Democratic bigotry in denouncing the "Southern Strategy"

Great Debates
221

Minty Green:

Of course. I’m using the exact same logic being used on me.

Only an idiot would think Bush’s speaking at BJU is an act of racism. They know they’re lying. The value lies in the accusation.

For four pages or so, I’ve tried to be reasonable and logical. That hasn’t worked. So, I am just shoveling the shit that’s been thrown at me right back.

Of course, I make no bones about the dishonesty of the tactic. I’m trying to emphasize it.

I wonder if you’re gonna respond to any of the issues of raised. Particularly the ones in my reply to Sparticus.

222

It’s getting old.

Methodological support of allegations of current systematic bigotry on the part of the Republicans, please.

223

I’ll get right on that, Professor.

Right after I get through proving (methodologically, of course) that dogs bark and cats go “meow.”

:rolleyes:

224

Since when is it acceptable to intentionally lie and deceive on the SDMB? Simply because you disagree with the conclusions drawn by other people? Good god, those are some disgusting ethics you got there.

225

When you’re a Democrat?

226

Scylla, I want to thank you for your performance in this fascinating thread. I’d wondered for a while if it was just my particular approach to debate which tended to bring out the slimiest in you, or whether that was your preferred modus operandi.

Glad to see more evidence that it’s your SOP.

227

There’s a rather sharp distinction between intentionally lying about the facts underlying one’s conclusion and drawing a questionable conclusion from the facts. So far as I know, none of your opponents in this thread has lied about any of the facts that led to their conclusions regarding the Republican party’s sucking up to Southern bigots. You disagree with the interpretation and import of those facts. Hey, whatever, at least we’re each being honest about the conclusions we draw from the facts presented. We look at the facts and see a picture, you look at the same facts and see a bunch of dots. That’s what GD is all about.

In stark contrast, however, you have now chosen to intentionally misrepresent the underlying facts. You will note that none of your opponents in this thread claimed that Bush II went to Bob Jones University and praised them for their ban on interracial dating. We didn’t claim that the 2000 primary candidates went to South Carolina and pledged allegiance to the Stars and Bars. We didn’t claim that Trent Lott burned a cross in honor of Strom Thurmond. You, on the other hand, have started lying–intentionally so-- about the facts. Not the conclusions you draw, but the facts underlying those conclusions. And you seek to justify such reprehensible behavior because you disagree with the conclusions we draw?

Hey, if you want to get into a political mudslinging contest, knock yourself out. But don’t turn into a liar just because the rest of us decline to bow to your superior political wisdom.

Don’t lie. How simple is that?

228

Minty:

It’s simple self-righteousness. I painted Clinton’s comments in a light to deliberately mirror the faulty logic being shown to misreprent Bush. And, I immediately acknowledged what I was doing.

The big lie is that I don’t beleive my bullshit when I’m emulating the tactics being used at me. I’m doing so specifically to show how much they suck.

Of course. I’m smart enough to know it’s total bullshit. Apparently so do you.

Now, I wonder if you just to continue moralizing in self-righteous and hypocritical fashion, or do you wish to debate?

I have made several objections to the techniques being used, most recently in my reply to Sparticus, though repeatedly for the last several pages as well.

To date they have been totally ignored.

229

No, you lied about the facts: “a meeting ovvertly promoting race violence,” “Sistah Soljah at the meeting promoted racial violence.” Neither statement was factually correct.

That too is false. I called you on your misrepresentations. Only then did you admit you knew those statements were false, i.e., you knew you were lying.

I’ll happily debate with somebody with integrity who is honestly mistaken about the facts, or who simply draws an improper conclusion from the facts. You are not such a person. Think I’ll go see what december is up to.

230

Minty Green:

You’re a hypocrite and a liar. You’re deliberately trying to get on a high horse and moralize to avoid actually addressing the issue.

You know from context that I was not seriously painting Clinton, or the coalition meeting as a racist but showing the faultiness of condemming a man from guilt by association.

You’re posing at self-righteousness, and doing it to avoid having to deal with the ongoing flaws in your argument.

The issue’s closed. Either address the objections you’ve been avioiding or be as good as your word and go play with somebody else.

231

This too is false, as you would know if you were actually capable of reading my mind at 8:13, 8:15, and 8:23 this morning. I won’t call it a lie, however, since you probably believe it to be an accurate assesment.

232

Minty:

I’m just crediting you with intelligence.

I’ll step back for one second.

I posted knowingly false conclusions about Clinton, Soljah, and the coalition meeting deliberately.

I did so as a rebuttal to the guilt by association arguments used against Dubya.

Since my conclusions were (to me) stupid and obviously false and since I had been arguing for about 5 pages against these kind of misrepresentations, I thought it was very clear what I was doing.

Perhaps I was not obvious enough. Perhaps you were overzealous in making your accusation. Perhaps things heated up too much.

Nevertheless, I am telling you that that was why I did it. You can accept that, or not.

That I am telling the truth should be apparent. Had I been serious about those false allegations, all I had to do was stick to them. I did not because they were supposed to be deliberately and obviously fallacious.

Ball’s in your court.

233

I accept that is what you think you were doing. Please, however, consider the following as to why what you think you were doing is wrong, and why it is qualitatively different from the honestly-held conclusions of your opponents.

No, you posted deliberately false facts about Clinton, Souljah, and the Rainbow Coalition meeting. Notice that I didn’t start calling you a liar for claiming that Clinton’s speech there “was an act of betrayal” and “an act of sleazy cowardice.” Those are conclusions that you are free to be drawn from the facts, even though I disagree with the conclusions you draw. Watch how it works:

Facts: Bob Jones U, confederate flag, Trent Lott, Richard Nixon’s express adoption of the “southern Strategy.”

My conclusion: The Republican Party has been sucking up to bigots when they think it benefits them.

Your conclusion: Insufficient data.
Now let’s take an extreme example. For your convenience, I’ve stated in in terms that should appeal to your sense of righteous indignation in this thread.

Say some nutball shows up in GD claiming that astrology works. He offers a half a dozen examples of astrological predictions that came true, and thereby concludes that astrology works. You reply that his examples don’t prove anything, that the data set is too small, that he can’t make the claim until massive statistical analysis has been conducted, etc. He maintains that his examples are valid, and that they constinue to show that astrology works.

You then reply by stating that, in fact, astrology didn’t predict the collapse of the World Trade Center because Jupiter was ascending in Taurus, contrary to the prediction’s assertion that Jupiter was descending in Pisces. You know your statement is false, but you make it anyway.

See, that’s a lie, and a cowardly lie at that. You disagree with the conclusion drawn by the astrology guy, so you lie about the facts, rationalizing that it’s just as dishonest the astrology guy’s failure to accept your notion that astrology sucks. But it’s not. People are entitled to draw their own conclusions based on the facts, even when you consider the conclusion to be stupid, irrational, or just downright ornery. As long as that conclusion is honestly held and honestly based on the available facts–however incomplete you may consider those facts to be–you don’t get to go around lying about the available facts under the guise of equal treatment or whatever.

Guilt by association is (in crude form) how you get from the facts to the conclusion. It is not the facts themselves.

234

It’s like watching Frank and Estelle Costanza fight: a train wreck in progress that is hilariously funny because both trains were backing up at the time.

235

Minty:

But I didn’t mistate facts.

You’re Jupiter example would be an example of a verifiable factual lie.

The two statements of mine in question are:

These are not factual lies. They’re conclusions, or opinions presented as fact.

I could support either one in much the same way that some people are supporting their allegations.

Frankly, I’m not sure that I agree with the distinction (that I think you’re drawing) that presenting a knowingly false conclusion as a fact is any better than an ouright fabrication.

I also think, that it’s fairly obvious that a lot of the logic that has been used against me in this thread are deeply flawed.

I’ll give you three examples:

  1. Using Bush speaking at BJU as an indictment against him should be self-evidently flawed.

Any conclusion based on this fact, i.e. that Bush is deliberately sending a message to racists and homophobes, or that it demonstrates an ongoing Southern Strategy is obviously inherently flawed to such a degree that the mere presentation of such a shoddy argument is suggestive of dishonesy itself.

  1. The fact that two Republican candidates decided not to speak out on the issue of the Confederate flag other than to say that it was a state issue, is also not suggestive of bigotry as your article suggested and as Bill Bradley stated. Deciding not to denounce those who want the flag to fly is also not indicative of bigotry or pandering to bigotry. There are many other equally good reasons for their actions, and there is no reason to selectively choose that it means they accpet bigotry.

The issue of state’s rights is an important one. It’s one of the checks and balances that it is supposed to ensure that the Federal Government does not get so powerful as to endanger freedom. The fact that it has been used to defend slavery is terrible and horrible. Even so, limiting Federal power, checking it, is an important function, and one that should not be abandoned.

Some have said that invoking the term “state’s rights” is a code word implying support for racism. While it may and has been used that way, it’s not true.

It seems like an either or to me. Either the person is not intelligent enought to see the fundamental flaw in their assertion, or else they see it but are a presenting a deliberately flawed conclusion anyway.

  1. The data being presented is that of individual incidents that may be construed as racist. From the onset of the OP I have expressed the problem with doing it this way, that it is inherently flawed. I’ve used analogies of M&Ms and explained the problems with selecting results in great detail. I’ve named and shown the classical logical fallacies inherent in such a method. I’ve done this, starting on page 1.

To date these objections have not been addressed. No one has attempted to overcome them. No one has met them head on and said “No Scylla, we’re not selecting.” They are simply being ignored.

Since no one is objecting to the validity of my objections, my assumption is they have no argument with them.

People are however continuing to present such as if it were meaningful. They are purposefully presenting flawed evidence that does not support their conclusions.

So, I’m seeing a lot of what I consider to be dishonest occuring in this thread.

Either that, or else people are that dumb.

236

If I say that Bush II promoted tax cuts at the 2000 Republican National Convention, that assertion is easily verified by reference to his statements at the convention. If the 1992 Rainbow Coalition meeting had promoted racial violence, that too could be verified by reference to any of the myriad statements of the speakers at the meeting, correct? Thus, it’s not simply an opinion–and in fact, you admitted you falsified the bit about promoting racial violence.

The assertion that “Sistah Soljah at the meeting promoted racial violence” is even more easily capable of verification or refutation by finding out what she said at the meeting and seeing whether it endorsed racial violence in any way, shape, or form. In fact, as about thirty seconds on google would reveal, the comments you referred to (and even quoted) were from an interview with the L.A. Times that occurred long before the Rainbow Coalition meeting. That ain’t no opinion, Scylla–it’s an intentionally false statement of fact.

237

Minty:

As I said before, I could defend those statements by giving you reasoning to make them appear sound. Since I don’t beleive them, why bother?

Perhaps we can move on to dealing with some of my objections at some point in the near future.

It seems hardly fair to give me shit for taking a knowingly false and narrow viewpoint as an illustration in flawed logic when Bill Clinton apparently did the same thing.

I’d like to drop it after this, but apparently those comments that Bill addressed were taken badly out of context. She was apparently expressing what LA gang members must be thinking (when asked to do so,) rather than stating her personal opinions.

I seem to recall that Sistah is an honors student, and an awarding winning scholar from Cornell. While she is provocative I don’t think she’s really the racist that Bill painted her as. She only looks that way if you lift those specific words out of context.

Since Bill Clinton or his handlers actually had to view the context to do so, they must have been aware of what they were doing.

Now this woman has been villified, and the coalition itself besmirched from what appears to be a deliberate lie and slander on the part of Bill Clinton.

It appears to me, he knowingly and falsely stabbed Jackson and the coalition in the back, and turned Sistah Solja into an enemy of the state just so he could have the appearance of being a crusader for racial justice.

The whole thing was founded on a lie.

238

I have heard dogs barking thousands of times. I am confident that dogs bark. Yet, I could never prove it to your satisfaction on this message board.

Sure, I could google up some sites which describe barking dogs. Maybe I could even dig up some sound files of dogs barking. But then you would just accuse me of selective sampling. Or maybe you’d complain that my examples were too old, and argue that dogs might have barked in the past, but I can’t prove they are barking now. Or maybe you’d argue that my examples weren’t relly barks, they were yips and yaps.

Finally, you would tell me that my examples prove nothing because you’ve been able to google up four examples of humans making barking noises. Why, based on the evidence, you’d say, it’s no more likely that dogs bark than that people bark.

And then of course, you’d demand “methodological support of allegations of current barking on the part of dogs.” Well of course I couldn’t do that, because no one has thought to conduct a scientific study to prove that dogs bark. But obligingly, I would at least try to show you some examples of dogs barking very recently, from which it might be reasonable to infer that dogs are still barking.

“Insufficient data!” you’d harrumph.

And there we’d be.

239

Yeah, sure. Good luck with all that. May I suggest a crash course in deconstructionism?

240

Minty:

I don’t know why we’re doing this, but since you apparently want me to show how I could argue that my statement were true, I’ll do so to avoid the appearance of dodging a direct request

Hint. Hint.

I’d do it like this:

"I could argue that the Rainbow coalition meeting, and Sistah Solja’s performing and being a panelist there showed that the coalition had an agenda of promoting racist violence.

The fact that the comments were made months before is only more damning. Had she made them on the spot during her performance of after she was named panelist, one could argue that such sentiments were off the cuff and that the coalition had no inkling she would do or say such things.

The fact that she has said these things publically long before appearing at the meeting shows that the coalition had an agenda of racial violence.

One even wonders if she was invited to perform or become a panelist specifically because she had made such comments.

Whether or not this is the case, having such a notorious proponent of racial violence appear at your meeting, entertain, and be a panelist is a clear endorsement of her agenda."

You see?