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  • SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

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    Cornell University
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  • #2
    Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

    Racism has evolved IMHO. I'd like to think even most (but not all) Trump supporters would be horrified by cops sending dogs after peaceful protesters or blacks being beaten on their way to the polling station. Or segregated lunch counters.

    Racism now is white privilege. Its not that non-whites shouldn't have basic rights. Its that those rights need to be secondary to those of whites. Trump voters don't mind one Hispanic kid in class with their kids. They don't want a majority of the kids to be non-white. Trump voters don't mind one Indian family in the neighborhood. They don't want the neighborhood to be even close to a majority non-white. They might not mind seeing one black guy in the office. 3 or 4 or them? That starts to become a problem. This attitude is what Trump appeals to. It has little to do with economics although one could make the case that if people's economic situation was better maybe they'd be less likely to look for scapegoats. I'm a bit skeptical of that argument. Its about taking older people back to a country where whites were like 80-90% of the population and you could use racial and ethnic slurs as part of your everyday conversation.
    I think this is about right.

    Also, racism overall -- active or passive -- is declining at roughly the same rate as religiosity. That's not to say they're necessarily related. They're accidentally related by an independent variable: ruralness. Racism now is almost entirely a County Mouse thing, whereas 50 years ago it was just as likely that you'd run into it in the suburbs or the city.

    Racism has also become a class-linked characteristic among whites, like smoking and gun-humping. It will obviously never die out because bigotries never die out, but it is receding as education and awareness of the world beyond the corn crib seeps even into the back 40.
    Cornell University
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    • #3
      Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

      Originally posted by Kepler View Post
      I think this is about right.

      Also, racism overall -- active or passive -- is declining at roughly the same rate as religiosity. That's not to say they're necessarily related. They're accidentally related by an independent variable: ruralness. Racism now is almost entirely a County Mouse thing, whereas 50 years ago it was just as likely that you'd run into it in the suburbs or the city.

      Racism has also become a class-linked characteristic among whites, like smoking and gun-humping. It will obviously never die out because bigotries never die out, but it is receding as education and awareness of the world beyond the corn crib seeps even into the back 40.
      That's funny stuff right there.

      Undoubtedly millions of African Americans, Hispanics, and middle easterners in places like Chicago, NY, LA, Houston, etc..., will agree with you.
      That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

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      • #4
        Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

        Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
        That's funny stuff right there.

        Undoubtedly millions of African Americans, Hispanics, and middle easterners in places like Chicago, NY, LA, Houston, etc..., will agree with you.
        Meh. There's a reason Voltaire said "the idiocy of the countryside."
        Cornell University
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        • #5
          Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

          Originally posted by Kepler View Post
          Meh. There's a reason Voltaire said "the idiocy of the countryside."
          Is there no idiocy of the city? I've been walking down the street in St. Paul, and three young urban men, along with an urban woman, were talking about cracker this, and cracker that in some context I never took the time to consider.

          While we white people are the majority, let's not pretend that racism isn't a two-way street. It's an issue remedied by both education and exposure to other cultures, regardless of where a person lives. To think otherwise is naïve at best, ostriching a worst.
          "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

          "One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." Boromir

          "Good news! We have a delivery." Professor Farnsworth

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          • #6
            Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

            Originally posted by St. Clown View Post
            Is there no idiocy of the city? I've been walking down the street in St. Paul, and three young urban men, along with an urban woman, were talking about cracker this, and cracker that in some context I never took the time to consider.

            While we white people are the majority, let's not pretend that racism isn't a two-way street. It's an issue remedied by both education and exposure to other cultures, regardless of where a person lives. To think otherwise is naïve at best, ostriching a worst.
            Oh, God, no, racism is absolutely a two-way street. The racism of most of the hard right has a parallel in the knee-jerk hatred of whites by some of the far left, so lovingly and hilariously enunciated by Grievance Studies professors and feckless white cafe intellectuals.

            And the difference between those is numbers: there are 10 thousand moronic hardcore white racists for every 1 moronic hardcore anti-white racist. Zulu Nation's paranoid believers in the "blue-eyed devil" and the cretinous Kossite Ourstory Woyns Movement don't have Members in the United States F-cking Congress. White racists do.

            You're comparing a forest fire with a match head.

            But yes, both of them suck. I'll join you today in shooting all of them into the sun. Wanna do it?
            Last edited by Kepler; 06-06-2018, 03:13 PM.
            Cornell University
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            • #7
              Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

              Originally posted by St. Clown View Post
              Is there no idiocy of the city? I've been walking down the street in St. Paul, and three young urban men, along with an urban woman, were talking about cracker this, and cracker that in some context I never took the time to consider.

              While we white people are the majority, let's not pretend that racism isn't a two-way street. It's an issue remedied by both education and exposure to other cultures, regardless of where a person lives. To think otherwise is naïve at best, ostriching a worst.
              I've always thought that the "idiocy" comment was not intended literally but instead basically meant that rural areas lack the critical mass of people necessary to achieve significant developments in terms of the arts, industrial development, and so on. That is something that I wholeheartedly agree with, and is one of the primary reasons why I have always advocated an open border policy with respect to immigration into this country. As someone who grew up watching small North Dakota towns whither and die from population decline, it became absolutely clear to me that the only lifeblood of a community is literally flesh and blood. You need humans in that city to survive.

              But I don't know that this necessarily translates to discrimination and bias. I'd be interested in seeing studies that looked at whether discrimination or racial/sexual/religious bias increased or declined at faster or slower rates depending upon the population of that location. My personal, uneducated hunch is that there's probably not a significant difference. I don't think just living in a large metropolitan area with more exposure to different races or religions will speed up a racist's awakening.
              That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

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              • #8
                Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
                I've always thought that the "idiocy" comment was not intended literally but instead basically meant that rural areas lack the critical mass of people necessary to achieve significant developments in terms of the arts, industrial development, and so on.
                Pretty much. The story during my Arts vintage was that Voltaire was saying you couldn't find a "civilized" person to talk to in the country, where by civilized he was adopting the ancient Athenian idea that membership in the polis is civilization and all else is barbarism.

                You also have to bear in mind that for those guys (the Greeks, not Voltaire) a "city" meant about 25,000 people.

                So Voltaire wasn't saying, "country mouse is dumber." He was saying "city mouse is pretty dumb too, but at least in the city you have people of leisure and, sure, most people of leisure are stupid too, but a handful of us are The Real Sh-t."

                François-Marie Arouet had a healthy self-image so I am certain he was exempting himself from the idiots, but it's telling he was saying that the time he spent in the country made him feel mentally slow -- it was roughly "bad mental climate."
                Last edited by Kepler; 06-06-2018, 03:39 PM.
                Cornell University
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                • #9
                  Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                  Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                  Pretty much. The story during my Arts vintage was that Voltaire was saying you couldn't find a "civilized" person to talk to in the country, where by civilized he was adopting the ancient Athenian idea that membership in the polis is civilization and all else is barbarism. He wasn't saying, "country mouse is dumber." He was saying "city mouse is pretty dumb too, but at least in the city you have people of leisure and, sure, most people of leisure are stupid too, but a handful of us are The Real Sh-t."

                  You also have to bear in mind that for those guys (the Greeks, not Voltaire) a "city" meant about 25,000 people.

                  François-Marie Arouet had a healthy self-image so I am certain he was exempting himself from the idiots, but it's telling he was saying that the time he spent in the country made him feel mentally slow -- it was roughly "bad mental climate."
                  It must be a theory that requires actual, physical proximity to other human beings, and not a community like our current electronic one. I don't feel any smarter since I started hanging around with you fellows.
                  That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                    Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
                    I don't think just living in a large metropolitan area with more exposure to different races or religions will speed up a racist's awakening.
                    The Greeks (again) observed that port cities became more cosmopolitan because people heard of different nations' customs and so came to see their own customs as arbitrary. Herodotus said you'd grow up believing in a god but then a trader would tell you about his god, and then another would tell you about another, and after a while you'd see patterns that all these gods just happened to name their home cities the chosen people and just happened to have all their rites revolve around whoever the most controlling elite group in each culture was.

                    As far as I know he didn't go further to talk about, say, race. For one thing he was an Ancient Greek and Ancient Greeks were BIGOTED AF. But for another, there's a lot of question as to whether "race" was even a real thing, yet. You met so many people from so many places, and you regarded the people of Mycenaean birth as Greek just like you did Dorian extraction local populace, and both sides looked totally different from one another... and then you regarded the Macedonians up the street as barbarian and they looked exactly like you. The Greeks may not have actually seen skin color as important in the slightest. Think about how we view eye color.

                    By the time of the Romans the world's big enough that they see it, alright, although they seem to see race a lot like Captain Kirk on shore leave: there's no hierarchy of value, it's just more strange with a twang to get into.

                    So we don't really know. The South was and is racist to the core and yet black and white live alongside each other which in the North is a no no. I guess it depends on what you want to call racism.
                    Last edited by Kepler; 06-07-2018, 06:37 AM.
                    Cornell University
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                    • #11
                      Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                      Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
                      It must be a theory that requires actual, physical proximity to other human beings, and not a community like our current electronic one. I don't feel any smarter since I started hanging around with you fellows.
                      Well, again, it doesn't mean proximity makes any one of us any smarter. It just means the more people you meet the more often (not the more likely) you'll find one smart one. It's all about drawing marbles from a bag, or swiping photos on Tinder.
                      Cornell University
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                      ECAC Champion 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1986, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2010
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                      • #12
                        Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                        Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                        It's all about drawing marbles from a bag, or swiping photos on Tinder.
                        I'm old enough to agree with you on the first, and half to trust you on the second.
                        That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                          Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
                          It must be a theory that requires actual, physical proximity to other human beings, and not a community like our current electronic one. I don't feel any smarter since I started hanging around with you fellows.
                          Of course not. In fact, I'm sure we make you feel pretty slow.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by burd View Post
                            Of course not. In fact, I'm sure we make you feel pretty slow.
                            Actually, most of the time around here I feel like a seventh grade teacher.
                            That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: SCOTUS 10: Pack the Court!

                              Originally posted by SJHovey View Post
                              Actually, most of the time around here I feel like a seventh grade teacher.
                              Lucky for you, it's June 6, and you have all summer to fish, golf, read, and rest before you have to deal with us again.

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