Smug Prius owners

[DavidX]

And don't forget how the Republicans want to bring back slavery if they ever get the majority again!

of course it seems like you're joking and you mostly are but everybody just stop and get real.
If you asked white mostly fundamentalist rural republicans in their secret heart if they could bring back slavery like it was at its prime - just an accepted part of society - just how things got done - just how life was - you know, KNOW what most of them would choose.

you know this...

[Fiat Slug]

of course it seems like you're joking and you mostly are but everybody just stop and get real.
If you asked white mostly fundamentalist rural republicans in their secret heart if they could bring back slavery like it was at its prime - just an accepted part of society - just how things got done - just how life was - you know, KNOW what most of them would choose.

you know this...

I want to get some of whatever you're smoking.


.

[DavidX]

YOURE the one in cali bromosexual - im not smoking anything - which is why im like this - constantly refreshing one message board and listening to radio head and trance - im like a rasta out of his herb meds.

im so out of touch with anything good

[Inquartata]

Uh, sure. Because it's absolutely acceptable to have people die until the lawsuits (which can be lost) or free market get around to solving the problem some unknown years or decades in the future. Yes, anything else is a sign of childish impatience.

I am hearing echoes of "But it's for the children!"

AKA argumentum ad misericordiam: "But people are DYING!!!!"

- When Harold Ford. ran for Tennessee senate in 2006, the Republican National Committee paid for an ad showing a sexy blond mouthing "call me". Ford is black. His then girlfriend, now his wife, is blond.

*facepalm*

[PretAllez]

I am hearing echoes of "But it's for the children!"

AKA argumentum ad misericordiam: "But people are DYING!!!!"




*facepalm*

Yeah, it is for the children, and their grandparents, and their parents, (and even their pets)

Trivializing someone's argument doesn't make it any less valid.

Admit it Inq, you've run out of argument

[fencerchica]

You have some real issues. We've acknowledged this before: Anyone who voted against Obama or any other Democrat is by definition, a racist! After all, why would anyone possibly vote against the chosen one - Obama?

Get some help (and some new arguments), your racist accusations are getting old!

Funny, I didn't see any refutations in there. Just an attempt to change the subject to the myth that all libs are in love with Obama. Nice try.

[fencerchica]

of course it seems like you're joking and you mostly are but everybody just stop and get real.
If you asked white mostly fundamentalist rural republicans in their secret heart if they could bring back slavery like it was at its prime - just an accepted part of society - just how things got done - just how life was - you know, KNOW what most of them would choose.

you know this...

In fact, some extreme conservative Christians still make the argument today that slavery was for the benefit of captive Africans, because they wouldn't have been (forcibly) converted to Christianity otherwise.

[jeff]

You have some real issues. We've acknowledged this before: Anyone who voted against Obama or any other Democrat is by definition, a racist! After all, why would anyone possibly vote against the chosen one - Obama?

Get some help (and some new arguments), your racist accusations are getting old!

Poor BB. You have no response to the fact of racism repeatedly deployed by Republicans, so you utter some nonsense about Obama being the chosen one.

[jeff]

I am hearing echoes of "But it's for the children!"

AKA argumentum ad misericordiam: "But people are DYING!!!!"

You feel "people are dying" is irrelevant to the topic of public safety? What a fascinating thought process you have there. It's specifically the point.

I will explain to you what "argumentum ad misericordiam" means. Let me quote http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/misery.html for you: "assent or dissent to a statement or an argument is sought on the basis of an irrelevant appeal to pity. In other words, pity, or the related emotion is not the subject or the conclusion of the argument." (italics present in the original).

Here, the prevention of harm is exactly the topic under discussion. Rather than misuse textbook definitions of logical fallacies, how about considering the actual topic, eh?

I'll recap this for you in an easily comprehended format.

- BB replies to tchwojko with a claim that the free market and lawsuits provide consumer safety and that government intervention is unneeded (with a counter factual claim that the the free market, rather than the US government is preventing lead paint in Chinese products from coming here, when he's exactly wrong and it's the other way around) .

-A longish list of counter-examples show where the market place was ineffective in protecting the public and only governmental regulation was.

- You then chime in with the suggestion that it's only a bad attitude of "impatience", with the implication that the petulant individuals should wait for the free market to eventually solve the problem, but no evidence that this would ever actually happen, and no counter to the examples already given.

- A longish series of further examples of why the free market is unlikely to solve this category of problem, including asymmetry of knowledge, and the fact that the purchaser may not be the victim of a product. You respond to none of these.

Perhaps you feel that people should be happy to die waiting for the mythical by-and-by when manufacturers voluntarily fix lethal defects in their products or manufacturing companies. Complaining about this is a sign of poor character, I suppose. After all, the free market is much more important.

I know you like to argue - so do we all, or we wouldn't be here - and have an abiding faith in the power of the market to do all kinds of things like a beneficial fairy godmother, but would it kill you to admit that the marketplace doesn't solve everything, rather than put up specious arguments that don't deal with reality?

*facepalm*

So, Inq - is the problem that you simply don't believe that the Republicans have made use of racism as an election tactic, or do you feel I haven't established it as a fact to your standards? If the former, I suggest you hit the poli-sci section of the library and see how well documented and widely known this is. If it's the latter - well, I suppose I'm sorry I couldn't convince you, but this is pretty blatant stuff. Perhaps you could explain why, absent racism, the RNC was spending money to place those ads, or insinuate the McCain had a black daughter? You've already seen an example in which a master of the art explicitly apologized for having used this technique. Just what evidence would ever convince you?

[Inquartata]

In fact, some extreme conservative Christians still make the argument today that slavery was for the benefit of captive Africans, because they wouldn't have been (forcibly) converted to Christianity otherwise.

I'll bite. Which ones?

You feel "people are dying" is irrelevant to the topic of public safety? What a fascinating thought process you have there. It's specifically the point.

No, it is not...to an economist. And in fact not to a lot of other people. If it were the most important thing, there would be no wars, because there would not be any cause thought worth "people dying".

Here, the prevention of harm is exactly the topic under discussion.

But NOT the speed of said prevention...

BB replies to tchwojko with a claim that the free market and lawsuits provide consumer safety and that government intervention is unneeded (with a counter factual claim that the the free market, rather than the US government is preventing lead paint in Chinese products from coming here, when he's exactly wrong and it's the other way around

My argument does not depend on the rigor of someone else's.

no evidence that this would ever actually happen, and no counter to the examples already given.

Would you like me to bring out Uncle Miltie again?

Perhaps you feel that people should be happy to die waiting for the mythical by-and-by when manufacturers voluntarily fix lethal defects in their products or manufacturing companies.

Or perhaps I feel that there are more than the two alternatives of waiting for the market and government regulation...that is, that I am not the one committing the fallacy of bifurcation?

After all, the free market is much more important.

To an economist, yes.

would it kill you to admit that the marketplace doesn't solve everything,

I have done that many times ere now---where it applies. Is this such sweet music to a progressive's ears that he must hear it sung over and over? My voice is nothing to write home about.

So, Inq - is the problem that you simply don't believe that the Republicans have made use of racism as an election tactic, or do you feel I haven't established it as a fact to your standards?

I object to taking it as a fundamental assumption from which further critiques of Republican are then to be built. Most of the "proof" usually adduced seems to depend on an uncritical willingness o accept the premise. It becomes quite circular: The Republicans are obviously racist, therefore these statements by some of them are "coded" racism, which proves that Republicans are racist".

If the former, I suggest you hit the poli-sci section of the library and see how well documented and widely known this is.

Ah, ah, ah! Burden of proof, remember?

Perhaps you could explain why, absent racism, the RNC was spending money to place those ads, or insinuate the McCain had a black daughter?

Perhaps first you could prove the actual use of this ad? I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to take your word for it, would you? Any more than you'd take mine were the circumstances reversed?

Just what evidence would ever convince you?

How about someone saying what you say they said in a non "coded" form?

[Bayou Bum]

Poor BB. You have no response to the fact of racism repeatedly deployed by Republicans, so you utter some nonsense about Obama being the chosen one.

Quite the contrary. If you want to believe that everything the Republicans do is based on racism, I am willing to let you believe what you want. I dare you, or anyone else that reads this, to really compare the different parties to determine which harbors and promotes the most racism.

Personally, I think the Democrats are the most racist ever and they want to keep minorities in poverty and dependent on the government so they will continue to vote for the Democrats who love to use race to maintain control. After all, only a true racist would consider a white woman in a political advertisement as racist. And a true racist would think that a Republican having a black daughter was racist. And compare Obama's Cabinet to Bush's Cabinet.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet

I'll bet the last time you saw that many white people around one black man was at your KKK rally! But then, that is just my opinion!

[fencerchica]

I'll bite. Which ones?

No prob. Here you go. Major Christian Right Leader to Speak At Conference Hosted by Anti-Gay, Pro-Old South Preacher

How about someone saying what you say they said in a non "coded" form?

That circumvents the point, that movement conservatism has learned to speak in thinly veiled code when making its appeals to white backlash voters. If you want to see the uncoded sentiments, you have to go back a little further; then having seen that, you can trace out the path these same movement conservative institutions followed as they move their rhetoric into coded appeals. The National Review is a good place to start: Why the South Must Prevail (1957)

[migopod]

Perhaps first you could prove the actual use of this ad? I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to take your word for it, would you? Any more than you'd take mine were the circumstances reversed?

It was actually a push poll done by the Bush campaign in South Carolina that included a question that asked if voters would be "more or less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child."

[fencerchica]

Moving to the present, Tom Tancredo just gave a speech a couple of days ago (Feb 5) at the "national tea party convention" wherein he called for civics and literacy tests as a requirement for voting suffrage (and threw in a comment alleging Obama won on the votes of people who would have failed these exams). Anyone well educated in US history should hear alarm bells at "civics and literacy tests", as these were staples used to prevent black enfranchisement in the Jim Crow south.

============
Tea Party opening speaker suggests law that kept blacks be kept from voting be reinstated

Excerpts:

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.

"Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, Southern (and some Western) states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures whose primary purpose was to deny the vote to those who were not white," a website for civil rights veterans explains. "In the South, this process was often called the 'literacy test.' In fact, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex system devoted to denying African-Americans (and in some regions, Latinos) the right to vote."

"Because the Freedom Movement was running "Citizenship Schools" to help people learn how to fill out the forms and pass the test, Alabama changed the test 4 times in less than two years (1964-1965)," the site adds. "At the time of the Selma Voting Rights campaign there were actually 100 different tests in use across the state. In theory, each applicant was supposed to be given one at random from a big loose-leaf binder. In real life, some individual tests were easier than others and the registrar made sure that Black applicants got the hardest ones."

White applicants could be approved even if they didn't pass the test.

"Your application was then reviewed by the three-member Board of Registrars — often in secret at a later date," the site continues. "They voted on whether or not you passed. It was entirely up to the judgment of the Board whether you passed or failed. If you were white and missed every single question they could still pass you if — in their sole judgment — you were 'qualified.' If you were Black and got every one correct, they could still flunk you if they considered you 'unqualified.'"

[...]

Southern voting registrars could employ literacy tests arbitrarily. They included dauntingly difficult questions, aimed at keeping those they didn't want enfranchised from voting.

For example, an Alabama literacy test required would-be voters to know esoteric facts about the US political and legal system (one of the literacy tests can be read here in PDF form).

Among the questions:

"If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted?"

"If a president does not wish to sign a bill, how many days is he allowed in which to return it to Congress for consideration?"

"If the United States wishes to purchase land for an arsenal and have exclusive legislative authority over it, consent is required from [fill in the blank]."

The answers to the above questions are two, ten and the legislature, respectively.

[lindajdunn]

of course it seems like you're joking and you mostly are but everybody just stop and get real.
If you asked white mostly fundamentalist rural republicans in their secret heart if they could bring back slavery like it was at its prime - just an accepted part of society - just how things got done - just how life was - you know, KNOW what most of them would choose.

you know this...

Ahem. No. At the risk of getting myself into the cesspool here... I live in a mostly fundamentalist rural county that is solid red (except for one tiny little corner that's had some urban sprawl). I grew up white fundamentalist Republican (with a capital R).

With the exception of sex slaves, slavery is not cost-effective in most parts of American and especially here.

My bil's farming equipment cost more than my home. Heck, the combine came close. It's air conditioned and doesn't argue with you.

What the white fundamentalist Republicans in this area want are not slaves -- which are an expense -- but unemployed bums that they can look down upon.

I refer you to this video. What we want, however, is an American version of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYY1QGK0jQ

[Inquartata]

I'll bet the last time you saw that many white people around one black man was at your KKK rally! But then, that is just my opinion!

As someone who knows Jeff, I must say I find this really very funny. Wildly off the mark.

No prob. Here you go.

Interesting ( and dismaying ) as that may be, I did not espy anything in the piece saying that "slavery was for the benefit of captive Africans, because they wouldn't have been (forcibly) converted to Christianity otherwise".

There are several other equally bizarre and troubling justification for slavery in there, but not that one...

That circumvents the point, that movement conservatism has learned to speak in thinly veiled code when making its appeals to white backlash voters.

Which premise, again, remains a subjective judgement on your part, as far as I can tell. I mean, you can keep on stating it as though it's a proven fact, but that cuts no logical mustard.

It was actually a push poll done by the Bush campaign in South Carolina that included a question that asked if voters would be "more or less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child."

Have you a citation, by any chance?

[jessicasimpson]

Have you a citation, by any chance?

I know 2 people in Greenville that say they got that call. It was a telephone poll. There is no concrete "proof" it was done by the Bush people, if there was Bush would have been held acountable. But who else could have benifited? A distant 3rd Allen Key's?

I found a story on it:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...mear_campaign/

[fencerchica]

Interesting ( and dismaying ) as that may be, I did not espy anything in the piece saying that "slavery was for the benefit of captive Africans, because they wouldn't have been (forcibly) converted to Christianity otherwise".

There are several other equally bizarre and troubling justification for slavery in there, but not that one...

Conceded, that specific justification is not in that article. I have however heard it before, argued by Christian Reconstructionists. My understanding is that this idea (that slavery was good because it led to conversion) is one of the central tenets of Reconstructionism, the religious movement begun by R.J. Rushdoony (incidentally, the founder of the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, and a close associate of Michael P. Farris, founder of the HSLDA).

[Hauptman]

Quite the contrary. If you want to believe that everything the Republicans do is based on racism, I am willing to let you believe what you want. I dare you, or anyone else that reads this, to really compare the different parties to determine which harbors and promotes the most racism.

That is a nice strawman you've built there, BB. No one is saying that everything the Republicans do is based on racism. No one; do you understand that?

Now how about you consider that while most Republicans aren't racists, there is evidence that most white racists are Republicans. Is that possible? Isn't that likely since the old Dixiecrats are almost all Republicans now?

Is it just a coincidence that the Republican party is almost all white? And the average age is pretty high too.

Is there racism by minorities against whites? Absolutely; I'm not in denial. But it pales in comparison (no pun intended) to the racism against minorities, and certainly doesn't excuse it.

[migopod]

Article in The Nation
Boston Globe
Mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for Whisper Campaign

Lots of campaigns use push polling as a way of subtly and sometimes not so subtly fuelling rumors about a candidate, mostly because they aren't asserting something as much as asking how a voter would feel about a supposedly hypothetical situation, but by asking the question it suggests the possibility of truth.

What's telling about this particular situation is that the if suggestion was that McCain had fathered an illegitimate child, it would have been probably damning enough, but the "pollsters" felt it necessary to specify that the child could also be black.