Well, you have to be pretty dumb not to see a point in graduating. When you can't plan out your life you are stupid. I don't mean that all of them need to know calc when they graduate, they just need to have a general plan, rather than just wake up, eat, then do crap. That's the problem, they don't know the reprcussions of their actions and they do not know how to invest in the future.
Bill O'Reilly, Rev Wright = David Duke
- Thread starter Berzerker
- Start date
Well, you have to be pretty dumb not to see a point in graduating. When you can't plan out your life you are stupid. I don't mean that all of them need to know calc when they graduate, they just need to have a general plan, rather than just wake up, eat, then do crap. That's the problem, they don't know the reprcussions of their actions and they do not know how to invest in the future.
Good, now that we have a consensus, I think that we can resolve this argument.
Ecofarm
Deity
I disagree.
First, you are confusing stupidity and ignorance. It makes it look like you think black people have low IQs, when (at least, I hope) that you mean they are under-educated.
Second, welfare is the virus. It may be an attempt at a "cure", but it is the source of the problem. We must eliminate welfare to end the victim/entitlement mentality.
Third, culture is also the virus. People have to change their own culture. I can't do that for them. I can't force anyone to consider the real meaning of life or importance of education instead of "life ain't nothin but bit**** and money".
Your "mass education" proposal represents nothing more than a massive government bureaucracy supporting propaganda and government-approved programming, to me. It represents yet another entitlement program. "Free education" for those unwilling to pursue it. That's about as valuable as a "free lunch" for people who don't eat.
Fine, ignorance, whatever you wish to call it.
Well, welfare is not directly perpetuated, so if you end it I have no idea what happens, I would support ending welfare if the money was shifted towards education programs. Or the government directly controls where the money goes.
The culture can somewhat stay. When life planning and education comes hopefully the more negative parts will go away. There is a difference between the gangster with a gun, and the suburban kid with fake earring that has never seen marijuana in his life.
Can you agree on education programs though?
Ecofarm
Deity
No, I can't. People do not value stuff you give them for free. We already have a massive education program called public school, and it is largely a piece of crap. Now you want to make the crap bigger. Bad plan.
How about if the government gave the money back to the people! It's not the damn government's money in the first place.
The single greatest distortion in the market is government money. And we wonder why there are market failures. The public education system is one big market failure. I don't want to make it any bigger.
If you want people to value their education, make them work for it - don't give it to them for free.
Aegis
Deity
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I disagree. A lot don't see any point in trying because they feel that the system is working against them, so they just give up completely. That's the root of the problem, imo. This goes back to my original point, which was that people feel that the system is against them because it is run by white men, who in the past enslaved them (well, not them really, their ancestors) and so they see that their oppressors are still in power and they use this as an excuse to not even try, because they don't believe they will be given a fair chance.
The school system is a piece of crap because of the way it's funded. Rich people get really good schools, poor people get crappy schools. I'm just suggesting that some of the money used for welfare can be diverted to adult education programs, the school system needs to be reformated totally. But the plans I have in mind are a bit socialist.
Ecofarm
Deity
And so you come to the root of our philosophical disagreement
You still have faith in socialist policy, I don't. Sure, it works in small places with homogeneous populations - but not in the US at a federal level.
And so you come to the root of our philosophical disagreement
You still have faith in socialist policy, I don't. Sure, it works in small places with homogeneous populations - but not in the US at a federal level.
What's wrong with taking all the property taxes and then distributing them equally, so all the schools have equal funding?
Ecofarm
Deity
What's wrong with taking all the money and distributing it equally, so all the people have equal funding?
The can of worms you wish to open is extensive. It involves the fundamentals of conservative and liberal economic policy, the ramifications and implications of those and the interpretation of those according to subjective philosophy. Then comes the equally contested evidence phase of the debate.
While I appreciate your civilized tone and seemingly genuine interest, the subject is just too big.
Berzerker
Deity
Well, Steven Colbert really put this into perspective tonight. He showed clips of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity blasting Obama for staying in the church for 20 years. Colbert pointed out these guys are "Catholics" who've stayed in the Catholic Church even though its been covering up for child molesters for decades. "Do as we say, not as we didn't" 
What frauds
What frauds
Berzerker
Deity
Dancers are hired and paid, are you suggesting Wright hired and paid white people to attend? And it does have bearing on the message, if he was a racist they'd stop going.
And you are firing blanks, like usual.
Wow, I thought it was contemptible. He's right, they started attacking us after we stayed in Saudi Arabia. Or do you share Rudy's explanation? That a group of Muslims half way around the world woke up one day and decided to attack our buildings because we are free. Or are you of the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell school of thought? That we were attacked because of abortion and gays. You know, the fact is we've been over there since the end of WWII and we aint always behaved like saints, so for you to act like our foreign policy is unrelated to why we got hit is
But just keep yer hands over yer ears and la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Lets see, what is the plausibility that 9/11 was a result of God being mad at us over abortion and gays. Or...Some govt agency started AIDS to kill black people. The latter is at least within the realm of possibilities, and given the fact our government gave syphilis to black men increases the possibility and suspicion. The two arguments aint even in the same ballpark when it comes to crazy talk...
Aegis
Deity
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I'm sorry, I missed this amongst Neomega's hysterics:
I was trying to illustrate another hurdle that individuals sometimes place in front of themselves. I know that that is not the average. I would imagine that the birthrate would be higher in the cities, though.
I kind of understand why the military does not place an emphasis on recruiting in the inner cities. It is more difficult to enlist a person who has a criminal record and crime rates are traditionally much higher in cities. From a recruiting standpoint where they have to meet quotas each month, it makes more sense to recruit where they have the best chances of success. This does not prevent anyone from seeking the recruiters out, however.
Not always, no. And whose fault is it if a person has bad credit?
I am in agreement. To think that the US did absolutely nothing to warrant the attacks is very foolish. The US government has been pushing it's nose into the rest of the world's business for over 100 years and this has pissed off a lot of people. The American public does not want to hear this, though, so people like Giuliani pander to them and claim we were innocent.
The people who were killed were innocent, but the country as a whole (the government) was not.
Saying people in the ME planned 9/11 because of a US conspiracy to kill off an ethnic group within our country with an engineered virus is equally crazy. The Tuskegee experiment has already been explained earlier in the thread.
You really don't see a difference?
Do you truly expect every single Catholic to stop going to church and denounce their faith because of the molestation debacle?
I was trying to illustrate another hurdle that individuals sometimes place in front of themselves. I know that that is not the average. I would imagine that the birthrate would be higher in the cities, though.
I kind of understand why the military does not place an emphasis on recruiting in the inner cities. It is more difficult to enlist a person who has a criminal record and crime rates are traditionally much higher in cities. From a recruiting standpoint where they have to meet quotas each month, it makes more sense to recruit where they have the best chances of success. This does not prevent anyone from seeking the recruiters out, however.
Not always, no. And whose fault is it if a person has bad credit?
Wow, I thought it was contemptible. He's right, they started attacking us after we stayed in Saudi Arabia. Or do you share Rudy's explanation? That a group of Muslims half way around the world woke up one day and decided to attack our buildings because we are free. Or are you of the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell school of thought? That we were attacked because of abortion and gays. You know, the fact is we've been over there since the end of WWII and we aint always behaved like saints, so for you to act like our foreign policy is unrelated to why we got hit is
I am in agreement. To think that the US did absolutely nothing to warrant the attacks is very foolish. The US government has been pushing it's nose into the rest of the world's business for over 100 years and this has pissed off a lot of people. The American public does not want to hear this, though, so people like Giuliani pander to them and claim we were innocent.
The people who were killed were innocent, but the country as a whole (the government) was not.
Some govt agency started AIDS to kill black people. The latter is at least within the realm of possibilities, and given the fact our government gave syphilis to black men increases the possibility and suspicion. The two arguments aint even in the same ballpark when it comes to crazy talk...
Saying people in the ME planned 9/11 because of a US conspiracy to kill off an ethnic group within our country with an engineered virus is equally crazy. The Tuskegee experiment has already been explained earlier in the thread.
Well, Steven Colbert really put this into perspective tonight. He showed clips of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity blasting Obama for staying in the church for 20 years. Colbert pointed out these guys are "Catholics" who've stayed in the Catholic Church even though its been covering up for child molesters for decades. "Do as we say, not as we didn't"
What frauds
You really don't see a difference?
Do you truly expect every single Catholic to stop going to church and denounce their faith because of the molestation debacle?
Man, 11 pages! And I haven't seen the thread since page 3. Reading through some of it, I can't help but think that a lot of people don't understand what "racism" is or how it affects society. But anyway . . .
Aegis,
Of course I understand that. But I have no reason to think that Wright is a fanatic who is projecting that onto me.
Well, that assumes that they're only using it to "excuse their shortcomings," and that none of slavery's effects can still be felt. Not everyone thinks that -- Justice Marshall, for example, thought that affirmative action was necessary not only to overcome discrimination today, but because the effects of slavery were still felt in large parts of the country.
Additionally, there actually are lots of people who were alive when half the country used the power of the state to enforce Jim Crow. Let's say the formal end of Jim Crow was the Civil Rights Act of 1968 -- that's only forty years ago. I'm sure there are people who post here who were alive before then. As Obama originally pointed out in the Philadelphia speech, there are people from an older era who hold on to old frustrations that they experienced. (Since then, of course, Wright has attacked Obama and Obama dumped him.)
But this is a tangential (although interesting -- you always deliver, Aegis) issue. My point is that there's no reason to think Wright doesn't like white people as such.
MobBoss,
Because the government need not be "filled" with racists to be "racist." If only a small portion of the people in the government are racist, then its policies will be tilted towards racism, even if the rest of the people aren't racist at all. For example, not every white person in the Jim Crow South was racist; and yet the Jim Crow South was clearly "racist."
Cleo
Aegis,
Of course I understand that. But I have no reason to think that Wright is a fanatic who is projecting that onto me.
Well, that assumes that they're only using it to "excuse their shortcomings," and that none of slavery's effects can still be felt. Not everyone thinks that -- Justice Marshall, for example, thought that affirmative action was necessary not only to overcome discrimination today, but because the effects of slavery were still felt in large parts of the country.
Additionally, there actually are lots of people who were alive when half the country used the power of the state to enforce Jim Crow. Let's say the formal end of Jim Crow was the Civil Rights Act of 1968 -- that's only forty years ago. I'm sure there are people who post here who were alive before then. As Obama originally pointed out in the Philadelphia speech, there are people from an older era who hold on to old frustrations that they experienced. (Since then, of course, Wright has attacked Obama and Obama dumped him.)
But this is a tangential (although interesting -- you always deliver, Aegis) issue. My point is that there's no reason to think Wright doesn't like white people as such.
MobBoss,
Because the government need not be "filled" with racists to be "racist." If only a small portion of the people in the government are racist, then its policies will be tilted towards racism, even if the rest of the people aren't racist at all. For example, not every white person in the Jim Crow South was racist; and yet the Jim Crow South was clearly "racist."
Cleo
skadistic
Caomhanach
That would be great when every one pays equally.
Aegis
Deity
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Fair enough.
Of course some of slavery's effects can still be felt, but those effects are not the main reason behind what's preventing people from succeeding. They may think it is, but I feel that a bigger problem is internal.
A.A. was needed at some point in our history. Is it still needed now? I don't know, I'd like to see some studies concerning it before I form that opinion.
Jim Crow laws weren't slavery. It was discriminatory and racist, sure. That's beside the point, though. Jim Crow laws are no longer in effect. There is literally nothing external that is completely preventing people from succeeding if they want to work for it. There may be difficulties in breaking out due to racism or social inequality, but it's certainly not impossible.
Fair enough.
This is a good point. The institution is racist, not the individual. This train of thought is applied by the US's enemies when they're trying to validate the 9/11 attacks. In their mind, the citizens of the US deserved to die because they are part of the system, thus they are not innocent. I can understand someone applying the same logic to the US government's inherent racism: If you're a part of the system, you're a part of the problem.
Aegis,
Well, are these people complaining that it's impossible, or are they complaining that there are "difficulties . . . due to racism or social inequality?" To the extent someone complains that it's impossible, I agree with you -- that's obviously false. But you acknowledge that there may be other difficulties, and complaining about and trying to reform those are important work that shouldn't be brushed aside because some people blame others for their failures.
Generally, I think trying to analyze a question as huge as, "Why are black inner cities failing?*" is an impossibly complicated task, and that the reality is probably that almost every explanation is correct, at least to some extent (excepting, of course, crackpot ideas like "the government created AIDS" or "blacks are genetically inferior"). There are cultural problems that are caused by and cause economic problems that are caused by and cause educational failures that are caused by and cause political problems that are caused by and cause cultural problems, &c. And around and around we go.
Cleo
*Or, "Why is meth addiction ravaging white middle America?"
Well, are these people complaining that it's impossible, or are they complaining that there are "difficulties . . . due to racism or social inequality?" To the extent someone complains that it's impossible, I agree with you -- that's obviously false. But you acknowledge that there may be other difficulties, and complaining about and trying to reform those are important work that shouldn't be brushed aside because some people blame others for their failures.
Generally, I think trying to analyze a question as huge as, "Why are black inner cities failing?*" is an impossibly complicated task, and that the reality is probably that almost every explanation is correct, at least to some extent (excepting, of course, crackpot ideas like "the government created AIDS" or "blacks are genetically inferior"). There are cultural problems that are caused by and cause economic problems that are caused by and cause educational failures that are caused by and cause political problems that are caused by and cause cultural problems, &c. And around and around we go.
Cleo
*Or, "Why is meth addiction ravaging white middle America?"
A Catholic almost took a swing at me when I made the same point to him a couple of days ago.Well, Steven Colbert really put this into perspective tonight. He showed clips of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity blasting Obama for staying in the church for 20 years. Colbert pointed out these guys are "Catholics" who've stayed in the Catholic Church even though its been covering up for child molesters for decades. "Do as we say, not as we didn't"
What frauds
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Apparently you never watched Soul Train. And your're getting the wrong message....the message I get is that some whites are perfectly fine with blacks being racist and will even join in with them in doing it.
So since when is merely staying in Saudi Arabia 'state sponsored terrorism'?
Actually, they have been calling us 'the great Satan' for our freedom (they view it as immorality) for a very long time now.
Actually, no....no its not. And if you even think this, you need help. Seriously.
Another lie. Our government never gave syphilis to black men.
You are right. One is factual (mine)...they other isnt (yours).
RedRalph
Deity
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when talking to people like this bring the leg of a chair. If they swing for you, feel free to use it liberally