Lets talk about the US here :
1) Dictatorial style governance - check
I understand that UR mad, bro etc. But seriously, how long do you think Obama will remain in office? I'm going to go way out on a limb and predict that he will leave office either in January of 2013 or 2017. If the former, it will be because democratic voters chose somebody else. If the latter, it will be because of written law superseding leaders' preference to stay in office, so that (once again) democratic voters can choose somebody else.
But I admit that's a crazy expectation of mine. So tell me, what do you think will happen?
Seriously: I get that the US government commits constitutional abuses from time to time. But that is a long way from dictatorship.
I would think it would be a huge advantage if they could pull if off. No need to negotiate with foreign countries for rights to maintain a ground launch installation. No need to worry about whether your sub will be surfaced at exactly the right moment. No need for the huge burn to get lifted off from the ground. Just drop into the air and cruise straight to your target.
If you are so indoctrinated into "USA USA USA USA..." that you cannot see how this is a bad thing, well there is probably no hope for you, nor point in trying to have a conversation with you.
I
Clearly, parent was vaporized by a nuclear weapon in mid-sentence. Maybe even a "nukular" one launched by rednecks. RIP AC.
And parent comment written by... an anti-US propagandist? Seriously, do you work for Vladimir Putin or something?
You are playing word games when you claim that missile defense systems are an offensive weapon. And regarding the Bush quote that gives you such indigestion, if you think about it for at least 5 seconds, it will occur to you why your objections to his statement are asinine. If the USA couldn't use its nuclear weapons, there would be no point in having them. Duh. You may not like the fact that water is wet, but just don't pretend to be surprised by the fact that water is wet. (Not to trivialize legitimate moral concerns about nuclear weapons, just suggesting a more intelligence framing of such concerns rather than feigned, childish surprise when world leaders make obvious statements based on well known current national policy.)
I've had enough of your sensationalist BS stories/. Bookmark deleted, and goodbye.
Good point, AC. People certainly do not want to see any kind of sensationalistic, grandstanding behavior when they visit SlashDot. Yeah, that would be really undesirable.
This is what I'm talking about. "Thug culture" is far from the only part of our society that promotes violence against people who disrespect us. We drop bombs on people we think are disrespecting us! Tom Friedman says we had to make Iraq "suck on this." Michael Leeden says we have to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business," and he isn't laughed out of the world. The idea that black people invented macho shit like this is preposterous.
OK... I don't claim that black people invented thug-like behavior, and I also deplore when we as a country act like thugs in international affairs. Tracking pretty closely with you here...
The idea that fighting back against some weirdo following you through a neighborhood you don't know well is something only a gangsta thug would do is ridiculous. It's a red herring.
I don't know if I agree here. If I thought somebody was following me, I would be creeped out. I might have words with them. I might use the cell phone I am holding to call the police. But I'm not going to hide, then jump out and tackle them and start knocking their heads against the concrete until they shoot me. However, "gangsta thug" culture would promote more of that latter solution as Zimmerman alleges took place. Without 100% endorsing Zimmerman's alibi until the final legal judgment, I will still contend that we should use this opportunity to dissuade our young people, especially testosterone filled young men (of all races) from engaging in such -- yes -- thuggish behavior as what was alleged by Zimmerman. And we should simultaneously use the opportunity to highlight the importance of whoever is holding a gun to know when is the right circumstance to use it, and the kind of horrible tragedies that can result when a gun is used. I believe it's what the president refers to as a "teachable moment".
On its own, no. If we weren't having a conversation about this particular incident, I think we could have a very productive conversation on the negative effects of "gangsta thug culture," both in the black community and in society at large (where I agree it is prevalent). I would say yes, it (specifically the violence and macho posturing that sometimes comes with it) is a negative influence on our society.
So it is actually OK to say that "gangsta thug culture" is a negative influence? Or you can only say it when a person of a different race isn't involved? I thought it was a code word. Is it not a code word when you use it, but is when your debate opponents use it? So many questions.
The problem with bringing it up in this context is that there's no evidence beyond Zimmerman's statements that Martin did anything that could be construed as "thuggish."
There's also no evidence that Zimmerman was the kind of person who would shoot a stranger simply because he was a different race. In fact, the evidence I've seen has suggested that Zimmerman was not a racist. Zimmerman's account should not be taken without question. He's the only living witness, but on the other hand, he may go to jail based on whatever the heck happened that day so he does have a motivation to lie. So while his statement should be investigated fully by law enforcement, I do find it basically credible.
Bringing up "thuggish" behavior Martin engaged in previously (smoking pot, flipping off a camera, whatever sort of delinquency he got into) smacks of blaming the victim, in my opinion.
I agree. I had better not catch my kids engaging in behavior or speech like all the dirt that has been dug up on Trayvon, but I recognize that he's not necessarily an atypical teenager. If talk is cheap, a Twitter feed is about as cheap as talk comes, and doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things.
Talking about this incident, I'd say that "neighborhood watch," vigilante behavior and gun fetishism have a far more negative influence on our society.
Promoting the idea that guns are necessary for self-defense has the effect of turning the prejudices of individuals into actual violence.
What would you suggest that a woman do if somebody tries to rape her? Just take it and try to give a good description to law enforcement? I recognize that you may be one of those liberals with a fetish for gun control, so I doubt we will agree on this. But anyway.
The NRA promoting the idea that Obama and Holder are going to come take your guns away leads to increased sales for gun manufacturers and retailers, and a lot of those guns are being sold to paranoid racist lunatics, the last people we ought to encourage to arm themselves.
Oh man. Please don't even go there. Read about "Fast and Furious" sometime. Obama's administration engaged in illegally selling guns to Mexican drug cartels with one of their underhanded motivations being to be able to point to the cartels (armed with American guns) later and say "See, we need more gun control!". Somebody in the Obama administration ought to go to jail over this. It appears that they already have blood on their hands (of a slain border agent) because of it, and the American people deserve better.
Bringing up "thug culture" is problematic because it's at best a secondary issue in the case at hand, and it's blown way out of proportion to the actual harm it inflicts on society, to the exclusion of more relevant and damaging issues.
Well, if we find that "thug culture" promotes the attitude that if somebody disrespects you, you should tackle them and beat them up, then it may be relevant to this case. If Trayvon did that, then it was a mistake that contributed to the tragic outcome. It is possible that Zimmerman is telling the truth, ya know? That still may (or may not) justify his shooting T
OK, but what are you trying to prove? It looks like you are supporting my point. You've successfully demonstrated that sometimes white people get called thugs too. Recall that we're arguing whether criticism of "gangsta thug culture" is itself inherently racist.
I am not interested in debating drug laws, that's a can of worms for many reasons, and it's possible we might actually end up agreeing with each other. I'd rather focus on our disagreements.:) You said that if a law affected a race disproportionately, the law was racist. I refuted that by reductio ad absurdam with the example of violent crime, and I think my refutation was successful. Perhaps we can agree that where society has a clear interest in legislating against a crime (violence, theft, murder), that legislation should apply to all races.
Accusing people of racism where there is none
Your position has shifted from "I don't know" to a definite negative? I think you're further revealing your biases on the subject.
Did you forget? I made my own statement that "gangsta thug culture" is a negative influence on society. And you responded that you think I am probably racist, or at least prejudiced. Since we don't know the OP, I think focusing on me in this instance will add clarity.
I am honestly baffled. What is paternalistic about identifying innuendo? If it were explicit rather than code, would it still be paternalistic to call out? Your reasoning is simply unsound.
It is paternalistic to adopt the attitude that "gangsta thug culture" is a distinct feature of the black community, and therefore we should feel sorry for these black people who can't help themselves and be careful never to use the word "gangsta thug culture" because pointing it out as a negative cultural influence would be racist. How about letting each member of society stand on their own feet, and separate the sketchy social phenomenon from the skin color of some (I neither know nor care if most) of its "practitioners".
That the law of the land should be color blind
So should society. Until we can have both, we can have neither. Choosing to ignore racism isn't color-blindness it's willful blindness.
That's a nice sounding statement. If you were more specific, and perhaps describe how our laws should favor one race over a different race, then we'd have opportunity to discuss this. As long as you keep it vague, liberal-sounding and bland, I suppose you are safe from sounding too absurd to many readers, though.
Finally, you're being more forthcoming with your motivation. Your problem isn't that an accusation of racism was (you think) misplaced, your problem is that race is even a topic in the discussion in the first place.
My primary beef was indeed with the "misplaced", which must be a euphemism for "totally bogus and slanderous" accusation of racism. Dragging race into every discussion is an annoyance, but less offensive than the common liberal debate tactic of crying "racist" all the time and hoping to silence your opponent even if [s]he is not a racist at all and hasn't made any references to racism.
I don't see the pattern. Both Bush and Obama are called thugs on the internet. Whoop-dee-doo. You have not succeeded in proving that "gangsta thug culture" necessarily carries a racially black reference.
However, since part of your post is actually relevant to this/. article, let's use it as a segue:
Trayvon Martin is a thug.
I would personally not make that statement, because even if Zimmerman's account of the incident is taken as the truth, and Trayvon behaved thuggishly in this incident, "thug" doesn't have to be the sum judgment of Trayvon's life. I have done stupid things in my life, many of them before I was 18. Hopefully the criminal investigation can run its course, the public at large can learn lessons from the incident and not repeat it, and the deceased can be remembered a little more generously, as a human being who could have had a meaningful and fulfilling life if mistakes on both sides hadn't led to this tragic outcome.
Even if it were a law that came from on high, if the consequences were predictably racially biased, the law is racist, whether it mentions race or not. I don't know, for example, much about the people behind US drug law, but the effects are quite clearly racially biased; the laws are racist.
So if it were determined that one racial group is disproportionately affected by laws against violent crime and/or murder, then we could conclude that laws against violent crime are racist and should not be instituted?
Until you connect some of these dots and come to what is an obvious conclusion to most people, you are not contributing to intelligent discourse on this subject. Accusing people of racism where there is none, and behaving paternalistically toward minorities is not productive.
And what is the obvious conclusion I am suggesting you should come to? That the law of the land should be color blind, and that social critiques such as the OP made should also be color blind as much as possible, and just leave race out of the discussion. Trying to interpret everything in terms of race is often well-meant, but ultimately harmful.
We know the intent in the case of the Jim Crow laws, because we know who wrote them and why they were written. But you are not entitled to assume just because you see somebody complaining about "gangsta thug culture" that they are specifically targeting another race. You don't know the writer's motives.
I don't think either one of us knows the OP that started this discussion. But since I am fairly knowledgeable about me, let me provide a new specimen:
Gangsta thug culture is a negative influence on our society.
There. That is my true and honest opinion, and I don't think I have exaggerated or used non sequiturs like the OP did. Am I a racist for expressing this view? Is the very phrase "gangsta thug culture" somehow a racially black concept? I'm still bewildered that you seem to think so, given the antics of Eminem and a host of disaffected, youthful Caucasian wannabes.
Both may be true -- that this conference was friendly to women running startups, and also that women in many parts of the Middle East are drastically subjugated versus women in at last European and American countries. Who wrote this summary, anyway, and with what agenda?
But keep on accusing people of racism for calling out racism
Thanks, I will; at least when I feel justified in doing so, as in this case.
I don't feel sorry for calling somebody a racist who automatically thinks "hey, that means black people" when they hear the phrase "gangsta thug culture" without any explicit mention or implication of race, and when they furthermore don't even know the race of the speaker. By pigeonholing all issues into neat little liberal categories, including defining other people's words according to their own preconceived "code", such racism-accusers are simply being arrogant jerks. That's my opinion.:p
I did the searches, but I'm afraid you're going to have to spell it out for me if you want me to follow your thought process here. I'm not even sure what you're aiming to demonstrate.
Sorry, but you are the only person in this conversation who is claiming that all those things are distinctives of black people. I see the "gangsta thug culture" thing as a trend that transcends race. I think it generally stinks, though I disagree with the hyperbole in the original GP's rants.
So let's talk about your problem a little more and maybe I can help you work through it. How long have you felt like thug culture was specifically a black racial thing? Were you influenced by events in your childhood? Probably if you get out and meet a variety of people (including both some gangsta thug Caucasians and also some perfectly sane and sensibly behaving persons of color) you may be able to get over some of your prejudices. Give it a try, dude; you really should.
The parent comment is chock-full of racist non sequiturs.
What part of GP was racist? While the author sounds immature, and was ranting and exaggerating in places (I agree about some non sequiturs), where does racism enter into it? [S]he didn't even make reference to any race. Is that your shortcut for smearing a debate opponent without the pesky nuissance of having to refute their arguments? So to be more specific, and just guessing here, do you see the phrase "thug culture" as a distinctively black thing? If so, maybe that says something about you more than about GP.
Liberals don't like to be reminded that there are lunatics on the left. But there are. Read about the Democratic Socialists of America, and what they stand for. Read about the DSA's New Party, that had a lot of stuff going on in Chicago in the 1990's. Read about a young State Senate candidate in Illinois who was a member of that organization, a fact which is now so embarrassing that these organizations have attempted to scrub it from the internet (unsuccessfully, as most internet scrub attempts go). The lunaticy is closer to home than most people think.
Many liberals would like nothing better than government control of most pricing based on a national ID system. It's somehow supposed to be about "fairness" and progressive pricing etc. I _think_ the USA is too smart to be snookered by such shenanigans, at least not until the architects of debt drive our economy a lot further into the ground and provoke new levels of desperation among the voting masses.
No -- if the price of fuel goes up, poor people will have to pay more for things like milk and bread. Has that clicked in your mind yet? Rich people will arguably be affected less than poor people, because rich people don't care if a gallon of milk costs $12.
This. Adding a $5/gal tax to gasoline would send thrills up lots of liberals legs, but it would hurt poor people the most. It would adversely affect the cost of basically everything, not just transportation.
Just using the word "framework" doesn't imply "MVC framework". Model-View-Controller is a specific software engineering design pattern that is not built into MFC to my knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets talk about the US here : 1) Dictatorial style governance - check
I understand that UR mad, bro etc. But seriously, how long do you think Obama will remain in office? I'm going to go way out on a limb and predict that he will leave office either in January of 2013 or 2017. If the former, it will be because democratic voters chose somebody else. If the latter, it will be because of written law superseding leaders' preference to stay in office, so that (once again) democratic voters can choose somebody else.
But I admit that's a crazy expectation of mine. So tell me, what do you think will happen?
Seriously: I get that the US government commits constitutional abuses from time to time. But that is a long way from dictatorship.
I would think it would be a huge advantage if they could pull if off. No need to negotiate with foreign countries for rights to maintain a ground launch installation. No need to worry about whether your sub will be surfaced at exactly the right moment. No need for the huge burn to get lifted off from the ground. Just drop into the air and cruise straight to your target.
If you are so indoctrinated into "USA USA USA USA..." that you cannot see how this is a bad thing, well there is probably no hope for you, nor point in trying to have a conversation with you.
I
Clearly, parent was vaporized by a nuclear weapon in mid-sentence. Maybe even a "nukular" one launched by rednecks. RIP AC.
And parent comment written by... an anti-US propagandist? Seriously, do you work for Vladimir Putin or something?
You are playing word games when you claim that missile defense systems are an offensive weapon. And regarding the Bush quote that gives you such indigestion, if you think about it for at least 5 seconds, it will occur to you why your objections to his statement are asinine. If the USA couldn't use its nuclear weapons, there would be no point in having them. Duh. You may not like the fact that water is wet, but just don't pretend to be surprised by the fact that water is wet. (Not to trivialize legitimate moral concerns about nuclear weapons, just suggesting a more intelligence framing of such concerns rather than feigned, childish surprise when world leaders make obvious statements based on well known current national policy.)
I've had enough of your sensationalist BS stories /. Bookmark deleted, and goodbye.
Good point, AC. People certainly do not want to see any kind of sensationalistic, grandstanding behavior when they visit SlashDot. Yeah, that would be really undesirable.
This is what I'm talking about. "Thug culture" is far from the only part of our society that promotes violence against people who disrespect us. We drop bombs on people we think are disrespecting us! Tom Friedman says we had to make Iraq "suck on this." Michael Leeden says we have to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business," and he isn't laughed out of the world. The idea that black people invented macho shit like this is preposterous.
OK... I don't claim that black people invented thug-like behavior, and I also deplore when we as a country act like thugs in international affairs. Tracking pretty closely with you here...
The idea that fighting back against some weirdo following you through a neighborhood you don't know well is something only a gangsta thug would do is ridiculous. It's a red herring.
I don't know if I agree here. If I thought somebody was following me, I would be creeped out. I might have words with them. I might use the cell phone I am holding to call the police. But I'm not going to hide, then jump out and tackle them and start knocking their heads against the concrete until they shoot me. However, "gangsta thug" culture would promote more of that latter solution as Zimmerman alleges took place. Without 100% endorsing Zimmerman's alibi until the final legal judgment, I will still contend that we should use this opportunity to dissuade our young people, especially testosterone filled young men (of all races) from engaging in such -- yes -- thuggish behavior as what was alleged by Zimmerman. And we should simultaneously use the opportunity to highlight the importance of whoever is holding a gun to know when is the right circumstance to use it, and the kind of horrible tragedies that can result when a gun is used. I believe it's what the president refers to as a "teachable moment".
On its own, no. If we weren't having a conversation about this particular incident, I think we could have a very productive conversation on the negative effects of "gangsta thug culture," both in the black community and in society at large (where I agree it is prevalent). I would say yes, it (specifically the violence and macho posturing that sometimes comes with it) is a negative influence on our society.
So it is actually OK to say that "gangsta thug culture" is a negative influence? Or you can only say it when a person of a different race isn't involved? I thought it was a code word. Is it not a code word when you use it, but is when your debate opponents use it? So many questions.
The problem with bringing it up in this context is that there's no evidence beyond Zimmerman's statements that Martin did anything that could be construed as "thuggish."
There's also no evidence that Zimmerman was the kind of person who would shoot a stranger simply because he was a different race. In fact, the evidence I've seen has suggested that Zimmerman was not a racist. Zimmerman's account should not be taken without question. He's the only living witness, but on the other hand, he may go to jail based on whatever the heck happened that day so he does have a motivation to lie. So while his statement should be investigated fully by law enforcement, I do find it basically credible.
Bringing up "thuggish" behavior Martin engaged in previously (smoking pot, flipping off a camera, whatever sort of delinquency he got into) smacks of blaming the victim, in my opinion.
I agree. I had better not catch my kids engaging in behavior or speech like all the dirt that has been dug up on Trayvon, but I recognize that he's not necessarily an atypical teenager. If talk is cheap, a Twitter feed is about as cheap as talk comes, and doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things.
Talking about this incident, I'd say that "neighborhood watch," vigilante behavior and gun fetishism have a far more negative influence on our society. Promoting the idea that guns are necessary for self-defense has the effect of turning the prejudices of individuals into actual violence.
What would you suggest that a woman do if somebody tries to rape her? Just take it and try to give a good description to law enforcement? I recognize that you may be one of those liberals with a fetish for gun control, so I doubt we will agree on this. But anyway.
The NRA promoting the idea that Obama and Holder are going to come take your guns away leads to increased sales for gun manufacturers and retailers, and a lot of those guns are being sold to paranoid racist lunatics, the last people we ought to encourage to arm themselves.
Oh man. Please don't even go there. Read about "Fast and Furious" sometime. Obama's administration engaged in illegally selling guns to Mexican drug cartels with one of their underhanded motivations being to be able to point to the cartels (armed with American guns) later and say "See, we need more gun control!". Somebody in the Obama administration ought to go to jail over this. It appears that they already have blood on their hands (of a slain border agent) because of it, and the American people deserve better.
Bringing up "thug culture" is problematic because it's at best a secondary issue in the case at hand, and it's blown way out of proportion to the actual harm it inflicts on society, to the exclusion of more relevant and damaging issues.
Well, if we find that "thug culture" promotes the attitude that if somebody disrespects you, you should tackle them and beat them up, then it may be relevant to this case. If Trayvon did that, then it was a mistake that contributed to the tragic outcome. It is possible that Zimmerman is telling the truth, ya know? That still may (or may not) justify his shooting T
OK, but what are you trying to prove? It looks like you are supporting my point. You've successfully demonstrated that sometimes white people get called thugs too. Recall that we're arguing whether criticism of "gangsta thug culture" is itself inherently racist.
Accusing people of racism where there is none
Your position has shifted from "I don't know" to a definite negative? I think you're further revealing your biases on the subject.
Did you forget? I made my own statement that "gangsta thug culture" is a negative influence on society. And you responded that you think I am probably racist, or at least prejudiced. Since we don't know the OP, I think focusing on me in this instance will add clarity.
I am honestly baffled. What is paternalistic about identifying innuendo? If it were explicit rather than code, would it still be paternalistic to call out? Your reasoning is simply unsound.
It is paternalistic to adopt the attitude that "gangsta thug culture" is a distinct feature of the black community, and therefore we should feel sorry for these black people who can't help themselves and be careful never to use the word "gangsta thug culture" because pointing it out as a negative cultural influence would be racist. How about letting each member of society stand on their own feet, and separate the sketchy social phenomenon from the skin color of some (I neither know nor care if most) of its "practitioners".
That the law of the land should be color blind
So should society. Until we can have both, we can have neither. Choosing to ignore racism isn't color-blindness it's willful blindness.
That's a nice sounding statement. If you were more specific, and perhaps describe how our laws should favor one race over a different race, then we'd have opportunity to discuss this. As long as you keep it vague, liberal-sounding and bland, I suppose you are safe from sounding too absurd to many readers, though.
Finally, you're being more forthcoming with your motivation. Your problem isn't that an accusation of racism was (you think) misplaced, your problem is that race is even a topic in the discussion in the first place.
My primary beef was indeed with the "misplaced", which must be a euphemism for "totally bogus and slanderous" accusation of racism. Dragging race into every discussion is an annoyance, but less offensive than the common liberal debate tactic of crying "racist" all the time and hoping to silence your opponent even if [s]he is not a racist at all and hasn't made any references to racism.
However, since part of your post is actually relevant to this
Trayvon Martin is a thug.
I would personally not make that statement, because even if Zimmerman's account of the incident is taken as the truth, and Trayvon behaved thuggishly in this incident, "thug" doesn't have to be the sum judgment of Trayvon's life. I have done stupid things in my life, many of them before I was 18. Hopefully the criminal investigation can run its course, the public at large can learn lessons from the incident and not repeat it, and the deceased can be remembered a little more generously, as a human being who could have had a meaningful and fulfilling life if mistakes on both sides hadn't led to this tragic outcome.
Even if it were a law that came from on high, if the consequences were predictably racially biased, the law is racist, whether it mentions race or not. I don't know, for example, much about the people behind US drug law, but the effects are quite clearly racially biased; the laws are racist.
So if it were determined that one racial group is disproportionately affected by laws against violent crime and/or murder, then we could conclude that laws against violent crime are racist and should not be instituted?
Until you connect some of these dots and come to what is an obvious conclusion to most people, you are not contributing to intelligent discourse on this subject. Accusing people of racism where there is none, and behaving paternalistically toward minorities is not productive.
And what is the obvious conclusion I am suggesting you should come to? That the law of the land should be color blind, and that social critiques such as the OP made should also be color blind as much as possible, and just leave race out of the discussion. Trying to interpret everything in terms of race is often well-meant, but ultimately harmful.
We know the intent in the case of the Jim Crow laws, because we know who wrote them and why they were written. But you are not entitled to assume just because you see somebody complaining about "gangsta thug culture" that they are specifically targeting another race. You don't know the writer's motives.
I don't think either one of us knows the OP that started this discussion. But since I am fairly knowledgeable about me, let me provide a new specimen:
Gangsta thug culture is a negative influence on our society.
There. That is my true and honest opinion, and I don't think I have exaggerated or used non sequiturs like the OP did. Am I a racist for expressing this view? Is the very phrase "gangsta thug culture" somehow a racially black concept? I'm still bewildered that you seem to think so, given the antics of Eminem and a host of disaffected, youthful Caucasian wannabes.
at last => at least
Both may be true -- that this conference was friendly to women running startups, and also that women in many parts of the Middle East are drastically subjugated versus women in at last European and American countries. Who wrote this summary, anyway, and with what agenda?
But keep on accusing people of racism for calling out racism
Thanks, I will; at least when I feel justified in doing so, as in this case.
:p
I don't feel sorry for calling somebody a racist who automatically thinks "hey, that means black people" when they hear the phrase "gangsta thug culture" without any explicit mention or implication of race, and when they furthermore don't even know the race of the speaker. By pigeonholing all issues into neat little liberal categories, including defining other people's words according to their own preconceived "code", such racism-accusers are simply being arrogant jerks. That's my opinion.
I did the searches, but I'm afraid you're going to have to spell it out for me if you want me to follow your thought process here. I'm not even sure what you're aiming to demonstrate.
Sorry, but you are the only person in this conversation who is claiming that all those things are distinctives of black people. I see the "gangsta thug culture" thing as a trend that transcends race. I think it generally stinks, though I disagree with the hyperbole in the original GP's rants.
So let's talk about your problem a little more and maybe I can help you work through it. How long have you felt like thug culture was specifically a black racial thing? Were you influenced by events in your childhood? Probably if you get out and meet a variety of people (including both some gangsta thug Caucasians and also some perfectly sane and sensibly behaving persons of color) you may be able to get over some of your prejudices. Give it a try, dude; you really should.
The parent comment is chock-full of racist non sequiturs.
What part of GP was racist? While the author sounds immature, and was ranting and exaggerating in places (I agree about some non sequiturs), where does racism enter into it? [S]he didn't even make reference to any race. Is that your shortcut for smearing a debate opponent without the pesky nuissance of having to refute their arguments? So to be more specific, and just guessing here, do you see the phrase "thug culture" as a distinctively black thing? If so, maybe that says something about you more than about GP.
"lunaticy"... hmmm.
Liberals don't like to be reminded that there are lunatics on the left. But there are. Read about the Democratic Socialists of America, and what they stand for. Read about the DSA's New Party, that had a lot of stuff going on in Chicago in the 1990's. Read about a young State Senate candidate in Illinois who was a member of that organization, a fact which is now so embarrassing that these organizations have attempted to scrub it from the internet (unsuccessfully, as most internet scrub attempts go). The lunaticy is closer to home than most people think.
Am I trolling? I wasn't aware of it.
Many liberals would like nothing better than government control of most pricing based on a national ID system. It's somehow supposed to be about "fairness" and progressive pricing etc. I _think_ the USA is too smart to be snookered by such shenanigans, at least not until the architects of debt drive our economy a lot further into the ground and provoke new levels of desperation among the voting masses.
No -- if the price of fuel goes up, poor people will have to pay more for things like milk and bread. Has that clicked in your mind yet? Rich people will arguably be affected less than poor people, because rich people don't care if a gallon of milk costs $12.
This. Adding a $5/gal tax to gasoline would send thrills up lots of liberals legs, but it would hurt poor people the most. It would adversely affect the cost of basically everything, not just transportation.
"Who watches the watchmen?"
As I recall it was kind of a flop in the box office; so relatively few people.
Just using the word "framework" doesn't imply "MVC framework". Model-View-Controller is a specific software engineering design pattern that is not built into MFC to my knowledge.