi-racial and racial groups aren't all necessarily in the same cultural group. That's why there is a distinction that is made between culture and race.

[ QUOTE ]
You refuse to apply the same standards to the same groups. For example, when informed of prior acts of indefensible terror and mass violence by Americans or their proxies, you dismiss this as irrelevant for it's having taken place in the past. "That was then, this is now" you once said. Yet you never allow time to discount the atrocities of Arabs and Muslims.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you going to tell me that today's U.S. citizens are culpable in promoting slavery 100 years ago?

[ QUOTE ]
Another example: the national rights of Palestinians must be discounted by the presence among their number of those hostile toward Israel. By contrast, you refuse to apply any such qualification to the national rights of Israelis and Americans. This is despite the prevalence in those socities, including among the highest levels of their political and cultural elite, of people who refuse to acknowledge any national rights of Palestinians at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

So are you stating that the "roadmap to peace" doesn't have a Palestinian state at the end of that road?

[ QUOTE ]
Arabs attacked Israel 40 years ago, therefore Israel has the right to control the lives of future Arab generations born and living on any land that Israel seized as a consequence. And what scientific reason compels people continue to suffer for acts they didn't commit and which they had no control over, having not been born at the time? Because, apparently, they're just a bunch of lousy Arabs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let us know when the Palestinian leadership gives up on it's demand that Israel cease to exist and maybe there will be some movement. Your guy Arafat walked away from more than one peace deal.

[MMMMMM]

I'm going to be away for a couple days; leaving in an hour so I can't respond fully now.

I'll just say that Andy's politeness has nothing to do with the point in question.

I'll also add that holding up cultural traditions to critical thinking and analysis is not a degradation of anyone nor is it racism. The sheer volume of people who believe something or do something does not confer legitimacy or OK-ness upon it; that masses of people used to believe the Earth was flat did not protect or legitimize that belief in any way.

Basically what you are interpreting as racism simply isn't.

There is a world of difference between serious criticism and racism but apparently you are incapable of seeing that. According to your position it must be racist that I have repeatedly and scathingly criticized the Catholic Church over the ages, eh?

As for your particular examples I disagree but that will have to wait 'til later.

[MMMMMM]

Just to follow up briefly on the following quote by Chris Alger:

[ QUOTE ]
You've defended this transparent bigotry on the grounds that culture, as opposed to race, is a legitimate topic for discussion and debate, which by extension means that group defamation on cultural grounds is fair game.



[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. He actually thinks cultural customs, beliefs or traditions should be immune from criticism. I think that is a radical position in itself.

So: it's not permissible to criticize the Aztec custom of human sacrifice as unkind and being based on a deluded religious system? It's not OK to criticize the custom among some tribal Muslims of "female circumcision", in which the pre-pubescent girl's clitoris is cut out, thereby condemning her to a life without sexual satisfaction? It's not permissible to criticize the custom of "honor-killings"? It's not permissible to criticize the age-old corruptions and manipulations by the institution of the Catholic Church?

Alger is so concerned about group defamation that he apparently believes in censorship of ideas and words--and he facilitates this by branding any criticism of cultural traditions as "racist". IMO that is a position leaning towards totalitarianism, and is very unscientific.

There have been many deluded and pernicious cultural belief systems and customs throughout the ages--including even today. To exempt them from criticism is intellectually and morally repugnant. That such criticism may be misused by true racists is unfortunate but that is no grounds for ignoring or squelching critical analysis.

[adios]

Take for example the "hip-hop" culture. It seems clear to me that criticizing the "hip-hop" culture does not rise to the level of bigotry in criticizing blacks as a race. For two reasons. Not all blacks are part of the "hip-hop" culture and not all "hip-hop" culture members are black. Hell Bill Cosby more or less blasted this culture. I'll concede that his remarks were generally taken to be politically non-correct in certain circles (I don't agree with that viewpoint) but in no way did Cosby state that the fighting of bigotry or the improvement of the lot of blacks in America wasn't necessary or desirable.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Take for example the "hip-hop" culture. It seems clear to me that criticizing the "hip-hop" culture does not rise to the level of bigotry in criticizing blacks as a race. For two reasons. Not all blacks are part of the "hip-hop" culture and not all "hip-hop" culture members are black. Hell Bill Cosby more or less blasted this culture. I'll concede that his remarks were generally taken to be politically non-correct in certain circles (I don't agree with that viewpoint) but in no way did Cosby state that the fighting of bigotry or the improvement of the lot of blacks in America wasn't necessary or desirable.

[/ QUOTE ]
good analogy.

[MMMMMM]

Good points. I'll add (and then I'm out the door) that even if hip-hop culture were popular amongst all blacks, that if there is something that merits serious criticism in hip-hop or rap (such as glorification of street violence and degradation of women), and it is criticized, that would be distinct from criticizing blacks for being black, or for their essence.

A lot of people don't seem to "get" that they are not their belief systems or habits. Bad belief systems and bad habits merit criticism, period...regardless of which individuals or groups may subscribe to them. So if a culture (or much, or part of a culture) subscribes to some illogical and pernicious beliefs, it is not racist to point that out. It's "just the facts, ma'am". And Leftists, who try to censor through political correctness and accusations of bigotry, don't seem to like the facts and don't like talking about them. They fear that some will expand from the facts to overly generalized bigotry, more than they fear the impact of the things that are being criticized. But some traditions and beliefs can be very pernicious, and sweeping it all under the rug is not an enlightened approach.