If I want to pass for plain old white now and again, who are you to tell me that's wrong? I get treated like a second-class citizen now and again, seems fair to me.
I'm an immigrant and a minority myself; don't you whine and complain to me about being treated as a second class citizen. The racist here is you, and you use your racism and your racial labels to manipulate people and obtain privileges to your advantage. People like you make life miserable for everybody else in the US. And you have the gall to accuse others of racism. You're despicable.
Sigh. You do not have a right to demand to know what someone is doing in your neighborhood
You're playing word games. Fact is: you have a right to follow people and you have a right to ask them questions. In addition, this wasn't a public street, it was a private property, property that Zimmerman owned a share in and Martin did not; Martin was merely a guest.
Except in Florida, where you may harass and bait them until they respond, and then murder them.
Bullshit. Zimmerman neither "harassed" nor "baited" anyone. He was following and observing Martin, a legitimate and justified activity. If that bothered Martin, the fault was with Martin, not Zimmerman. Then Zimmerman asked one question of Martin and in response was physically attacked.
Given that African American youths are ten times as likely to commit murder as white youths and about one in three African American males have a criminal record, feeling uncomfortable isn't "pure racism". And feeling uncomfortable is even more rational if sagging, gold teeth, and abusive language are involved.
Furthermore, regardless of whether it is objective and rational, people have a right to avoid situations that are uncomfortable for them. In fact, many African American neighborhoods at this point don't exist because of economic necessity or racism on the part of whites, but simply because the people in them feel uncomfortable in "white neighborhoods" and prefer it that way; they are even quite forthcoming about this point when you ask them.
This brings "racism" out of mere "intent" or "belief", as a matter of public discourse, and into the realm of objective outcome.
I don't see anything less objective about "intent" or "belief" than about "outcome". Intent and belief can be objectively measured, just like outcomes. And outcomes are not a good objective measure because they are often influenced by factors that aren't caused by race but merely correlate with it. If we were adopting an outcome-oriented definition of racism, then in order to equalize the outcome, the federal government would have to deliberately break up African American neighborhoods and eradicate African American culture and identity. As long as you tolerate the existence of those, you outcomes will never be the same.
In the end, outcome-based definitions of racism are nothing more than a deliberate misuse of language for political purposes. I have a problem with people discriminating and not being given the same opportunities. I have no problem with African Americans being on average poorer than Caucasians, just like I have no problem with Caucasians being on average poorer than Asians; those are related to accidents of history and cultural choices, and it is not proper for government to interfere.
Yet, "white Hispanics" are also considered a disadvantaged minority group. How convenient to be able to switch your labels back and forth as political expediency demands.
Because he was charged with advising and helping people lie to the federal government when they told him they were involved in illegal activity
By that principle, any kind of defense risks turning into a "conspiracy" or "obstruction of justice" charge.
The guy didn't participate in the commission of the crime, he isn't committing the crime himself, and whether a crime itself is being committed is itself subject to interpretation. Furthermore, he was convicted based on entrapment: undercover agents pretended to intend to commit a crime without actually committing it. And the crime being committed, lying to get a security clearance, is itself a dubious "crime" at best.
Polygraphs are tantamount to phrenology and graphology in my opinion, but that's not what this case was truly about.
If polygraphs are not valid, then their use by the federal government in putting people in jail or executing them is an outrage and risks miscarriage of justice. In that case, teaching people how to beat them should clearly be legal.
Disparate impact is a general principle that is not limited to employment. It is an operational definition of racism.
It may be your operational definition of racism, but if it is, you're stupid. The standard definition of racism is:
Racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior, or superior
The doctrine prohibits employers "from using a facially neutral employment practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class.
In this case, the impact is most certainly justified.
Furthermore, just because that's currently a legal standard for employment doesn't mean that it is morally right, that it is justified, or that it is beneficial to the people it is intended to help.
And most importantly, it doesn't apply to anything other than employment.
It's worth pointing out that the analogy made in the headline doesn't indict the practice. "Leper colonies" were a rational and reasonable public health precaution at a time where no treatment was available and no epidemiological data was available. The reason we don't have them anymore in the West is simply that patients are isolated in hospitals until they have been adequately treated and become non-infectious. "Leper colonies" probably also didn't just house leprosy patients, but also people with more highly contagious conditions. If you have a risk that you can't prevent or treat, the best way of dealing with it is to avoid it altogether, whether it's leprosy or violence.
if you're wearing a hoodie and carrying a bag of skittles and wandering through a gated community... you're also in it in a bad way
Only if you start attacking the residents of that community when they ask you what you're doing there. If you're polite and deferential, you'll be fine, whether you're black or white.
This is a federal case again, and it is something the federal government should have no business intervening in. Blame the current administration for not stopping this nonsense.
TBH, I wasn't aware it was a problem either until you said that. Not everyone can afford rent
It has nothing to do with rent. Black neighborhoods are not consistently cheaper than nearby white neighborhoods. And Asian neighborhoods, if anything, tend to be more expensive than nearby white neighborhoods. Racial ghettos exist these days because the people living in them choose to live there.
Black people prefer to live with other black people because it's safer. (The Trayvon Martin case ring a bell?)
But it is not safer. A a black person has a much higher probability of killing another black person than a white person does. Hate crime murders are quite rare. The safest neighborhoods for a black person are the same as the safest neighborhoods for everybody else.
As for Trayvon Martin, it's clear he had the same irrational fears you have: he was afraid of white people be, and that's why he became aggressive and ultimately got killed.
The fear of racial hate crimes is like the vaccination fears: it is utterly irrational and it causes enormous harm to the people who fall prey to it.
There are fundamental issues of privilege here you are avoiding, or unaware of.
I'm quite aware of the "white privilege" bullshit; it has no basis in reality.
I don't get why people are upset about this. If a neighborhood is crime ridden, people avoid it; why shouldn't they? High crime has lots of other negative consequences (outmigration, plummeting real estate values, decrease in tax base, etc.).
I don't see what this has to do with racism. If crime is higher in a neighborhood composed of some racial minority, that's incidental; people don't avoid it because of its racial makeup, they avoid it because of crime, and the correlation with race has other causes.
Furthermore, racial minorities have no reason to live in ghettos these days; if they do, it's by choice or inertia.
Designing 3D parts is tricky business and involves both engineering and lots of skill. What kind of 3D controller you use is usually the least of anybody's worries. Most designers I know use a big screen (no 3D) and a mouse, a tablet, and maybe another 3D controller.
What do you want Congressman Holt do? Rip off his shirt and physically attack James Clapper?
Maybe that would be a good start, since nothing else seems to be working. They might also boo and kick out Obama when he next tries to address Congress, because ultimately the president is responsible for this.
Decentralized? Are you kidding me? Look at the USA example:
I'm happy with my state government (low taxes, few regulations), and happy with my city government too. And I have no problem with my HOA. I used to be unhappy at times with my state and city government, and my HOA, and I moved, simple as that.
You illustrate the problem: because of a small number of bad incidents, people like you want to kick up more and more power to the federal government. But that's unnecessary. If your state or city government, or your HOA, screws up, you have a much simpler choice: move. Don't wreck the country for the rest of us because you are too lazy to do the right and necessary thing.
for example, if the States start disenfranchising racial minorities, the Feds have a track record of working, however slowly, to stop them. Cities that start clamping down on self defense rights tend to get slapped by the State.
Limiting the power of local and state governments is a legitimate and useful function of the federal government, as is defense. But that does necessitate or justify doing the 99.9% of the rest of the crap the federal government does and wastes money on.
In evolution, one of the biggest threats to humans was starvation. So, what we consider a fat-causing problem these days probably used to be a big evolutionary advantage at some point.
I don't believe that just using racial slurs makes one a racist.
No, but the prejudices and fears that Martin associated with those racial slurs, as well as Martin's subsequent actions show that he wasn't "just using" those terms, he meant it.
As long as the other doesn't act on that feeling, no real harm is done, and no one is racist.
But Martin did act on his feelings.
(USA blacks seem perfectly content with calling themselves "niggas").
And in a recent court case, that language was determined to be racist even when used black-on-black.
Does calling a woman "bitch" makes one a misogynist? No, even though it's a sexual slur.
Clearly, you haven't hung around feminists or "black civil rights" advocates, because they firmly believe that even the slightest misuse of language makes you a misogynist, potential rapist, and/or racist.
Studies vary between 655,000 [washingtonpost.com] and 1.4 million [mit.edu] so I went for the average.
That's politically motivated bullshit. Even the Iraq body count, which already greatly inflates the numbers by attributing Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence to the war gets about 120000 violent deaths. The actual number of people killed by coalition forces is much lower than that, and of that, the percentage of civilians killed by coalition forces is very small by historical standards.
It's this kind of aggression that shows how uncivilized governments are. Why do we need oil from the Middle East so badly?
Did I say anywhere that we need it? I said that "It is about making oil available to the world through market mechanisms, as opposed to having it exploited by socialist, fascist, or dictatorial governments for their own ends." We (as in the US) don't need the oil at all, since we have a plentiful supply. So, the war was about oil, but it wasn't specifically about getting the oil for the US (although, of course, US firms are benefiting to some degree, and also lobbied for the war).
Let me say again: I think the Iraq war was a waste of money and I'm not defending it. But your interpretation that we fought it to acquire oil for the US is wrong as well.
The US dollar is on the brink of collapse
I don't see that happening, given the total economic chaos that Europe is in; I think the Euro is on the brink of collapse, actually.
If anything, I actually think it would be a good thing if the dollar were devalued, because it would make it harder for us to borrow and at the same time erase a large chunk of our foreign debt. But that's precisely why China and Europe are scared stiff of having the dollar devalued and are doing anything to try to prevent that. Because if the dollar falls, they lose a lot of money.
A million deaths in the Iraq conflict alone is less lethal?
Wow, your numbers are even more insane than the Iraq body count data.
It's about oil and there's extensive evidence supporting it.
Of course it is about oil, why shouldn't it be? It is about making oil available to the world through market mechanisms, as opposed to having it exploited by socialist, fascist, or dictatorial governments for their own ends. Your error is in thinking that there is something intrinsically wrong with that goal.
Now, let me be clear again, though: I disapprove of all those wars and have consistently voted against politicians that supported them. I think these wars have been a waste of money and American lives, and I think they have allowed corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of the US tax payer. But just because I think these wars are a bad deal for the US doesn't change the fact that I think free markets are, relatively speaking, a better thing to fight for than which monarch gets which piece of land.
The wars we have fought since WWII have generally been much less lethal than historical wars.
(And the causes of war have shifted over the centuries as well, from blind greed among competing dictators, to different visions of how we want to organize our societies that actually matter.)
Regardless of the software and hardware, the government will always have control since at some point you need to reach the big backbones in the network. Those are easy to monitor and take over by the hosting government.
Not if companies can just tell the government to take a hike. The problem is that we have developed a mentality that government can intrude into everything and regulate everything, and that it has the power and means to corrupt, influence, and direct individual and private behavior.
Furthermore, purely technologically, if the information flowing over the backbone just isn't transparent, the only choice the government has is to shut down everything, which is simply not feasible.
What we need is a large change in mentalities. There shouldn't be any reason to spy on your own citizens. Ever.
You are being foolish; a "change in mentality" will accomplish nothing. We elected Obama because he promised to put an end to the privacy abuses and abuses of power of the Bush government, and he has turned out worse. The only way to fix these problems is by taking away power from the federal government, the power to regulate business, the power to hand out taxpayer money to compliant companies, the power and money to build a large military and espionage infrastructure. As long as you give this power to the federal government, it is going to abuse it, and no "change in mentality" will help.
Regardless of the details of the case itself, it's pretty clear that Martin was a racist (he used racial insults against Caucasians). He does not deserve to have an asteroid named after him, and if the civil rights movement picks him as a symbol, it will only hurt their cause.
"Countries" don't neglect things. "Secrecy culture" doesn't cause anything.
In democracies, all the faults ultimately come down to who we choose as our representatives. Bush should have been kicked out after his first term. Obama should have been kicked out after his first term. Anybody who voted for the "Patriot' act should have been kicked out after the first term.
And to make that happen, voters need to be educated better. They need to stop falling for b.s. like blaming evil corporations or evil bankers when it is our elected representatives that are selling us to them. Voters need to understand that there are no "benefits" or free lunches, that government can't create jobs or fix the economy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm an immigrant and a minority myself; don't you whine and complain to me about being treated as a second class citizen. The racist here is you, and you use your racism and your racial labels to manipulate people and obtain privileges to your advantage. People like you make life miserable for everybody else in the US. And you have the gall to accuse others of racism. You're despicable.
You're playing word games. Fact is: you have a right to follow people and you have a right to ask them questions. In addition, this wasn't a public street, it was a private property, property that Zimmerman owned a share in and Martin did not; Martin was merely a guest.
Bullshit. Zimmerman neither "harassed" nor "baited" anyone. He was following and observing Martin, a legitimate and justified activity. If that bothered Martin, the fault was with Martin, not Zimmerman. Then Zimmerman asked one question of Martin and in response was physically attacked.
Given that African American youths are ten times as likely to commit murder as white youths and about one in three African American males have a criminal record, feeling uncomfortable isn't "pure racism". And feeling uncomfortable is even more rational if sagging, gold teeth, and abusive language are involved.
Furthermore, regardless of whether it is objective and rational, people have a right to avoid situations that are uncomfortable for them. In fact, many African American neighborhoods at this point don't exist because of economic necessity or racism on the part of whites, but simply because the people in them feel uncomfortable in "white neighborhoods" and prefer it that way; they are even quite forthcoming about this point when you ask them.
I don't see anything less objective about "intent" or "belief" than about "outcome". Intent and belief can be objectively measured, just like outcomes. And outcomes are not a good objective measure because they are often influenced by factors that aren't caused by race but merely correlate with it. If we were adopting an outcome-oriented definition of racism, then in order to equalize the outcome, the federal government would have to deliberately break up African American neighborhoods and eradicate African American culture and identity. As long as you tolerate the existence of those, you outcomes will never be the same.
In the end, outcome-based definitions of racism are nothing more than a deliberate misuse of language for political purposes. I have a problem with people discriminating and not being given the same opportunities. I have no problem with African Americans being on average poorer than Caucasians, just like I have no problem with Caucasians being on average poorer than Asians; those are related to accidents of history and cultural choices, and it is not proper for government to interfere.
Yet, "white Hispanics" are also considered a disadvantaged minority group. How convenient to be able to switch your labels back and forth as political expediency demands.
By that principle, any kind of defense risks turning into a "conspiracy" or "obstruction of justice" charge.
The guy didn't participate in the commission of the crime, he isn't committing the crime himself, and whether a crime itself is being committed is itself subject to interpretation. Furthermore, he was convicted based on entrapment: undercover agents pretended to intend to commit a crime without actually committing it. And the crime being committed, lying to get a security clearance, is itself a dubious "crime" at best.
If polygraphs are not valid, then their use by the federal government in putting people in jail or executing them is an outrage and risks miscarriage of justice. In that case, teaching people how to beat them should clearly be legal.
It may be your operational definition of racism, but if it is, you're stupid. The standard definition of racism is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Why don't you read it:
In this case, the impact is most certainly justified.
Furthermore, just because that's currently a legal standard for employment doesn't mean that it is morally right, that it is justified, or that it is beneficial to the people it is intended to help.
And most importantly, it doesn't apply to anything other than employment.
It's worth pointing out that the analogy made in the headline doesn't indict the practice. "Leper colonies" were a rational and reasonable public health precaution at a time where no treatment was available and no epidemiological data was available. The reason we don't have them anymore in the West is simply that patients are isolated in hospitals until they have been adequately treated and become non-infectious. "Leper colonies" probably also didn't just house leprosy patients, but also people with more highly contagious conditions. If you have a risk that you can't prevent or treat, the best way of dealing with it is to avoid it altogether, whether it's leprosy or violence.
Only if you start attacking the residents of that community when they ask you what you're doing there. If you're polite and deferential, you'll be fine, whether you're black or white.
This is a federal case again, and it is something the federal government should have no business intervening in. Blame the current administration for not stopping this nonsense.
It has nothing to do with rent. Black neighborhoods are not consistently cheaper than nearby white neighborhoods. And Asian neighborhoods, if anything, tend to be more expensive than nearby white neighborhoods. Racial ghettos exist these days because the people living in them choose to live there.
But it is not safer. A a black person has a much higher probability of killing another black person than a white person does. Hate crime murders are quite rare. The safest neighborhoods for a black person are the same as the safest neighborhoods for everybody else.
As for Trayvon Martin, it's clear he had the same irrational fears you have: he was afraid of white people be, and that's why he became aggressive and ultimately got killed.
The fear of racial hate crimes is like the vaccination fears: it is utterly irrational and it causes enormous harm to the people who fall prey to it.
I'm quite aware of the "white privilege" bullshit; it has no basis in reality.
I don't get why people are upset about this. If a neighborhood is crime ridden, people avoid it; why shouldn't they? High crime has lots of other negative consequences (outmigration, plummeting real estate values, decrease in tax base, etc.).
I don't see what this has to do with racism. If crime is higher in a neighborhood composed of some racial minority, that's incidental; people don't avoid it because of its racial makeup, they avoid it because of crime, and the correlation with race has other causes.
Furthermore, racial minorities have no reason to live in ghettos these days; if they do, it's by choice or inertia.
Designing 3D parts is tricky business and involves both engineering and lots of skill. What kind of 3D controller you use is usually the least of anybody's worries. Most designers I know use a big screen (no 3D) and a mouse, a tablet, and maybe another 3D controller.
Maybe that would be a good start, since nothing else seems to be working. They might also boo and kick out Obama when he next tries to address Congress, because ultimately the president is responsible for this.
I'm happy with my state government (low taxes, few regulations), and happy with my city government too. And I have no problem with my HOA. I used to be unhappy at times with my state and city government, and my HOA, and I moved, simple as that.
You illustrate the problem: because of a small number of bad incidents, people like you want to kick up more and more power to the federal government. But that's unnecessary. If your state or city government, or your HOA, screws up, you have a much simpler choice: move. Don't wreck the country for the rest of us because you are too lazy to do the right and necessary thing.
Limiting the power of local and state governments is a legitimate and useful function of the federal government, as is defense. But that does necessitate or justify doing the 99.9% of the rest of the crap the federal government does and wastes money on.
Devolution means handing it back to state and local government. And a lot of that power shouldn't be given to anybody.
It's irrelevant to this point, but corporations are completely accountable: if you don't like what they're doing and they go out of business.
In evolution, one of the biggest threats to humans was starvation. So, what we consider a fat-causing problem these days probably used to be a big evolutionary advantage at some point.
No, but the prejudices and fears that Martin associated with those racial slurs, as well as Martin's subsequent actions show that he wasn't "just using" those terms, he meant it.
But Martin did act on his feelings.
And in a recent court case, that language was determined to be racist even when used black-on-black.
Clearly, you haven't hung around feminists or "black civil rights" advocates, because they firmly believe that even the slightest misuse of language makes you a misogynist, potential rapist, and/or racist.
That's politically motivated bullshit. Even the Iraq body count, which already greatly inflates the numbers by attributing Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence to the war gets about 120000 violent deaths. The actual number of people killed by coalition forces is much lower than that, and of that, the percentage of civilians killed by coalition forces is very small by historical standards.
Did I say anywhere that we need it? I said that "It is about making oil available to the world through market mechanisms, as opposed to having it exploited by socialist, fascist, or dictatorial governments for their own ends." We (as in the US) don't need the oil at all, since we have a plentiful supply. So, the war was about oil, but it wasn't specifically about getting the oil for the US (although, of course, US firms are benefiting to some degree, and also lobbied for the war).
Let me say again: I think the Iraq war was a waste of money and I'm not defending it. But your interpretation that we fought it to acquire oil for the US is wrong as well.
I don't see that happening, given the total economic chaos that Europe is in; I think the Euro is on the brink of collapse, actually.
If anything, I actually think it would be a good thing if the dollar were devalued, because it would make it harder for us to borrow and at the same time erase a large chunk of our foreign debt. But that's precisely why China and Europe are scared stiff of having the dollar devalued and are doing anything to try to prevent that. Because if the dollar falls, they lose a lot of money.
Wow, your numbers are even more insane than the Iraq body count data.
Of course it is about oil, why shouldn't it be? It is about making oil available to the world through market mechanisms, as opposed to having it exploited by socialist, fascist, or dictatorial governments for their own ends. Your error is in thinking that there is something intrinsically wrong with that goal.
Now, let me be clear again, though: I disapprove of all those wars and have consistently voted against politicians that supported them. I think these wars have been a waste of money and American lives, and I think they have allowed corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of the US tax payer. But just because I think these wars are a bad deal for the US doesn't change the fact that I think free markets are, relatively speaking, a better thing to fight for than which monarch gets which piece of land.
The wars we have fought since WWII have generally been much less lethal than historical wars.
(And the causes of war have shifted over the centuries as well, from blind greed among competing dictators, to different visions of how we want to organize our societies that actually matter.)
Which part?
Not if companies can just tell the government to take a hike. The problem is that we have developed a mentality that government can intrude into everything and regulate everything, and that it has the power and means to corrupt, influence, and direct individual and private behavior.
Furthermore, purely technologically, if the information flowing over the backbone just isn't transparent, the only choice the government has is to shut down everything, which is simply not feasible.
You are being foolish; a "change in mentality" will accomplish nothing. We elected Obama because he promised to put an end to the privacy abuses and abuses of power of the Bush government, and he has turned out worse. The only way to fix these problems is by taking away power from the federal government, the power to regulate business, the power to hand out taxpayer money to compliant companies, the power and money to build a large military and espionage infrastructure. As long as you give this power to the federal government, it is going to abuse it, and no "change in mentality" will help.
Regardless of the details of the case itself, it's pretty clear that Martin was a racist (he used racial insults against Caucasians). He does not deserve to have an asteroid named after him, and if the civil rights movement picks him as a symbol, it will only hurt their cause.
"Countries" don't neglect things. "Secrecy culture" doesn't cause anything.
In democracies, all the faults ultimately come down to who we choose as our representatives. Bush should have been kicked out after his first term. Obama should have been kicked out after his first term. Anybody who voted for the "Patriot' act should have been kicked out after the first term.
And to make that happen, voters need to be educated better. They need to stop falling for b.s. like blaming evil corporations or evil bankers when it is our elected representatives that are selling us to them. Voters need to understand that there are no "benefits" or free lunches, that government can't create jobs or fix the economy.