Ack. Hit submit not preview.
I agree with this assessment. My point is that accusations of the particular brands of bigotry based in ethnic or religious divisions are not at the core of his problem. As noted, I am not claiming that he cannot be a bigot, only that it takes a form other than the stock demons of religious or ethnic bigotry.
A cynic would remind you that the word you’re trying not very hard to look for is “pretext.” As I said, when one of magpie’s untrue, unthought, negative stereotypes victimizes, say, Swedish exchange students along with the usual suspects, his bigotry will gain more complexity, but its existence still won’t be a controversial issue.
I see no evidence that he does accept them. He has refrained from starting any anti-Catholic threads, true, but that may be only because he has found other pretexts that more narrowly target the people he doesn’t like.
Or swear on the Bible like good Americans, remember?
Yes, and guess who, in magpie’s mind, was required to smear on the greasepaint and put on the show, and for whose benefit? No discrimination there, right?
I’ve considered your comments and am doing my best not to hold them against you or reconsider the SDMB exchange rate.
Your position is that a man who prefers one or two or a few more self-defined aspects of “culture” that he identifies with (but has not troubled to understand) to others, which he also has not bothered to understand but can nonetheless identify with identifiable different sets of people whose differences also break down reliably along racial and religious lines, and whom he therefore identifies as a threat, is not a racial or religious bigot. Fine. The only people who would qualify, by that rule, are those who proclaim it themselves. Okay, but I suspect there are more that don’t, and that it would be a good idea to recognize them when they jump up and start waving, if only to keep track of the various pretexts they’re using to fool people into paying attention, or believing them sincere.
Magpie’s innermost thoughts and true motives are between him and whatever god will have him. The thrust of his efforts is always exclusion, enforced assimilation, and homogeneousness of his world, deferring to himself as the only acceptable template. To mention this isn’t a “hijack”, it’s a cogent argument against an inherently destructive philosophy.
Good grief.
Every time I catch up on this thread, hoping to see some progress, all there is is the same old same old:
magellan: It’s un-American not to swear on the Bible.
Everyone else: No, it’s not and here’s why, based on the Constitution, historical precedent, the Founding Fathers’ beliefs, common sense, and simple reason.
magellan: You’re wrong. It’s un-American not to swear on the Bible.
Everyone else: Look, this, this and this refutes your argument.
magellan: You’re wrong. It’s un-American not to swear on the Bible.
Lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum ad nauseam.
Is there any point to this thread at this point?
Yes, we seem to be discussing the nature of bigotry with reference to whether maggie is racist or not.
Ah. I’ll sign up for “jingoistic bigot” then, if that’s all right.
Brilliant, you have managed to sum up the last 15 pages in two words.
That we are loosing yet one more aspect of the common denominator that helps define the American culture. The more pluralistic we become, the fewer and fewer of these things we have and the more important each of them become. Holding onto the ones tied to our own history seem to be important, and, to me, the* least *controversial.
Those who see that, for whatever reason (and I’m not sure we can isolate it, or them) the American experiment is the best society the world has yet seen. It certainly is the best one today, by my estimation anyway. I think that is why most people come here. They can live better than they can anywhere else. We have a history of welcoming people, and a foundation of religious tolerance. Taking advantage of that while recognizing that America, too, has a distinct culture, and respecting it, doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.
Ah, well done, Miller, but it’s not quite the same, for two reasons: 1) The other debate had nothing to do with oaths or tradition or symbolism, if I recall correctly. It dealt purely with personal convictions. My main point, which I relegated to strong atheism, had to do with not having to answer to a higher power. 2) the religion I am giving a pass to here is not something being injected, or added. It is part of the culture, so much so that it often goes unnoticed.
Now, would barring religion from the discussion make things cleaner? Absolutely. But that is not the only yardstick to consider.
I think he was trying to degrade our sense of self by redefining our political culture as embracing the Koran. It as as anathema to the founding (which the pomp and circumstance he appropriated stems from) as Dianetics. And as I’ve stated numerous times, the fact that Jefferson owned the book does not support his position one iota. If anything, based on the problems Jefferson had with the “Musselmen” who terroized America in his day and he went to war with, I’d say that Jefferson had great problems with the Koran. I mean, he had problems with the bible to the point that he excised large portions of it. I can only imagine the esteem he had for Islam. I searched for Jefferson’s actual views on Islam but was unsuccessful. There was one quote from the book I mention below, but it seemed to be out of context. I just ordered it,Jefferson’s War, by Joseph Wheelan, to see if it sheds any light.
Yes. But a pluralistic society needn’t forfeit their history or traditions. I’d argue that the more pluralistic the soiciety the more necessary that shared history, heritage, and tradition become. Now maybe we have different ideas of a pluralistic society. I’d venture to say that mine would encourage/require more assimilation than yours.
Have them understand that this is America. It’s not some anonymous piece of real estate for somone to come squat on. It’s a country with a history and a heritage that we (most of us) are quite prooud of. And for good reason. If you’d like to come be part of it, come. But you should not expect us to dispense with our own identity simply to make you, and the next immigrant group, and the next, and the next, feel more like you’re liviing in your own country. I cannot for the life of me see what is unreasonable with that. I also find it extremely ironic that the those who are most embracing of every other culture on the globe—never mind their respective merits—are the ones that are so blind or disrepectful of our own.
Fair enough. But I think the case for Ellison’s divination of Jefferson’s relationship to the Koran is ridiculous. As I mentioned, based on his experience with Muslims and his problems with the bible, I doubt he held the book in high esteem. But you are correct, I do not know. But I am looking into the matter.
That’s why they are good examples. They show the advantage of degree of conformity. Just because that ther results wouldn’t be “immediate” as in traffic laws, doesn’t mean that the result wouldn’t be harmful to soiciety. Let’s say you’re driving an M5 on 280 on an empty road doing 90mph. You get pulled over and get a ticket, right? Not necessarily because you are endangering anyone at that particular time. You’re car can easily handle it, the road can handle it, you’re sober so you can handle it. Yet, society makes you conform because not ticketing you would encourage you to do it more and eventually, something bad may happen.
Nice. Obvioulsy I meant claiming that he read a book that contains such anti-enlightenment ideals and he embraced it as he would Aristotle, Locke, Hume, etc.
Huh? Why can’t he be a congressman by day and a Muslim by night. Isn’t that precidely your position whan it comes to any office holder and their religion? Again, wariness of a religion that is responsible for the violence against us—especially when those responsible hold up the Koran as the reason for said violence—seems to be wise.
Now there really are two different issues here and I think it benefits us to be aware of that. One is whatever benefit there would be to everyone swearing on a bible as far as the continuance of tradition. The other is the degree of scrutiny a book other than the bible (default) merits. In this regard, someone wanting to swear on a Hindu or Buddhist holy book would cause much less of a flap than the Koran. And rightly so. Now if another religion pops up and starts killing thousands and uses their holy book as rationale, they’d move to the top of the list, too.
We’ll just let this attempt at a joke pass. 
First, let’s clarify. Not all Japanese were interred. The oones that were were from the west coast, where the governement feared the Japenese might assist the enemy. They were first asked if they had people they could go to in the midwest or east coast. Second, they were not looking only to potential traitors. Some Japanese did hold an allegiance to Japan and not America, so I wouldn’t call them traitors. Third, when the piliot of a downed plane in Hawaii was captured by a local, two Japanese immigrants living on the island freed him at gun point. So, it was not without cause that the idea was even floated. Also, and I add this because it is left out of most discussions on the subject, there were also thousands of Germans and Italians interred, as well, but from the east coast, where the threat was greatest (German submarines, etc.)
Now, I’ve thought about this quite a lot and do not know where I come out. I know that anything but condemming Roosevelt’s order is very unpopular. But I see why he did it. I see what was at stake. I see that, perhaps, Roosevelt, decided to err on the side of prudence. That said, I’ve read about the Japanese that were interred and my heart goes out to them. Having to uproot, sell everything off (for pennies on the dollar), and live in the camps was a nasty affair. But I’ve been unable to come to a conclusion for myself. I do not know what night have transpirted if that was not done.
You use here the same false rationale here that he uses in the cite discussing gay marriage. Not once does he offer a moral argument in support of your position. He merely claims that that there are other issues more important to blacks. You may want to reread that article. And you may want to nail him down on what he actually believes concerning the issue itself. But back to your point here, just because there may be myriad other reasons one might oppose Ellison as a representative—much more important ones—that doesn’t mean one must remain mum on any issue that isn’t in the top 3, or 5, or 10. Especially when one is participating in a thread with the title that this one has.
Miller, I’ve noticed that you and others have gone back and edited your own posts. How do you do that?
I erased this, as it was a duplicate post.
(Hope this works.)
Dagnabit magellan01! Double posts are traditionally left in place on the SDMB; unless a wandering Mod shows mercy.
Quit messing with the board’s common denominator!
How’d you do that?
The clear difference being that the Germans and Italians (and Bulgarians and others) were all queried individually by the FBI and interned for probable cause while the Japanese were simply shipped off to camps en masse, with no inquiry into their loyalty. That some idiot decided that the actions of one man and woman in Hawaii (in contrast to all the other Nisei on that one island who opposed freeing the captured pilot) was a good justification for the rounding up of all Japanese on the mainland shows the basic stupidity and racism on which EO 9066 was based.
None. Otherwise there would have been problems when other people in earlier events had chosen to use a book other than the bible–a point you have consistently ignored.
Not rightly so, just xenophobically so. This is the sort of mentality that drove some people to call for cutting down the cherry trees in Washington D.C. in January of 1942. “Someone somewhere with some vague association with this artifact has done something to harm us, so we have to demonstrate our hatred and intolerance by actively opposing any act that employs this artifact by any person with any vague connection to the person who harmed us.”
So, we wander over to Iraq where we tell people that we are bringing them freedom, then we tell all the Shi’ites and Kurds, “Don’t look too closely at our country, because we are going to show disrespect for your holy book because the religious people with whom you are in conflict use the same book as you do, so your book is no good.”
Didn’t you hear? They recently made me a Mod. I was told that the official designation under my name and the business cards would appear shortly.
There goes the neighborhood…
How can you say that this particular tradition has that function, when you can’t get any sort of consensus that the tradition exists in the first place? Was anyone even aware that this was a tradition before Prager floated the idea as an attempt to cover up his naked bigotry and total ignorance of constitutional law? As I recall, this was news to you, as well. How valuable can a tradition be as a binding element if no one knew it existed until a few weeks ago?
As for your position being the least controversial, I’ve got fifteen pages of debate (and an almost total non-reaction from the voting population at large to Prager’s manufactured scandal) that says you’re wrong. Most people, it would seem, do not care. Those that do care, mostly think you’re a bigot and a xenophobe. You’ve pretty much just got the comments section from Little Green Footballs on your side. Great guys, I’m sure, once you look past all the mouth-foam, but I’m still not sure I’d want to count on them for rhetorical support.
Which is why it’s great that Ellison made his oath on the Koran. What better way to celebrate our culture of religious tolerance and welcoming of immigrants? That’s precisely what makes American culture distinct. Empty ceremonies and rote, meaningless Christian observances are hardly unique to the US, after all. Can you at least recognize the possibility that Ellison was trying to celebrate and respect American culture as he perceives it?
I fail to see how either of your points makes your argument in this thread remotely different from my argument in the previous thread.
Jefferson also went to war with Britain, which was a Christian nation. Is that evidence that he hated the Bible and wanted Christians kept out of American government? Or is it possible that Jefferson was wise enough to seperate the political policies of a nation from the religious beliefs of its citizens? I certainly don’t expect that Jefferson had more respect for the Koran than he did for the Bible, but that’s the entire point of the debate: Jefferson wasn’t too keen on any sort of religion. That’s precisely why he and the other founders made religious tolerance one of the cornerstones of this country. A cornerstone, I must once again point out, you are busily trying to undermine in favor of empty, ceremonial deism.
No, yours simply requires that other cultures assimilate different aspects of our culture. Ones that are, at best, meaningless, and at worst, actively destructive to the fabric of a pluralistic society. Ellison swearing on a Koran does not mean that we’re forgetting our nation’s history. It is, however, recognizing that the nation we have today is much changed from the one that was created in the 18th century.
Ha! Talk about ignoring our history and heritage!
Agreed. And Ellison’s oath exemplifies those elements of our history and heritage of which we should be most proud.
Our identity is precisely a mish-mash of different cultures. Adding more cultures to that does not erase our identity, it re-enforces it. The value of our nation is that we have (eventually) embraced and adopted the cultures and values of those that came here. Our strength is that, in our diversity, we (usually) only adopt those elements of immigrant cultures that are most valuable to the widest spectrum of our society. Do not mistake disagreement with your reactionary isolationism with disrespect or dislike for our country. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world, precisely because we have, as a nation, largely rejected the ideals you are championing in this thread. You are being disputed in this thread because we love this country as much as you do, and we do not want to see you destroy it.
No, I meant they’re bad examples because the negative outcomes from not having those rules are clear and unambiguous. If we don’t have laws about how to drive on public roads, there will obviously be more accidents. If we don’t have a system of taxation, obviously the government will not have the money to keep functioning. If we allow people to swear on holy book other than the Bible… well, I’m still not entirely sure what horrible result is supposed come from that. As a general rule, I think that people should be allowed to do whatever they want, so long as there’s no clear danger to other people involved. It’s one of those principles that I’ve always heard associated with conservatives, and yet I so rarely see conservatives actually supporting.
I don’t think anyone has claimed that he embraced anything in the Koran. Rather, the point is that he didn’t hold the Bible in any greater esteem. Saying that swearing an oath on a Koran instead of a Bible is an insult to the founders of this nation is ridiculous, because the founders did not hold the Bible in any particular esteem.
Well, this is obviously an area in which I have no personal experience, but I frequently hear from religiously inclined folks that they could no more stop being their religion than they could stop being their race or their gender. Also, Islam requires those five daily prayers, so that would actually violate Ellison’s religion.
No, it most certainly is not. As I’ve said again and again, in this and other threads where we’ve butted heads, I do not consider a candidates religion when I decide wether or not to vote for him. I do not expect conservative Christian fundamentalists to stop being conservative Christian fundamentalists when they get elected to office. I don’t vote for many fundamentalist Christians because that particular faith tends to overlap with a number of political beliefs with which I disagree, but in those cases, I’m voting the politics of the candidate, not the faith. I’d have no reservations about voting for a fundamentalist Christian who was pro-gay rights and pro-choice, should such an animal ever be found.
Maybe the difference here is that there are quite a few people who will hold up the Bible as a reason why I should be killed, but not quite so many as would do the same for you. That’s the sort of thing that tends to put the differences between religions into perspective for you. But I’m pretty “wary” of Christianity, much more so than Islam, yet still have no problem having Christians represent my interests in government. Really, one should be wary of anyone seeking political office. Thinking that Muslims require you to be extra-special wary strikes me as naive.
No, I don’t need to do that. He opposes legislation that would strip gays of their rights. That’s really all I need to know. I’m pretty sure his own religious beliefs consel him that homosexuality is ungodly in someway, but he’s not trying to turn that belief into law, and that’s all I need to know about his beliefs about homosexuality. Because, as I’ve said over and over, I don’t vote a poltician’s faith, I vote his politics. Ellison’s politics on gay marriage are acceptable to me.
I think you might have missed my point entirely, because I have no idea how what you just wrote relates to my argument in the slightest. You’re worried that, because Ellison is a Muslim, he might have extremist Muslim beliefs. I pointed out that, in the platform Ellison ran on, there’s not one single plank that corresponds to extremist Muslim beliefs. Most of it runs directly counter to what is preached in the mosques of those who would call themselves our enemies. What more do you need? What would you learn about Ellison from a discussion of his beliefs that is not already self-evident from his politics?
You didn’t get the mug? Ha! Sucker!
You are the only one who can degrade your sense of “self.”
Here is a list of GLBT issues over the past 3 years where Keith Ellison has voted to support the GLBT position in the State Legislature. Note that in one of them, he was the author of the motion:
Source: http://outfront.org/action/house.html – 100% supportive record.
And he was endorsed by StonewallDFL, the democratic party GLBT caucus, so they felt he supported their issues.
(He also was endorsed by both the American Jewish World and the Arab American Leadership PAC – that takes some doing, given the disputes in the Middle East!)
We will be eaten by bears, obviously.
In all seriousness, I think a ridiculous and childish fear-of-chompy-monsters anxiety lurks at the heart of the sort of paranoid, unprincipled conservativism that magellan here exemplifies. (Note that I’m distinguishing between m’s category of reactionary stupidity and thoughtful, principled conservative thinkers. Note also that I believe a different but equally ridiculous childishness underpins the lefty equivalent of m’s right-wing thuggery. That’s not the subject of this post, though.)
Really, it seems to me that m and those like him are desperately afraid of the collapse of the frameworks of civilization, thus exposing him, unprotected, to the whims and cruelties of nature. What we have right now works, by definition, because we are, right now, pretty safe from most of what nature can throw at us. Eventually, we’ll get that whole earthquake and asteroid thing down, and we’ll be safer still. We see in worse parts of the world, and in occasional nightmare scenarios here at home, like Katrina, that civilization is a fragile thing; it doesn’t take much to pop the balloon and turn us into isolated, unreined savages. Hence, any change to our social structure must be viewed with fear; we know what we have right this instant works reasonably well so we must protect what we have right this instant in order to protect ourselves. We have no way of knowing what small thing may have a large impact, and what pulled thread may, sooner or later, unravel the whole construction, throwing us into unregulated chaos. And when that happens, eventually, we will all be eaten by bears.
Or wolves. Or alligators. Or tigers, or spiders, or snakes, or whatever. Doesn’t matter which predator one fears; they’re all looking to get a piece of our collective ass anyway. The point is, the unreasoning, gibbering terror with which the magellan brand of conservative regards the possibility of change, any change at all as long as it’s untested and unknown, cannot be explained simply as a form of intellectual outrage at our failure to adhere to some abstract philosophical tenet or other. It’s too deep, too strident; it comes from a more primal place. And to me, honestly, it feels like he’s afraid of being eaten by a bear.
I mean, it’s clearly not rational. There’s no way anyone who’s actually thinking clearly could say something like this:
“We must freeze our current culture exactly as it is today in order to demonstrate how open and adaptive it is!” I mean, what the fuck? There’s no way anybody with a functioning logic center could produce such self-contradictory claptrap. He’s so enamored of the ritualistic decor that he’s completely lost sight of the fundamental philosphical foundation that makes our great culture even possible. Basically, he’s so proud of the pretty pretty wallpaper that he wants to tear down the building where it’s been installed, as if the wallpaper can somehow stand on its own.
Now, I suppose he could be a sophisticated liar. He might very well know he’s full of shit. He may be a spin operator, ensconced in a busy but somewhat isolated corner of the Internet, trying out various arguments and debate tactics to see whether or not they’ll fly in the larger political sphere. I think that’s unlikely, but one must concede the possibility.
More likely, I think, is that he’s just stupid. He can string together sentences, but look at them in their totality and you see that his reasoning skills are basically nonexistent. He’s functioning almost entirely on fear and knee-jerk response, and he has so little grasp of what he thinks he’s defending that he will cheerfully blunder through it and destroy the very thing that makes possible the superficialities with which he’s fallen in love. And he’s blinded, I think, by a sub-rational, twittering fear of change.
It’s okay, magellan. Really. It’ll be fine. The nice darkie can swear on a Koran, and it doesn’t mean you’re going to be eaten by a bear. So just calm the fuck down, already, will you?
My Og, is this thread still going on?!
magellan01, you are wrong. You are beaten. You are a narrow-minded cultural atavist little better than Pat Buchanan.
Just accept it.
What? What’s this? All these words and no reach-around for your special buddy, The King of Soup? Or is it his turn now?
If you look closely at the names of those who have argued in this thread that you are anything from an idiot to a lunatic, from a bullshitter to a bigot, from being sadly mistaken to being willfully ignorant, you will find it difficult to find any lines of natural alliance. Yet we all agree you are wrong. Think about it. Or not. Regardless, I have come to view this thread as essentially trolling on your part, and I’m done with it.