It sounds to me like you did the right thing. When dealing with someone living in an alternate reality, especially someone who seems otherwise capable of caring for himself (which is the impression I got from your description), it is often best to work with his delusions instead of trying to push through them. Your contact info certainly satisfied him more than any amount of explaining to him why he is wrong, and the respect you showed by not ridiculing him is highly commendable.
We are given neither the time nor the resources to make great improvements in all the lives of those we meet. You did what you could with what you had, and that is more than many people care to do.
Keynes never saw this coming, and Keynes couldn't explain it if he tried.
I spoke too soon.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of Society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
It is not a lack of regulation that caused the market crash. The crash is the result of a bubble that has been building since the '70s, and it just happened to be the shady housing financial practices that tipped things over the edge. If they hadn't done it, something else (likely still in the housing market) would have. But the root cause of all of this is the Federal Reserve's manipulation of the money supply. Keynes disagreed, but Keynes is dead, Keynes never saw this coming, and Keynes couldn't explain it if he tried.
If the Fed did not set artificially low interest rates, it would not have been perceived profitable to build thousands of new McMansions. All that construction convinced people that homes are a hot commodity and drove the market prices sky-high. They would have been right had all the building been based on consumer demand (as in a free market) but the building stemmed from easy credit flow due to the Fed rate--this is known as malinvestment. Without this glut of new homes on the market, the whole financial end of things (mortgage-backed securities, untrustworthy rating companies, etc.) would not have blown up as big as it did. So don't blame the market crash on deregulation.
And as far as the great regulation cure-all goes...the regulations we already have in place should have prevented the Bernie Madoff $50bn ponzi scheme. Fraud is already illegal. There were a number of suspicions raised by various people about Madoff that were brushed aside by regulatory agencies. How did he still manage to pull it off?
When all is said and done, I'm not a fan of regulation but it's not that big a deal to me. The thing is, the regulation debate is a paper tiger that hides the monumentally larger problem of the Fed's monkeying about with the money supply, and the failure to understand the full impact of that is going to make things a hell of a lot worse. The Fed is making bigger and bigger changes in an effort to keep everything from crashing down without realizing that it is only digging a deeper hole. I mean, come on - federal funds rate of 0%? That's going to devalue the dollar further and faster than ever before. Didn't it drop 2-3% against the Euro the day after they announced it? Hyperinflation is no longer just a theoretical possibility, but an actual (albeit minute (fingers crossed)) one.
It's astounding that we, as a country, can be so continually distracted by whatever the media hive mind throws our way.
Though I think you might be selling RAH a little short. Yes - he preached - but just because his books didn't actually ask the questions themselves doesn't mean he didn't inspire the reader to ask those questions.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, because I agree that Heinlein directly or indirectly raises important questions. I just don't like his dialog, and that's not intended as a slight - dialog is hard to do well. It's the weakest part of my own writing. Some of his books are great in spite of that shortcoming because they are carried by the ideas and questions he poses.
Heinlein had some great ideas that I wish were more well-known. He told good stories to illustrate them, too. On the flipside, his characters tended to be pretty flat, there was always an obvious mouthpiece for his own viewpoint, and his dialog was very weak.
I haven't read any Scalzi, and I do have great respect for Heinlein, but I hope the comparisons only hold true for the positive traits. Are Scalzi's books deeper than pure entertainment? Do they raise questions about the human condition, our treatment of others, the role of governments, etc.?
I have never heard of such a distinction in the arms of the octopus. Are you sure you aren't confusing them with squid, which have 8 arms and two longer tentacles that are used for capturing food?
Are you suggesting that economists see Depression 2.0 as inevitable, so they might as well give a bunch of cash to their friends before the shit hits the fan? Or are you seriously suggesting that government bailouts and nationalization of damn near everything is going to switch us to a different track?
The sameeconomists that predicted the crisis we are living through are the same ones who (continue to) say that throwing more money at failing business will only make the great big fucking hole greater, bigger, and more fuckinger.
The rhetoric we've been hearing about the need for bailouts is exactly the same rhetoric we heard about the Patriot Act: if we don't do something, we will suffer. It is the same rhetoric we heard about going into Iraq: if we don't do something, we will remain in grave danger. The US government as a whole has not had a good track record in recent times, yet very few question the credibility of its latest statements.
So go ahead and continue to believe the rhetoric of your state-sponsored economists despite the fact that the credit crisis is laregly a lie. Despite the fact that the first big bailout hasn't solved fuck-all even though it was oh-so-important that it be passed immediately. Despite the fact that the first big bailout is openly being used for purposes radically different from what was legislated.
The next year is going to suck no matter what. Unless we change course by doing the opposite of what we are now, Depression 2.0 will ensure that the suckiness lasts far longer than a year. Unfortunately, it looks like the people running this sideshow are calling for full steam ahead.
Wrong. Taxation to pay for productive services that benefit me directly or indirectly, such as road maintenance or national parks, is not theft. It is payment for a service, even if the service and payment is foisted upon me. Taxation to reward people who are non-productive (and this includes all govt. bailouts) is theft because my money is being taken by force and I get nothing in return.
You may call it splitting hairs if you like, but you are being overly simplistic (and likely disingenuous).
I agree, and IMO a properly working electoral college would be much better than abolishing it as has been suggested now and again. If the electoral college were to return to a collection of trusted individuals instead of a popular vote by proxy, the presidential race would again be based substantially on policy and character instead of image and marketing.
Can one yearn for the good old days even if they happened before one was born?
No problem - it isn't often that anyone asks us free market nutjobs about this stuff, so it's nice to try and explain it to someone who isn't stealthily maneuvering his way toward the nearest exit;)
Automakers lobbied for nice, drive-a-light-truck-through-this tax loophole legislation.
Automakers focus almost* solely on these light trucks because of their fat profits on them. This includes aggressive marketing to make suburban moms (who think off-roading is driving around back by the pool) think that these vehicles are perfect for them.
Shit goes down, oil gets expensive, the public wakes up and now nobody wants SUVs anymore, and automakers are looking at bankruptcy.
Why exactly is my tax money going to them when they got themselves in this mess in the first place?
*Ford has a leg up here because they have smaller, fuel-efficient lines for European markets that they are going to bring to the US markets. Diversity beats monoculture every time.
I always thought the boom and bust was the market trying, not very well, to keep its balance.
You're half right according to Austrian economics (the kind pushed by Mises.org). The booms are caused by intervention in the market and the busts are the market's reaction to keep its balance. To overextend the drunk analogy, the forces that cause the loss of equilibrium would be whoever keeps giving the drunk more liquor. The Federal Reserve plays that role when it manipulates interest rates--the easy credit it offers is exactly like alcohol to a drunk. There's no way he will turn it down, and it will cause him to make poor decisions--in the most recent high-profile case, investing in building thousands of new houses that appear to be profitable due to artificially low credit interest rates rather than consumer interest. This is the boom portion of the cycle.
The bust comes when the drunk realizes that he has built way too many new homes and tries to salvage as much money as possible, causing the market to take a tumble. The same thing happened in the dot-com bubble, where microniche-market startups were inflated to ridiculous values because of loose credit policies. The same thing happened in the oil speculation bubble for the same reasons. So the boom part of the cycle is the abberation while the bust is a market correction. Each bubble has its individual facets, and in each case something different tipped the markets into bust mode, but the root cause of each is the monkeying-about of interest rates.
The problem with government bailouts is that we end up throwing more money at a problem caused by excessive amounts of money in the first place. Failure, while not good for the individuals involved, is necessary for a free market economy to work. If governments continue to bail out failing industries, the process will only be prolonged and, since many governments don't HAVE the money for these bailouts, new money is created which devalues all of the currency in circulation. There is a big advantage to being first in line for new money as the markets will not have adjusted to the inflated money supply yet, which gives ordinarily responsible bankers incentive to take as much credit as they can get. Early birds get more bang for their buck while we Joe Schmoes see only costs rising faster than our pay rates.
I'm getting off-track because it's a big, interrelated tangle that can only be solved by cutting the worm out of the root: getting rid of, or at least heavily restricting, the Federal Reserve and other central banks. I'm also pretty new to this stuff, so hopefully a more seasoned scholar of Austrian economics can correct the mistakes I may have made here. For an in-depth analysis of the boom/bust cycle, check out Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure on the Mises.org site. It's lengthy, so if you want to get right to the meat, start at this sentence:
Fortunately, a correct theory of depression and of the business cycle does exist, even though it is universally neglected in present-day economics.
How about synthesizers? Say, a class full of FM synths and one kid with an analog synth. They all look pretty similar, the keyboard portion is exactly the same, and you can immediately play the same tune on either instrument, but the way you go about generating and modifying the sounds is completely different.
It's hardly unfortunate that it makes it difficult for governments to track down dissenters, etc.
Perhaps her point was that it is unfortunate that such governments exist. Perhaps she is disappointed that people are not able to always post their honest opinions and perspectives without fear of serious repercussion.
Exactly. I was browsing the site and a bunch of questions about ending the Fed have high positive ratings, so in that respect PKDhead is incorrect. Didn't look into the truther thing because I don't care.
Seeing all of those repeat questions makes me wonder how effective this thing is going to be. It's not hard to search first for terms in a question you want to ask and see if someone else has covered it, but it doesn't look like folks are doing that. I wonder if the admins are going to take this into account when picking which questions to answer.
Pirate walks into a bar. Bartender nods hello, then does a doubletake. "Hey friend," says the bartender, "you know you got a steering wheel attached to your crotch?"
Imagine what these incredibly talented people would be saying (or would have said) if they didn't have to worry about their drug use. There are plenty of big issues to tackle, and IMO it's a shame that we're still wasting creativity on this one.
Let's say you are addicted to meth, and you can get it at your local Walgreen's. Your problem is not the addictive personality. Your problem is not the commercial availability of meth. Your problem is that you are presented with the opportunity to buy meth at a time when you are not being held accountable to anyone. Let's look at a slightly different situation.
Same Walgreens, same meth, same trip for aspirin, but the cashier is a friend of yours who knows about your addiction. Will you still ask for the meth? If you do, your friend will respond, "If you want this, I have to sell it to you, but think about what you're doing. Are you sure that it's a good idea?" Would you still buy it?
That accountability would provide the reality check that shuts out the nagging addiction. Now, I realize that this is a pretty unrealistic situation because you're going to be in different places where you don't know the clerks. But the accountability is what matters most. If you have a friend to whom you make yourself accountable, someone who checks in now and then and asks "have you been using?" and knows he'll get an honest answer, you're going to think of him and how you'll have to answer when you get the impulse to buy some meth, and it's going to help immensely.
Accountability is a big part of some drug rehab methods, and I wish the practice was more well-publicized because it can be used for pretty much any bad habit that you want to get rid of. The only catch is that you have to know somebody who you can be very open with. But as another sibling almost said, my freedom to responsibly use drugs should not be infringed upon by your addictive personality, especially when there are steps you can take to keep yourself in check.
Damn dude, that sucks. I find stories like that just overwhelmingly sad. You've found the example I was looking for though. My last words on the matter:
Your aunt's disheartening experience is a better example of latent racism because the white kid was using a racial epithet without malice, but intentionally referring to race. Tony Snow was using a phrase that has multiple meanings, and taken in context it should be obvious which meaning he was referring to. It's a shame that the term has been co-opted for nefarious purposes, and now that it's on the radar it would be pretty irresponsible to use it again ("sticky situation" will do just fine, thanks). I can also understand why some people were offended, and it's good that someone pointed it out so that it shouldn't happen again. But I can't equate using "tar baby" in a context that has nothing to do with race with using "nigger church" in any situation. Both stemmed from ignorance, both were innocently done, yet the latter had its roots in malignancy while the former did not, which is why I say the latter is a good example of latent racism.
Hang on, I finally recalled an example that may be especially widespread at the moment because of Obama's campaign. I don't know how many times I have heard (AFAIK exclusively) white people say, "He's so eloquent" or "He speaks well" when giving him praise. That carries in my opinion an implicit assumption that it is an unusual trait for a black person to possess. I say "may be widespread" because Obama is a pretty fantastic orator by any standard, and he looks particularly good when compared with bumbling Bush and teleprompter-tragedy McCain. Still, having come across that one in the past, I can't help but cringe whenever I hear it.
Feel free to respond; I'm not trying to cut you off. I think I've explained my perspective as best I can, and quite frankly I don't like defending Tony Snow =) And thanks for the dialogue!
You're right, my skin actually glows in the dark =) I wrote "not broadly used as a racist term" on purpose--I assumed it was a pretty localized, regional thing, which is what my post is based on. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, no shocker there. Just make sure you're not assuming that because you have heard it in your local black community it's something that is widespread enough to be recognized as offensive.
The only reason I continue to belabor the point is that I think there is a difference between an ignorance of a fairly local cultural phrase and latent racism. Even if I am wrong and "tar baby" is a nationally-known slur, I find it hard to label that ignorance as latent racism. It's kind of like a backwater British guy asking if you know where to find a pack of fags: that statement could offend gay people who overhear it, but his ignorance stems from a lack of American cultural contact...and I realize now that that could very well be how you define latent racism. I don't like that definition because it turns simple ignorance into an us-versus-them thing.
I've still been trying to come up with an example of latent racism that I consider to be solid, but am having no luck. I see latent racism as "unknowingly taking an action, when in a situation with someone of another race, that you would not have taken had he been of the same race." It could be something as simple as tightening your hand around your car keys when passing a [not-your-color] guy on the street. Does that ring true to you, or do you think there is more that I am missing?
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds to me like you did the right thing. When dealing with someone living in an alternate reality, especially someone who seems otherwise capable of caring for himself (which is the impression I got from your description), it is often best to work with his delusions instead of trying to push through them. Your contact info certainly satisfied him more than any amount of explaining to him why he is wrong, and the respect you showed by not ridiculing him is highly commendable.
We are given neither the time nor the resources to make great improvements in all the lives of those we meet. You did what you could with what you had, and that is more than many people care to do.
Keynes never saw this coming, and Keynes couldn't explain it if he tried.
I spoke too soon.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of Society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
John Maynard Keynes
*sigh* Here we go again.
It is not a lack of regulation that caused the market crash. The crash is the result of a bubble that has been building since the '70s, and it just happened to be the shady housing financial practices that tipped things over the edge. If they hadn't done it, something else (likely still in the housing market) would have. But the root cause of all of this is the Federal Reserve's manipulation of the money supply. Keynes disagreed, but Keynes is dead, Keynes never saw this coming, and Keynes couldn't explain it if he tried.
If the Fed did not set artificially low interest rates, it would not have been perceived profitable to build thousands of new McMansions. All that construction convinced people that homes are a hot commodity and drove the market prices sky-high. They would have been right had all the building been based on consumer demand (as in a free market) but the building stemmed from easy credit flow due to the Fed rate--this is known as malinvestment. Without this glut of new homes on the market, the whole financial end of things (mortgage-backed securities, untrustworthy rating companies, etc.) would not have blown up as big as it did. So don't blame the market crash on deregulation.
And as far as the great regulation cure-all goes...the regulations we already have in place should have prevented the Bernie Madoff $50bn ponzi scheme. Fraud is already illegal. There were a number of suspicions raised by various people about Madoff that were brushed aside by regulatory agencies. How did he still manage to pull it off?
When all is said and done, I'm not a fan of regulation but it's not that big a deal to me. The thing is, the regulation debate is a paper tiger that hides the monumentally larger problem of the Fed's monkeying about with the money supply, and the failure to understand the full impact of that is going to make things a hell of a lot worse. The Fed is making bigger and bigger changes in an effort to keep everything from crashing down without realizing that it is only digging a deeper hole. I mean, come on - federal funds rate of 0%? That's going to devalue the dollar further and faster than ever before. Didn't it drop 2-3% against the Euro the day after they announced it? Hyperinflation is no longer just a theoretical possibility, but an actual (albeit minute (fingers crossed)) one.
It's astounding that we, as a country, can be so continually distracted by whatever the media hive mind throws our way.
Though I think you might be selling RAH a little short. Yes - he preached - but just because his books didn't actually ask the questions themselves doesn't mean he didn't inspire the reader to ask those questions.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, because I agree that Heinlein directly or indirectly raises important questions. I just don't like his dialog, and that's not intended as a slight - dialog is hard to do well. It's the weakest part of my own writing. Some of his books are great in spite of that shortcoming because they are carried by the ideas and questions he poses.
Heinlein had some great ideas that I wish were more well-known. He told good stories to illustrate them, too. On the flipside, his characters tended to be pretty flat, there was always an obvious mouthpiece for his own viewpoint, and his dialog was very weak.
I haven't read any Scalzi, and I do have great respect for Heinlein, but I hope the comparisons only hold true for the positive traits. Are Scalzi's books deeper than pure entertainment? Do they raise questions about the human condition, our treatment of others, the role of governments, etc.?
I have never heard of such a distinction in the arms of the octopus. Are you sure you aren't confusing them with squid, which have 8 arms and two longer tentacles that are used for capturing food?
Are you suggesting that economists see Depression 2.0 as inevitable, so they might as well give a bunch of cash to their friends before the shit hits the fan? Or are you seriously suggesting that government bailouts and nationalization of damn near everything is going to switch us to a different track?
The same economists that predicted the crisis we are living through are the same ones who (continue to) say that throwing more money at failing business will only make the great big fucking hole greater, bigger, and more fuckinger.
The rhetoric we've been hearing about the need for bailouts is exactly the same rhetoric we heard about the Patriot Act: if we don't do something, we will suffer. It is the same rhetoric we heard about going into Iraq: if we don't do something, we will remain in grave danger. The US government as a whole has not had a good track record in recent times, yet very few question the credibility of its latest statements.
So go ahead and continue to believe the rhetoric of your state-sponsored economists despite the fact that the credit crisis is laregly a lie. Despite the fact that the first big bailout hasn't solved fuck-all even though it was oh-so-important that it be passed immediately. Despite the fact that the first big bailout is openly being used for purposes radically different from what was legislated.
The next year is going to suck no matter what. Unless we change course by doing the opposite of what we are now, Depression 2.0 will ensure that the suckiness lasts far longer than a year. Unfortunately, it looks like the people running this sideshow are calling for full steam ahead.
This isn't a Windows news site either, yet we get tons of stories about Windows Update failures and Windows exploits.
Your argument is weak, grasshopper.
Wrong. Taxation to pay for productive services that benefit me directly or indirectly, such as road maintenance or national parks, is not theft. It is payment for a service, even if the service and payment is foisted upon me. Taxation to reward people who are non-productive (and this includes all govt. bailouts) is theft because my money is being taken by force and I get nothing in return.
You may call it splitting hairs if you like, but you are being overly simplistic (and likely disingenuous).
I agree, and IMO a properly working electoral college would be much better than abolishing it as has been suggested now and again. If the electoral college were to return to a collection of trusted individuals instead of a popular vote by proxy, the presidential race would again be based substantially on policy and character instead of image and marketing.
Can one yearn for the good old days even if they happened before one was born?
No problem - it isn't often that anyone asks us free market nutjobs about this stuff, so it's nice to try and explain it to someone who isn't stealthily maneuvering his way toward the nearest exit ;)
Firefighters, policemen, et. al. are doing work to get that money. It's not redistribution, it is payment.
So let's see if I have this right.
Automakers lobbied for nice, drive-a-light-truck-through-this tax loophole legislation.
Automakers focus almost* solely on these light trucks because of their fat profits on them. This includes aggressive marketing to make suburban moms (who think off-roading is driving around back by the pool) think that these vehicles are perfect for them.
Shit goes down, oil gets expensive, the public wakes up and now nobody wants SUVs anymore, and automakers are looking at bankruptcy.
Why exactly is my tax money going to them when they got themselves in this mess in the first place?
*Ford has a leg up here because they have smaller, fuel-efficient lines for European markets that they are going to bring to the US markets. Diversity beats monoculture every time.
I always thought the boom and bust was the market trying, not very well, to keep its balance.
You're half right according to Austrian economics (the kind pushed by Mises.org). The booms are caused by intervention in the market and the busts are the market's reaction to keep its balance. To overextend the drunk analogy, the forces that cause the loss of equilibrium would be whoever keeps giving the drunk more liquor. The Federal Reserve plays that role when it manipulates interest rates--the easy credit it offers is exactly like alcohol to a drunk. There's no way he will turn it down, and it will cause him to make poor decisions--in the most recent high-profile case, investing in building thousands of new houses that appear to be profitable due to artificially low credit interest rates rather than consumer interest. This is the boom portion of the cycle.
The bust comes when the drunk realizes that he has built way too many new homes and tries to salvage as much money as possible, causing the market to take a tumble. The same thing happened in the dot-com bubble, where microniche-market startups were inflated to ridiculous values because of loose credit policies. The same thing happened in the oil speculation bubble for the same reasons. So the boom part of the cycle is the abberation while the bust is a market correction. Each bubble has its individual facets, and in each case something different tipped the markets into bust mode, but the root cause of each is the monkeying-about of interest rates.
The problem with government bailouts is that we end up throwing more money at a problem caused by excessive amounts of money in the first place. Failure, while not good for the individuals involved, is necessary for a free market economy to work. If governments continue to bail out failing industries, the process will only be prolonged and, since many governments don't HAVE the money for these bailouts, new money is created which devalues all of the currency in circulation. There is a big advantage to being first in line for new money as the markets will not have adjusted to the inflated money supply yet, which gives ordinarily responsible bankers incentive to take as much credit as they can get. Early birds get more bang for their buck while we Joe Schmoes see only costs rising faster than our pay rates.
I'm getting off-track because it's a big, interrelated tangle that can only be solved by cutting the worm out of the root: getting rid of, or at least heavily restricting, the Federal Reserve and other central banks. I'm also pretty new to this stuff, so hopefully a more seasoned scholar of Austrian economics can correct the mistakes I may have made here. For an in-depth analysis of the boom/bust cycle, check out Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure on the Mises.org site. It's lengthy, so if you want to get right to the meat, start at this sentence:
Fortunately, a correct theory of depression and of the business cycle does exist, even though it is universally neglected in present-day economics.
How about synthesizers? Say, a class full of FM synths and one kid with an analog synth. They all look pretty similar, the keyboard portion is exactly the same, and you can immediately play the same tune on either instrument, but the way you go about generating and modifying the sounds is completely different.
It's hardly unfortunate that it makes it difficult for governments to track down dissenters, etc.
Perhaps her point was that it is unfortunate that such governments exist. Perhaps she is disappointed that people are not able to always post their honest opinions and perspectives without fear of serious repercussion.
Well said. Glad I saw this before I composed an inferior imitation of it =)
Exactly. I was browsing the site and a bunch of questions about ending the Fed have high positive ratings, so in that respect PKDhead is incorrect. Didn't look into the truther thing because I don't care.
Seeing all of those repeat questions makes me wonder how effective this thing is going to be. It's not hard to search first for terms in a question you want to ask and see if someone else has covered it, but it doesn't look like folks are doing that. I wonder if the admins are going to take this into account when picking which questions to answer.
Pirate walks into a bar. Bartender nods hello, then does a doubletake.
"Hey friend," says the bartender, "you know you got a steering wheel attached to your crotch?"
"Aye," says the pirate, "it's drivin' me nuts."
Imagine what these incredibly talented people would be saying (or would have said) if they didn't have to worry about their drug use. There are plenty of big issues to tackle, and IMO it's a shame that we're still wasting creativity on this one.
This is wandering slightly off-topic, but...
Let's say you are addicted to meth, and you can get it at your local Walgreen's. Your problem is not the addictive personality. Your problem is not the commercial availability of meth. Your problem is that you are presented with the opportunity to buy meth at a time when you are not being held accountable to anyone. Let's look at a slightly different situation.
Same Walgreens, same meth, same trip for aspirin, but the cashier is a friend of yours who knows about your addiction. Will you still ask for the meth? If you do, your friend will respond, "If you want this, I have to sell it to you, but think about what you're doing. Are you sure that it's a good idea?" Would you still buy it?
That accountability would provide the reality check that shuts out the nagging addiction. Now, I realize that this is a pretty unrealistic situation because you're going to be in different places where you don't know the clerks. But the accountability is what matters most. If you have a friend to whom you make yourself accountable, someone who checks in now and then and asks "have you been using?" and knows he'll get an honest answer, you're going to think of him and how you'll have to answer when you get the impulse to buy some meth, and it's going to help immensely.
Accountability is a big part of some drug rehab methods, and I wish the practice was more well-publicized because it can be used for pretty much any bad habit that you want to get rid of. The only catch is that you have to know somebody who you can be very open with. But as another sibling almost said, my freedom to responsibly use drugs should not be infringed upon by your addictive personality, especially when there are steps you can take to keep yourself in check.
A reasonably accurate car analogy? Is this some kind of hoax?
Damn dude, that sucks. I find stories like that just overwhelmingly sad. You've found the example I was looking for though. My last words on the matter:
Your aunt's disheartening experience is a better example of latent racism because the white kid was using a racial epithet without malice, but intentionally referring to race. Tony Snow was using a phrase that has multiple meanings, and taken in context it should be obvious which meaning he was referring to. It's a shame that the term has been co-opted for nefarious purposes, and now that it's on the radar it would be pretty irresponsible to use it again ("sticky situation" will do just fine, thanks). I can also understand why some people were offended, and it's good that someone pointed it out so that it shouldn't happen again. But I can't equate using "tar baby" in a context that has nothing to do with race with using "nigger church" in any situation. Both stemmed from ignorance, both were innocently done, yet the latter had its roots in malignancy while the former did not, which is why I say the latter is a good example of latent racism.
Hang on, I finally recalled an example that may be especially widespread at the moment because of Obama's campaign. I don't know how many times I have heard (AFAIK exclusively) white people say, "He's so eloquent" or "He speaks well" when giving him praise. That carries in my opinion an implicit assumption that it is an unusual trait for a black person to possess. I say "may be widespread" because Obama is a pretty fantastic orator by any standard, and he looks particularly good when compared with bumbling Bush and teleprompter-tragedy McCain. Still, having come across that one in the past, I can't help but cringe whenever I hear it.
Feel free to respond; I'm not trying to cut you off. I think I've explained my perspective as best I can, and quite frankly I don't like defending Tony Snow =) And thanks for the dialogue!
You're right, my skin actually glows in the dark =) I wrote "not broadly used as a racist term" on purpose--I assumed it was a pretty localized, regional thing, which is what my post is based on. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, no shocker there. Just make sure you're not assuming that because you have heard it in your local black community it's something that is widespread enough to be recognized as offensive.
The only reason I continue to belabor the point is that I think there is a difference between an ignorance of a fairly local cultural phrase and latent racism. Even if I am wrong and "tar baby" is a nationally-known slur, I find it hard to label that ignorance as latent racism. It's kind of like a backwater British guy asking if you know where to find a pack of fags: that statement could offend gay people who overhear it, but his ignorance stems from a lack of American cultural contact...and I realize now that that could very well be how you define latent racism. I don't like that definition because it turns simple ignorance into an us-versus-them thing.
I've still been trying to come up with an example of latent racism that I consider to be solid, but am having no luck. I see latent racism as "unknowingly taking an action, when in a situation with someone of another race, that you would not have taken had he been of the same race." It could be something as simple as tightening your hand around your car keys when passing a [not-your-color] guy on the street. Does that ring true to you, or do you think there is more that I am missing?
Agreed. I submitted the lack of an undo button in the new mod system as a bug the first time it happened to me. Doubt we'll ever see it though.