Monty berates the bigot, msmith537.

The BBQ Pit
1

1st: No, I am not self-righteous.
2nd: A person can only make the TYPE of value judgment you made in the quoted portion if that person is a fucking asshole BIGOT. You made that assertion, therefore you are a fucking asshole BIGOT.
3rd: I was making the connection between racist bigotry and nationalistic bigotry. Sorry that confused you. Damn shame, though, you didn’t manage to notice that IT’S THE SAME KIND OF PREJUDICE!

The obvious point of my question was that you didn’t seem to be too interested in knowing the facts about the incident because you had already decided that the Afghanis killed weren’t of as much worth as your favorite folks. Again, you showed that you are a fucking asshole bigot.

Now why in the hell should the Navy even consider investigating it? After all, msmith537 has already determined that the innocent Afghanis killed aren’t worth as much as certain other innocent people.

Actually, yes. That Sailor has to get his/her job done correctly and on time. And the constant drills for General Quarters and fire-fighting and other damage control aren’t just for sheer entertainment. The purpose of those drills is so the Sailors and Marines on the ship can manage to keep the ship afloat after an enemy manages to attack the ship somehow. And, of course, the medical emergency drills serve a similar purpose: to keep the Sailors and Marines aboard the ship alive after such an attack.

It’s obvious that you are not a military man. It’s even more obvious that you are a bigot.

Or court-martialled or Captain’s Mast depending on the severity of the screw-up. Oh, and depending on what’s screwed up, the ship’s defenses just might miss defending against some kind of attack. The ship, after all, is in combat.

Or he just might land in a town full of people who are damned glad that he’s been doing what he’s been doing (provided he wasn’t just knocking off people who “weren’t worth as much” as msmith537’s favorite folks back home). I seem to recall that there was a group called Flying Tigers that had such experiences (not the killing “people of less worth” but of landing in enemy-held territory but nevertheless ended up in the company of people damn glad to see them).

Nowhere in hell did I even suggest that it’s unrealistic to expect that civilians get accidentally killed in a war. What I did fucking suggest was that if it happened because of someone’s fucking up by not doing their fucking job the fucking way they’re fucking supposed to do and thus they fucking get innocent people killed and also fucking put other people, the fucking people during their fucking job the fucking right way, in fucking harm’s way!

Damn right I did. And you made an incredibly poor show of trying to prove that you are not, in fact, a bigot. What you did do was prove to an even greater extent that you a bigot.

Yawn Hell, you show even more prejudice by that fucking lame ass comment.

p.s. The cursing in the post above, although usually required in Pit posts, are there because msmith537 is a fucking asshole bigot!

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Interesting, bigotry has certainly flared up in the last month and a bit on these boards. Msmith357’s comments did seem bigoted to me, but I am guessing that he/she had not thought the matter through completely before making some of those posts, leading to the kind of thing that happens frequently in these situations: a rush to qualify the argument. This could just be a knee-jerk followed by some confusion on the matter rather than outright intentional bigotry.

The problem is that it still sends out a hostile message. The Afghani civilians are just as innocent as American civilians, and posts that advocate (or seem to advocate) the superiority or greater value of anything American (or any nationality really) can be dangerous and rude.

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True, Abe, true. However, my point is that msmith had the audacity to stipulate, based on nothing more than nationality, the inherent greater worth of one person over another. And then when I pointed that out, he/she/it/whatever not only attempted to justify the prejudice, but to take me to task for pointing out that it’s bigotry!

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::: dons flame-retardant suit :::

If msmith537 had said, “but the lives of Americans are worth a lot more to me than the lives of the Taliban,” would that have resulted in a claim of bigotry?

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I’m actually going to support msmsith on this one.

What’s the problem here exactly. She has decided to place a value on human lives, and has based that value on something unknown to any of us. It could be their economic worth to her. It could be their emotional worth to her. It could be her estimation of the moral or economic value of Americans relative to Afghans.

What exactly is the problem. That she can place a value on human life? Well I hate to tell you this people but courts, governments and insurance companies do this every day. Doesn’t make them bigoted.

That she values people she can relate too, speak with, has a better chance of being related too, has a better chance of meeting in real life and shares so many other things in common with higher than complete strangers half a world away? Well I value my family’s lives more highly than any stranger’s. If that makes me a bigot then tough shit.

Ignoring everything else she posted will someone please explain exactly why it is that valuing people we can relate to and empathise with more highly than people from a foreign culture makes me or mssmith “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to our own opinions and prejudices”. What exactly is it in valuing Americans more highly then Afghans that leads you to believe that msmsmith is in any way intolernat of Afghans? I value dogs more highly than monkeys. That doesn’t mean that I’m intolerant of monkeys. I like monkeys. They just don’t rate as highly on my list. Similarly Msmith may like Afghans or (more likely it seems) be completely neutral to them due to a lack of knowledge. To me that doesn’t suggest she is intolerant of them.

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quote from Gaspode:

Well I value my family’s lives more highly than any stranger’s. If that makes me a bigot then tough shit.

It is perfectly rational to value people you know more than people whom you do not.

However, valuing innocent strangers in America above innocent strangers in Afghanistan would make one a bigot. If anyone can’t work up similar sympathy for one victim as opposed to another only because of ethnic or national differences, that person is a bigot.

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“However, valuing innocent strangers in America above innocent strangers in Afghanistan would make one a bigot. If anyone can’t work up similar sympathy for one victim as opposed to another only because of ethnic or national differences, that person is a bigot.”

Yea …ok. Then your intolerance to others beliefs and their way of life for being who they are born to be makes you a asshole biggot! We all are born who we are and we all die exactly that, who we are. I dont give one shit about anyone but the people I love and this country I love and the people in it who are for what this country stands for. If that means everyone right down to the flies that buzz around your head then so be it. Call me a biggot, I dont give one damn!

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I think I’m kinda with mssmith and Gaspode. After all, what effects one part of America will have an effect on my part of America, so naturally I care more about it.

I don’t think that Afghans, for example, are inferior because they’re not Americans. I just value Amerians more because I am one.

By the way, this “You’re a bigot - No, You’re a bigot” bout sounds like a childhood playground argument… “You’re stupid!” “Oh yeah? You’re stupid!” “Oh yeah? You’re stupid and you smell!”…

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Let me throw a hearty Me Too to that sentiment.

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Or a witch. Quick burn her.

You’ve explained what your position is, and then say that she’s a bigot without actually clarifying how valuing an American over an Afghan demonstrates her to be “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to her own opinions and prejudices”. As I said, she could be very tolerant of Afghans, She certainly appears to be. That’s not to say she loves them, just that she is tolerant of them. She doesn’t care about them at all, is largely ignorant of them. That’s about as tolerant as it gets. I certainly see absolutely no evidence of the intolernace necessary for bigotry in valuing American lives above Afghan.

I also can’t agree with the concept that “If anyone can’t work up similar sympathy for one victim as opposed to another only because of ethnic or national differences, that person is a bigot”. That’s completely illogical. Not being able to do this may make a person morally culpable, it may demonstarte a lack of empathy but I can’t for the life of me see how it demonstartes intolerance. Such a person is quite happy to tolerate Afghans doing whatever the hell they like.

In addition to this I can quite easily see how it would be easier to have sympathy for people we understand intimately like our own families. The better you know someone the better you empathise. the better you empathise the better you stmpathise. MSsmith not surprisingly empathises with Americans better than AFghans, hence she will naturally sympathise with them.

If an inability to work up similar sympathy for one victim as opposed to another only because of ethnic differences makes one a bigot, then by gum I’m a bigot. Always have been and always will be because at the end of the day I feel far more sympathy for people like myself then I do for people completely different. Can’t help, can’t do anything about it it’s the way my brain works. If I can put myself in someone elses shoes on a personal level I feel great sympathy, which is why the phone calls from the WTC victims brought tears to my eyes. If I can’t put myself in someone else’s shoes on a personal level then I can only sympathise on a genric human to human level and thats not the same level by a long chalk. I find it far harder to empathise with people from alien cultures and so can’t feel the same level of sympathy for them,

So by Diletante’s reasoning I am obstinately or intolerantly devoted to my own opinions and prejudices because I find it impossible to feel the same level of empathy with people of foreign cultures. So be it but that is proof positive the bigotry is indeed the result of genetics, because I can assure you it isn’t the result of upbringing or choice. As such you can no longer condemn bigots because we are not able to prevent ourselves from being bigots try as we might.

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Hmm, let’s define bigot then.

Which is clearly displayed in this statement.

So just what does Monty need to clarify?

What really scares me though is this statement:

So, if the bombing had happened in France, would that have made it less of an atrocity for you guys? Do you really “value” the lives of 5,000 Americans more highly than 5,000 Dutch? I really hope that isn’t what you meant.

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The lives of the people killed matter, Gary, no matter who or where they are, but there’s also an additional aspect of shock, horror, and outrage because it happened on our soil.

It’s like when you wake up in the morning to find out that someone broke into your neighbor’s house and killed everyone inside. You become shocked, horrified, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you think, “I’m glad that didn’t happen at MY house.” Well, now imagine that it DID happen at your house.

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Bolding mine.

Theres the qualifier. I’m strongly partial to the Irish, but I dont place any negative partiality to any other group.
Do I still qualify as a bigot?

I dont put a value on human life based on Race/Nationality though, and neither do monster104 and spooje.

But msmith does not have this opinion. as Gary pointed out,

qualifies her as a bigot under the dictionary definition.

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OK, we’ll use your definition of bigot rather than the Merriam-Webster one I posted. I see no evidence whatsoever of intolerance. None at all. Mssmith isn’t saying she wants to take Afghan lives because they piss her off. She’s saying she values A over B. Like I said I value gold over silver, that doesn’t make me intolerant of silver. I tolerate silver very well, in fact I like it. I just value some other metals more highly. Mssmith probably tolerates Afghans better than I do simply because she lacks the knowledge to be critical of Afghan culture. She just doesn’t value them as highly as Americans. How is that intolerant? See the definition of bigot requires that ‘and is intolerant of those who differ’ bit. Without that you’ve just got a patriot or jingoist or zealot or what have you who is who is strongly partial to her own group, religion, race, or politics . Intolerance is a pre-requisite for bigotry and simply saying that subject A has less value to you than subject B does not constitute intolerance of subject A.

No, it means that for them personally the net value of the world wouldn’t be as severely reduced. I can’t see any problem with that. Consider it this way. One person has a pet goldfish, the other a pet dog. They are both killed by random lunatics. To the person involved the tragedy may well be as great, but me personally I can’t value a goldfish a highly as a dog no matter how I try. The loss of a fish simply is not as big a deal to me personally as the loss of a faithful dog, even though they are both the tragic loss of a loved pet and both have exactly the same effect on the world. Is the killing of the fish less of an atrocity? No of course it isn’t because the effect on the victim and the victim’s family, friends and society is exactly the same. The only difference is that because I can empathise and hence sympathise with mammals more readily than I can with fish I value mammalian lives more highly because I am one. Does that make me intolerant of fish? Not at all. I like fish. I keep fish myself so I can’t be intolerant of them. I just don’t value them as highly as mammals. I can’t see why this would lead you to assume I must see the crime as being less of an atrocity. I consider the crimes bad because of their effect, not because of what I think of them personally. Do you honestly only measure the degree of seriousness of an atrocity based on your personal feelings towards it? Is a theft not so bad because the item stolen wasn’t something that you value highly yourself?
It isn’t necessary to wear my heart on my sleeve and pretend to a perfect empathy with all creatures and people to recognise that people are being hurt and that that is wrong. I can not however feel as great as sense of personal loss at the loss of abstract foreign lives as I do at the killing of people who have so much in common with myself. That is something I cannot control. In all honesty I don’t believe for a second that anyone begins to cry when they raed about the slaughter of 5000 Persians in 600 BC. I can’t do that because they aren’t people. They are abstract concepts and abstract concepts have no value to me. Even reading about a child dieing doesn’t bring tears to most people’s eyes. But if it was the child of a close freind or family memeber it would. Why? Because the more we can empathise with someone the higher we value them persoanlly, whatever we may know intellectually about their worth as a human being. Since Mssmith knows so little about Afghans they and so much about Americans she will of course value Americans more highly.

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Erhm, if someone did break into my house and killed everyone inside, I think I’d be a little bit too dead to be shocked.

To be honest though, I fear your example doesn’t relate. There is a big difference between your statement

and these statements

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Until I read the definition which Gary Kumquat helpfully provided, I wouldn’t have referred to Americans who value the lives of Americans more than other people as “bigots”. I have to say, though, that this is a level of patriotism which I cannot understand. Which is not to say that I condemn it, but I feel slightly disgusted by it. This is probably just because I personally don’t have any basis for it in my life since I am a citizen of two countries, living in a third with a boyfriend from a fourth. My own first cousins are of different nationalities and races than I am. So I honestly don’t understand how one can declare that one’s compatriots are necessarily more similar to oneself than people from any other country. Particularly when we are talking about America, which consists of so many regions which are vastly different from one another.

Gaspode, I can understand that it might be hard to empathise with people from alien cultures. But in that case, would Canadian lives be considered as valuable as American lives? Or just slightly less? And how much empathy should a rural country boy from Mississipi feel for a New Yorker who works for Morgan Stanley? And what about “westernised” Afghans, who perhaps lead similar lives to yourself? Is there some sort of scale for all these lives? Or is it just that, all other things being equal, you would value the life of an American more than the life of a person of any other nationality?

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But they did put a value on human life, remember:

If that isn’t putting a value on life based on race/nationality, what is?

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Hi, Gary.

If France or Holland were attacked the way we were, I’d be pissed off. It would be an atrocity. I would expect, and support, the same course of action we have taken, because I feel it’s the right thing to do.

BUT…

The people killed in New York, Washington and Pittsburg were my countrymen. My people. And it could have easily been my family members. Could have easily been me. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but that does magnify it a bit. Quite a bit, actually.

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But spooje, the people killed in New York were not all your countrymen. Non-Americans were killed as well. Do you feel less sympathy for them? I am not an American. But I could have been in the World Trade Centre that day. I love New York, in fact I had planned a trip to New York that month. There are many Americans who have never even been there, for whom it would have been much less likely to have been there at the time than for me.

And Gaspode, I find your analogy of the dog and the goldfish quite shocking. Most people would feel more sympathy for the dog than for the goldfish. Most people also believe that dogs are more intelligent than goldfish, and more emotive. They believe that dogs are capable of understanding and sharing human emotion and reciprocating the love of their owners. This makes dogs seem more similar to humans. Do you think that foreigners are less intelligent or less capable of emotion than Americans? That they are somehow less human?

I would have preferred comparing the killing of a dog to the killing of a pig. Pigs are thought to be quite intelligent, but are unfortunately not as pleasing to the eye as a cute, fluffy puppy. There is the added desensitising knowledge that pigs are slaughtered all the time. I suppose both these factors could apply to foreigners as well…

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BTW, 'twasn’t only citizens of the US killed in the terrorist hijackings last month.