I know of no definition of the word cunning that implies “unintelligent.” Certainly intelligent people can be deceptive.
Do we know that he got in only because of his race? That is either factual or erroneous. If it is untrue, that still does not mean that she assumes that black Yale law school students are automatically inferior. It just means that she made an assumption that was unfounded. The assumption is more likely based on her accessment of Thomas as lacking in scholarship.
From what I saw and heard of Thomas during his confirmation hearings, he is indeed impulsive.
Can’t people have a conservative opinion without being barking mad and crazy? Her criticisms of Thomas are most likely based on his reputation.
I do not know what is expected in written opinions in terms of legal footnotes. If footnotes are required, then she is justified in her criticism. If they are not, then her criticism was unjustified.
I doubt seriously, however, that she disapproves of his putting in extra effort. Where does she say that?
December’s statement that she criticizes him for having a large book advance has already been shown to be inaccurate.
I fail to see where she makes the claim that she knows more about AA that he does. Also, affirmative action has not been limited to Blacks.
I have mixed feelings about affirmative action at this point. I do find it insulting to Blacks to lower standards. But if universities still tend to discriminate against Blacks, and I think they do, then all references to race should be omitted from applications for admission and from information supplied by the person applying.
Hate to tell you this, gobear, but according to the extremists who’ve hijacked the conservative spectrum of American Politics, you’re “liberal” – but only because you don’t subscribe to their knee-jerk groupthink.
(As far as the rest of the world is concerned, though, you’re solidly conservative.)
december:kimstu, instead of an ad hominem, how about looking at the eight actual points I raised. You might agree with some of them.
In the first place, I did not make any “ad hominem” response—honestly, december, people who expect to be taken seriously in GD should know the basic definitions of the elementary fallacies. An ad hominem response would be something like “december’s assertions are wrong because those Jews can’t get anything right” or “because his wife dresses him funny” or “because he’s over 55” or any other allegation unrelated to your actual argument.
What I did instead was to reject your actual argument on the grounds that it is “strained nitpicking”. Then I went on to comment that it illustrates your habitual double standard about accusations of racism, and to warn you that that double standard undermines your credibility. None of what I said constitutes in any way an ad hominem argument.
In the second place, I did already look at the eight items in your OP that you called “actual points” and that I called “strained nitpicking”. And no, in case you couldn’t tell, I do not agree with them.
wikipedia says Thomas received his law degree from Yale University, “after affirmative action programs designed to increase the number of African-American students at Yale helped him gain admission.” However, I’m not sure Thomas himself has agreed to this point. This column merely says Thomas went to Yale Law during the “heyday of AA.”
A statement by Thomas that AA did harm is his dissent in Gruttner v. Bollenger, that we’re debating. See pages 25-26 for example.
ISTM that “cunning” or “low cunning” is often used to imply cleverness without real intelligence.
It’s unclear.
You’re being awfully kind to Dowd, with no evidence of why she believes what she does.
This is a hijack, but your comment #3 blows me away. Thomas was attacked hour after hour, for around 12 hours a day, for four or five straight days. He responded effectively, always under control with all the relevant facts at his fingertips. I thought it was a remarkable performance.
This is circular. You’re talking about his reputation among people who hate him. You might as well justify KKK criticism of Thomas as based on his reputation among other KKK members. Among conservatives, Thomas has a high reputation. We consider him well-qualified to be the next Chief Justice.
IANAL but the quality of an opinion isn’t measured by the number of footnotes. It’s measured by the quality of the legal reasoning.
She criticized his lesser use of clerks. In effect, she criticized his doing some work himself that he could have assigned to others.
She implies that his view of AA is so wrong that he must be crazy. Nowhere does she admit that his view of AA may be more valid than hers.
Many social conservatives are racists. Not all of them, but enough to really uglify conservatism generally. It’s really that simple. Deny it all you like, no objective observer will believe you.
And if you get into Republicanism specifically, it’s even worse, as the Republican Party’s Southern strategy has long been a simple matter of sucking up to racists.
Black folks should stop crying “racism” at every turn. Instead, they need to worry about more important things, like watching PBS and staying off the crack. You don’t see Jews crying over racism and you see how successful they are.
[sub]Oops! december is white. And he’s a Jew! [/sub]
For what it’s worth, I thought the column was despicable. The tone of the whole piece was, “Why, that ungrateful man. He should know when to thank the enlightened people who helped him get where he is.”
In Dowd’s worldview, Blacks cannot make it on their own, and that’s why those glorious liberals have ridden in to help them with affirmative action. So once they make it, they had damned well better be grateful. Thomas is biting the hand that got him where he is."
Tongue-in-cheek, I know, but I just wanted to point out that we are as good at “victim culture” as anybody else, by golly! Heck, the entire multimillion-dollar organization of the Anti-Defamation League is devoted to countering bigotry against Jews, and you can’t say a bad word about Israel without somebody or other calling you an anti-Semite. We’ve got nothing to learn from black folks when it comes to exploiting our victim status and sowing accusations of bigotry broadcast, thankyouverymuch.
SS:In Dowd’s worldview, Blacks cannot make it on their own, and that’s why those glorious liberals have ridden in to help them with affirmative action.
? Where is Dowd saying that the blessings of affirmative action are all the product of “help” from “glorious liberals” rather than “Blacks making it on their own”? It always puzzles me to hear people talk about affirmative action as though it was something that white people—even white liberals—just nicely decided to give to minorities. Black people fought long and hard to win antidiscrimination and affirmative-action policies, you know; what swollen-headed white liberals do you know who believe they were the ones who made it happen? That’s certainly not what I’m seeing in Dowd’s comments.
AA ceretainly has its weaknesses, and I’m certainly not one to argue its merits. The indisputable fact here, though, is that Thomas did get his seat on the Court because he is black and pliant to conservatives. The man is a second-rater who would not be on the Court if he were white.
Oh, that simple, is it? Maybe ad hominem BS doesn’t really prove anything about anything. If you believe a philosophy can be “uglified” by its proponents, then I suggest you look at say, some of the people who have advocated the redistribution of wealth.
Well, that was Thomas’s answer as he tried to show his Republican supporters that he was on their side. I am not yet persuaded that there is much truth to the statement. (On the other hand, at least he was claiming that he was not favored by a quota while not disparaging Affirmative Action, itself.)
Nevertheless, there is a certain belief that all of his EEOC jobs were gained through AA, and if Ms. Dowd operates under that assumption, that means that her criticism is as I have outlined it earlier.
Even stipulating that this is true, do you agree with Dowd that Thomas must therefore support affirmative action, and his failure to do so is “historic ingratitude”? In other words, if a black person gets a job because of AA, he’d better be a good boy and say, “thank you massa”, rather than speaking his own mind?
And doesn’t this all play into Thomas’s own stated opinion, which is that the mere presence of AA programs allow bigots to question the ability of any black in a position of power? That’s exactly what you and Dowd are doing.
To say there a certain belief exists doesn’t address whether that belief is racist or not. There is a certain belief that all blacks owe their success to AA. But, it’s considered racist to say so, unless the black person happens to be conservative. E.g., I think most of us would find the following statements objectionable:
– Thurgood Marshall is a second rater who owes his success to affirmative action. He would never have been on the SC if he were white.
– Kofi Anan is a second rater who owes his success to affirmative action. He would never have been Secretary General of the UN if he were white.
I’m not arguing that either of these comments are true. I’m arguing that it would be unacceptible for the comment to appear in a New York Times column.
Notice gobear’s non sequitor:
The first sentence is surely true. The second sentence doesn’t follow from the first. gobear has given no evidence that Thomas is a second-rater nor that a white person with his background might not have been on the court. As I said, I was extremely impressed with the way he ran the gantlet at his confirmation hearings. I couldn’t have done what he did.
SS:Even stipulating that this [Thomas’s having personally benefited from AA] is true, do you agree with Dowd that Thomas must therefore support affirmative action, and his failure to do so is “historic ingratitude”?
I think the point is that if it is true, then Thomas would be a hypocrite: i.e., he didn’t turn down any of his own opportunities for advancement via AA because of his anti-AA principles, but now that he’s made it to the top, he’s trying to deny the same opportunities to other people. I think “hypocrisy” would be a more accurate term for such behavior than “ingratitude”.
An ad hominen BS attack would be one in which I called some particular purpose a racist. I do not believe I have done that. I have merely pointed out that many social conservatives are racists, to counter Dewey’s claim that GoBear had said all conservatives are racists. He neither said nor implied any such thing but I thought it was a nice opportunity to point out that:
Many social conservatives are racists.
Therefore Gobear’s point that Thomas is “a black man who is allied with those who hate black people” has a point to it, an undeniable one, undoubtedly a painful one to social conservatives.
This contention has some interesting hidden assumptions. Maybe it assumes that Thomas’s AA benefits were free. That is, that they didn’t come at anyone else’s expense. Then I suppose it would make sense to argue that he ought to offer the same benefits to other people.
But, in reality, when Thomas got a position, someone else lost it. To the degree that he benefited, somebody else was harmed. So, perhaps the hidden assumption is that Thomas is supposed to convey a benefit to black people at the cost of harming some white and Asian people.
Frankly, I reject the entire hypocrisy argument. We all have to follow the law. We get stuck with the bad parts and we might as well take advantage of the good parts. E.g., most opponents of the Bush tax cuts will not voluntarily continue paying at the prior, higher rates. That doesn’t make these people hypocrites.
But there is no legal requirement for Thomas to accept any promotion or professional honor that comes to him via racial preference policies that he is in principle opposed to.
We get stuck with the bad parts and we might as well take advantage of the good parts.
But when we deliberately take advantage of the benefits of policies that we claim to be opposed to in principle, that’s hypocrisy. If I’m an outspoken opponent of gay rights, say, but I accept campaign contributions from gay-rights groups, how is that not being a hypocrite?
E.g., most opponents of the Bush tax cuts will not voluntarily continue paying at the prior, higher rates. That doesn’t make these people hypocrites.
Speak for yourself, pal. I, for one, most certainly did give away my “tax cuts” money to charity, exactly because I felt it would be hypocritical of me to reap a personal advantage out of what I consider to be such a stupid and unethical policy decision. (And no, I don’t take deductions for those donations on my next year’s returns, either.)
