Newspeak?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Come on, now. Either blacks in Vermont have some hyper-criminality going on in what I thought was supposed to be a bastion of progressive life (and it badly failed), or there is a bit of “listen to what I say, don’t pay attention to what I actually do” going on. Now, what might be one reason the black population is so low? Because even the good ole boys of Alabama aren’t packing them into prisons at the rate of Vermont.

If their demographics even remotely reflected the southern states, and they actually had to come into contact with minorities on a regular basis (you know, instead of having to work at the prison to do so)…Oh, how I’d love to see how the responses then.
[/quote]

In your first paragraph, you’re implying that Vermont’s legal system is structurally racist. This is a serious accusation, and it’s not one that would be entertained as plausible without serious evidence.

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with my contention. Again, it talks about why, not about what is. What is is exactly what I’ve been saying is from the beginning of this thread.

As an aside, people living in New York City, your logic dictates, should be very, very anti-black, because they share a very small space with a very great number of blacks. And yet, they aren’t.

102

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Vermont is 99 to 1, white to black, but 12 to 1 black in prison to whites, yet… get this, data suggests they aren’t racists to the same degree as southern states. [/quote]

What is the point of this? Blacks have high incarceration rates? And whites have very low rates in places like Vermont? Very true.

Doesn’t say a single thing about the opinion polling.[/quote]

It says a lot, an awful lot. Particularly when contrasted with the opinion polling.

It makes sense to you, that 1% of a population makes up 90+% of a prison population in that area, yet that area shows up as “not racist” in the opinion polling?
[/quote]

Of course it does.

If not, then the implication is that the racial demographics of a state’s prison population speak to the racial attitudes of that state’s legislative and legal systems and not to the crime rates of the respective racial groups.[/quote]

Well… One can conclude that 1% of the population isn’t responsible for 90+% of the crime that goes on. That would be reasonable.

However, that 1% does make up 90% of those punished for their crimes…

There is certainly some sort of bias, discrimination, or other such “racially based” factor here. States with higher representation of blacks have better rates, CA for example.

Even if there is nothing, and I’m completely wrong, it deserves a look.

[quote]
In other words, that most prisoners in Vermont are black is absolutely not evidence that Vermont is a politically racist state. And it’s certainly not comparable to the evidence I’ve provided, which entails people admitting that they want to reinstate anti-miscegenation laws.

Again, we can talk about perception all we’d like, but the data that exists supports my original claim exactly.[/quote]

If a 12 to 1 ratio compared to a 99 to 1 population ratio doesn’t make you at least sit back and go hmmm, I don’t know what to say really…

103

Just so we’re clear here, my contention rests on direct evidence–on people flat-out saying that they support the re-establishment of anti-miscegenation laws and/or that they disapprove of interracial marriage.

And my detractors have basically nothing to say about this–no data in direct refutation of it, nothing to suggest that liberals and Democrats are in fact equally able to tell pollsters overtly racist garbage–and are instead accusing other states of racism based on the racial demographics of their prison populations.

In other words, direct evidence is being countered with indirect innuendo.

And, again, the notion that lots of black people are in prison is a reflection of structural racism is liberal hogwash.

104

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Come on, now. Either blacks in Vermont have some hyper-criminality going on in what I thought was supposed to be a bastion of progressive life (and it badly failed), or there is a bit of “listen to what I say, don’t pay attention to what I actually do” going on. Now, what might be one reason the black population is so low? Because even the good ole boys of Alabama aren’t packing them into prisons at the rate of Vermont.

If their demographics even remotely reflected the southern states, and they actually had to come into contact with minorities on a regular basis (you know, instead of having to work at the prison to do so)…Oh, how I’d love to see how the responses then.
[/quote]

In your first paragraph, you’re implying that Vermont’s legal system is structurally racist. This is a serious accusation, and it’s not one that would be entertained as plausible without serious evidence.

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with my contention. Again, it talks about why, not about what is. What is is exactly what I’ve been saying is from the beginning of this thread.

As an aside, people living in New York City, your logic dictates, should be very, very anti-black, because they share a very small space with a very great number of blacks. And yet, they aren’t.[/quote]

Here’s the point, I question the honesty in the responses.

“Do I out myself by answering that I am bothered by interracial marriages? Nah, its not like its something I’d actually see or have to put up with. There aren’t any blacks to move into my neighborhood.”

105

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Vermont is 99 to 1, white to black, but 12 to 1 black in prison to whites, yet… get this, data suggests they aren’t racists to the same degree as southern states. [/quote]

What is the point of this? Blacks have high incarceration rates? And whites have very low rates in places like Vermont? Very true.

Doesn’t say a single thing about the opinion polling.[/quote]

It says a lot, an awful lot. Particularly when contrasted with the opinion polling.

It makes sense to you, that 1% of a population makes up 90+% of a prison population in that area, yet that area shows up as “not racist” in the opinion polling?
[/quote]

Of course it does.

If not, then the implication is that the racial demographics of a state’s prison population speak to the racial attitudes of that state’s legislative and legal systems and not to the crime rates of the respective racial groups.[/quote]

Well… One can conclude that 1% of the population isn’t responsible for 90+% of the crime that goes on. That would be reasonable.

However, that 1% does make up 90% of those punished for their crimes…

There is certainly some sort of bias, discrimination, or other such “racially based” factor here. States with higher representation of blacks have better rates, CA for example.

Even if there is nothing, and I’m completely wrong, it deserves a look.

[quote]
In other words, that most prisoners in Vermont are black is absolutely not evidence that Vermont is a politically racist state. And it’s certainly not comparable to the evidence I’ve provided, which entails people admitting that they want to reinstate anti-miscegenation laws.

Again, we can talk about perception all we’d like, but the data that exists supports my original claim exactly.[/quote]

If a 12 to 1 ratio compared to a 99 to 1 population ratio doesn’t make you at least sit back and go hmmm, I don’t know what to say really…[/quote]

Well, this is a completely separate conversation. My data was direct, this is indirect and absolutely brimming with assumption and innuendo. So I stand by my original contention as absolutely justified. If you prove that Vermont’s legal system is structurally racist, I’ll reconsider–though, still, my contention has to do with individual opinions and not structural legal prejudices.

But, just as an aside, there would be a great number of problems with your theory (and questions to ask). Not least of which is: Vermont’s prison population is very low, and you know all about what small sample sizes do to ratios.

106

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

In other words, direct evidence is being countered with indirect innuendo.

.[/quote]

No. We’re trying to show you why we think your fundamental premise built upon the evidence you provided is flawed.

We can all read the poll. We’ve pointed out a couple issues with it, but it doesn’t matter apparently. As the issues that have been repeated now a couple times are what we are trying to say, and you’re ignoring them.

107

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Come on, now. Either blacks in Vermont have some hyper-criminality going on in what I thought was supposed to be a bastion of progressive life (and it badly failed), or there is a bit of “listen to what I say, don’t pay attention to what I actually do” going on. Now, what might be one reason the black population is so low? Because even the good ole boys of Alabama aren’t packing them into prisons at the rate of Vermont.

If their demographics even remotely reflected the southern states, and they actually had to come into contact with minorities on a regular basis (you know, instead of having to work at the prison to do so)…Oh, how I’d love to see how the responses then.
[/quote]

In your first paragraph, you’re implying that Vermont’s legal system is structurally racist. This is a serious accusation, and it’s not one that would be entertained as plausible without serious evidence.

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with my contention. Again, it talks about why, not about what is. What is is exactly what I’ve been saying is from the beginning of this thread.

As an aside, people living in New York City, your logic dictates, should be very, very anti-black, because they share a very small space with a very great number of blacks. And yet, they aren’t.[/quote]

Here’s the point, I question the honesty in the responses.

“Do I out myself by answering that I am bothered by interracial marriages? Nah, its not like its something I’d actually see or have to put up with. There aren’t any blacks to move into my neighborhood.”
[/quote]

This is completely unsupported. It’s simply conjecture, and it has wishful thinking all over it.

New York State has the highest number of black residents, in absolute terms, of any state. And yet, it is overwhelmingly liberal–especially in the places where blacks live, like New York City–and liberals are far less likely to be against miscegenation. So…

108

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

In other words, direct evidence is being countered with indirect innuendo.

.[/quote]

No. We’re trying to show you why we think your fundamental premise built upon the evidence you provided is flawed.

We can all read the poll. We’ve pointed out a couple issues with it, but it doesn’t matter apparently. As the issues that have been repeated now a couple times are what we are trying to say, and you’re ignoring them. [/quote]

What issues with the polls (there are many). Edit: many polls.

109
110

Look, the direct evidence supports my claim, and I’m certainly not going to accept that Vermont is an institutionally racist state based upon a single demographic statistic for its prison population. As I said before, liberals argue this kind of thing all the time, and it’s nonsense (America is racist because look at how many more blacks are murdered every year than whites!")

If there are imprecisions in the polling data I’ve provided, well that’s not headline material. There is imprecision in all such data. That doesn’t make data useless, and what we’ve got–insofar as any polling data “shows” anything–shows that, yes, there are more anti-black racists in the conservative and Republican ideological vicinity than in any other.

111

[quote]Sloth wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/23/us/vermont-s-few-blacks-finding-special-problems.html[/quote]

My opinion has been evidenced by statistical data.

Yours has been evidenced, in part, by: “Gus Gabriel, a student at St. Michael’s College in Winooski, says he feels like he is ‘constantly under a microscope.’”

You can Google “structural racism in [any state]” and find a NYT piece that strings together some anecdotes and offers some highly indirect stats. It really doesn’t mean anything.

Edit: By the way, that article was written a year before I was born. I doubt 'ole Gus still feels like he’s constantly under a microscope.

112

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Vermont’s prison population is very low, and you know all about what small sample sizes do to ratios.

[/quote]

I have to piss, and go home and see my daughter, however this is very interesting.

If you find a chart comparing states, please link. otherwise I’ll be back on tomorrow or Monday at the latest to keep going around in circles with you.

As always, good times debating/dick waving with you.

113

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Vermont’s prison population is very low, and you know all about what small sample sizes do to ratios.

[/quote]

I have to piss, and go home and see my daughter, however this is very interesting.

If you find a chart comparing states, please link. otherwise I’ll be back on tomorrow or Monday at the latest to keep going around in circles with you.

As always, good times debating/dick waving with you. [/quote]

*eleven-inch dick waving!

And, as always, ditto to you (and Sloth).

114

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

True, I just think this is one of those cases where bias plays a strong role though.[/quote]

Without intending to insult you in any way whatsoever, I think that’s more a natural reaction to the situation–you aren’t at all racist, and you’d rather the people with whom you tend to agree not be racist at a higher rate than other political groups.

In other words, without denying that a measure of imprecision is built into the structure of literally all political polling, there is absolutely no reason to doubt that the data I’ve provided reflects actual trends.

In still other words, the imprecision of polling and analysis and that horrible word (“context”) almost always come up when unpleasant facts–facts that aren’t gathered differently from all the others that we use every day–are being dealt with.[/quote]

No offense taken. I’m simply saying I think the data is incomplete and I’m not sure (my opinion here) that any disparity in what’s not being reported would be evenly spread.

I’m basing this all on personal experience too so I very well could be wrong.

115

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Edit: By the way, that article was written a year before I was born…[/quote]

Uh, yeah, me too. Yeah.

116

"Marx?s error, Hitler believed, had been to foster class war instead of national unity ? to set workers against industrialists instead of conscripting both groups into a corporatist order. His aim, he told his economic adviser, Otto Wagener, was to ?convert the German Volk to socialism without simply killing off the old individualists? ? by which he meant the bankers and factory owners who could, he thought, serve socialism better by generating revenue for the state. ?What Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism failed to accomplish,? he told Wagener, ?we shall be in a position to achieve.? ( quote from the article )

Probably without knowing it the Author of the article shows the great difference between the socialism of the nazis and the socialism of the traditional left( aka Labour movement ). The understanding or definition of socialism Hitler in the quote conveys are Close to italian fascism rather than a understanding of socialism derived off of Marx`s writings. The fascist meaning of socialism is class Cooperation for the good of the nation, while the marxist meaning of socialism is Cooperation within one class, the working class for the good of said class. The class struggle is essensial in marxism and if you remove that you are no longer operating within marxian socialism. Now a better case is to argue that on economical grounds, the Fascist understanding of socialism is closer to various centrist policy. Centrist in this context means post-war social-democrats and liberals. The New deal for instance was not about the abolishment of wage-slavery, but about Cooperation across class-lines for the greater good for the entire nation. A Norwegian example can be the post-war tri-part-Cooperation between Labour-unions, employer-unions and the state to Ensure a stabile economy With relative Peace between the classes. What fascism and this two examples of liberal/social-democratic policy have in common are:

1, The capitalist class society are okay and should not be abolished.

2, The government has a role in a capitalist market-economy.

3, The goal is the advancment of the nation, aka the objective is nationalist contrary to the more internationalist objectives of the marxist left.

Now before you think I am arguing that american-liberals and European post-war social-democrats are fascists, its important to remember that what made the fascist ideologys especially nasty and Dangerous is their ultra-nationalism, racism, machoism, celebration of violence, anti-democratic sentiment, ultra-conservative values etc( the list could og on ). The truth is that it is the right-wing today who are closest to those nasty sentiments and you can only brows this forums for examples, horrible examples. The modern left in the USA and Europa, ranging from liberals, social-democrats and full-blown marxist-socialist are in most cases the Complete opposit to those nasty sentiments ergo they are further away from what makes fascism nasty.

On the question if Nazism/fascism is right-wing or left-wing Depends solely on how you defines right and left politically. If right and left is just line from pure free-market capitalism on the right to pure state-socialism on the left, then fascism/nazism falls somewhere in the middle With liberals, post-war social-democrats and others With a hard on for keynesianism. However if one considers where the use of left and right in political discours comes from then its a typical right-wing ideology/movement. The political use of left and right originated in france under the beginnings of the French revolution. The nobles sat to the right in “Parliament” and the commoners sat to the left. Ergo the use of left and right denoted wich side on the revolution you stood on and also wich classes you stood With. Since that time the right-wing have been understood as being conservative and/or reactionary, meaning that a right-winger wants to preserve the Powers to be or as a Counter-revolutionary( reactionary ). A left-winger on the other hand is a progressive, radical or a revolutionary. One can say right-winger is and always have been a slur aka denoting a person wich are on the wrong side of history, while leftist is a Word wich generally have more positive connotations. The more “leftist” understanding of history sees the fascist and nazi movements as reactions to a advancing Labour-movement. With a understanding of history like that, then yes Fascism and nazism are clearly reactionary and therefor belongs to the right on the political Spectrum. It doesnt help that the conservatives in Germany helped the nazis to Power. However this is not to say that american right-wingers are fascist or nazis.

117

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/

Thoughts on this?
[/quote]

Historical revisionism at its finest. The socialism that this author equates with the socialism that the left purportedly is supportive of are entirely different things. I think this author must have just seen the word “socialism” in National Socialism and made the gigantically inaccurate leap that there is some connection between Hitler’s socialism and the socialism traditionally associated with the Left.

Hitler’s socialism is rooted in the idea of a racially homogeneous society. Hitler’s socialism is actually the culmination of a generation of Germans trying to redefine the term. Germans wanted a society united across social classes for one cause: the power of the state. German, and subsequently Nazi, socialism NEVER intended to eliminate class inequality. Nazism also was a huge proponent of the idea of private property, a decidedly anti-socialist cause. The fact is that the ONLY similarity between the American Socialist Party of the U.S. and National Socialism is the use of the word “socialism”. The similarities end there.

118

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/

Thoughts on this?
[/quote]

I find it especially ironic that a periodical from the UK is the one trying to point out the “connections” between Nazism and socialism. This is the same country whose right-wing elements were in favor of appeasing Hitler, given that his right-wing agenda was far preferable to the conservative UK than anything having to do with the socialism emanating out of Russia at the time.

Some on the right in England even advocated an outright alliance with Hitler, one that was still a bit reluctant, but one that was also, again, still far preferable to any left-wing alternatives they may be left with should Hitler lose his all-out campaign against literally any and all ideologies associated with Bolshevism.

These overtures to Hitler on the part of the English right wing were so frequent and of such a legitimate nature that Rudolph Hess was even inspired, however mad he may have been, to risk certain death in order to reach England and preemptively begin the alliance-forming process that he was sure both Hitler and the UK were on the verge of.

Just because “fascism” is an overly-used and little-understood term these days does not somehow move Nazism closer to modern-day leftists than to modern-day rightists.

119

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
the available data [/quote]

Do we believe this “data” is actually any good? I feel like this “data” would be about as accurate as dick length data. I mean what percentage of people are actually honest about the size of their dick?

Fyi, I’ve only been loosely following along so I apologize if this has been discussed. [/quote]

Because it is underpinned by sound and rigorous quantitative methodology. Urologists were the moderators of many of those “dick length” studies?[/quote]

Within the context of the analogy: I would expect that all groups over-report the length of their Johnsons at a comparable rate. Which would suggest–again, within the analogy–that all groups under-report their racism at a comparable rate. In which case, one party is still composed of more racists than the other, whether the absolute numbers are accurate or not.[/quote]

Bad assumption. Culture affects honesty too. There is evidence that the people of the South do poorly in some polls simply because they are more honest. Are Southerners Fat, Or Just More Honest About Their Weight?

120

^ Interesting. I don’t know that it will transfer neatly to miscegenation, and I don’t think it would erase the opinion gap even if it did, but I grant that it’s interesting.

Of course, the original point was about avowed racism and its bearing on the rational political choices made by blacks, so this, in a funny way, actually adds to my argument: Since they can’t very well guess at the contents of white America’s heart, they’ve got to go by what they can gather. If I were black, I’d vote with the guys less likely to volunteer his opinion that I should be legally barred from marrying his white daughter.