I’ve given some more thought to sleeping’s remarks as they apply to comparisons of bigotry aimed at different ethnic groups. It’s a fascinating concept, deserving of more discussion. I’ve constructed a handy reference, the Acceptable Bigotry Scale, to aid Dopers in this regard. Note the simplicity of correlating acceptable bigotry to perceived power and influence (while ignoring historical events), and how handy it is to view everyone as a faceless member of a group.
Bigotry aimed at blacks: All would agree, low in the power structure. Racism is unacceptable here.
Bigotry directed at Hispanics - slightly less icky, but to be avoided in general.
Bigotry against Jews - Much more acceptable, especially verbal hatemongering. Burning down synagogues - probably ungood. The “good” Jews (the ones who agree with us) can be exempted (for now).
Bigotry against Muslims - better yet, since there’s lots of them, they run numerous countries and sit on big oil wealth. Bigotry increases according to their perceived power and influence. “Good” Muslims are exempt, if you can think of any.
Bigotry against Christians: Have at it. They’re way up on the power structure, they can take it. No exemptions, they take care of their own.
Bigotry against Caucasians: Are you kidding me?
So, are we all agreed, we can all throw off the chains of nicety and let the nastiness fly? It’s the holiday season, after all.
Note that I even italicized the word “more.” Guess what that means? I don’t like capital punishment. I am not advocating anyone’s death. In absolute terms, a suitable punishment would be something less than death.
Again, not pro-death.
Even besides his admission that he tends toward exaggeration, I don’t see how his earlier statement makes this a logical inference.
So, at this point, you have no real argument. Just dishonest and mean-spirited insinuations.
Okay, you really need to work on your reading skills, bud. Black can be racist. Ethnic / racial / religious minorities can be racist. Farrakhan is racist. I never said otherwise. I merely pointed out that two warring parties may both be in the wrong, but one is significantly more powerful than the other and accordingly inflicts more damage, the weaker one may have some claim to sympathy. And that’s distilling social and historical complexities to a crude analogy.
See above. You are twisting Sev’s self-admittedly hyperbolic statements.
Sev–let me just say that I am only defending you on this because I’m sick and tired of a particular mindset that has been deployed and is most evident in the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
Yes, yes, how nice. Jamie Lynn is indeed hot. And our time could be spent better than such verbal masturbations; namely, manual ones. How clever.
But this is in large part why you piss people off. Continuously refusing to engage people directly and preferring to toss out backhanded satirical comments loses its luster fairly quickly. There’s a time for jabs, but sometimes you need to offer a straightforward rebuttal.
I went to school in Yonkers, NY in the 50’s and on Jewish holidays, a good third of the student body stayed home. My point is many of my good friends are and have been Jewish.
Let me also say imo that ALL religion is institutionalized superstition. They range in effect from exclusive and repressive to tolerant and expressive and are united across ethnic lines.
Judaism is unique among them in that it’s members by definition share the same maternal bloodline. In practice, Judaism has evolved into a religious spectrum from ultra-orthodox to near-unreligion but the underlying ethnic unity often trumps “religious” differences, hence Israel.
I don’t find it at all surprising that a group who bills themselves as the Chosen People and discourages miscegenation with God’s unfortunates has historically found itself on the other end of the stick.
I think he has been quite clear about what he believes.
[ul][li]All Jews in Israel should be killed.[]Everyone who supports Israel should be killed.[]All Jews support Israel.[/ul]Pretty straightforward AFAICT.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
“Chosen” means chosen for extra religious duties. It does not mean that Jews are especially favoured. In point of fact, Judaism is one of the few religions I know of where righteous non-Jews are considered, religiously, exactly equal to righteous Jews (only they don’t have to do all the same mumbo-jumbo that Jews do).
The term for such non-Jewish folk is “Noahide”. Look it up.
Those like yourself who repeat Jew-hating canards never understand this, and assume (quite wrongly) that “Chosen People” is to Jews as “Aryan” is to Nazis. Totally wrongly!
Religiously, there is no particular reason to want to be Jewish, because you get extra duties but no extra reward above and beyond being a Noahide. This is quite unlike (say) Christianity, in many sects of which you only get to heaven if you are Christian.
I suppose this is just pissing in the wind, of course.
I’m just sayin’, you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.
Chosen people doesn’t mean what you think it means, and the Jewish peoples don’t all share a maternal bloodline. If both parent’s aren’t Jewish, than you’re Jewish without converting if your mother is Jewish. If your father is Jewish and your mother Christian, than you’ve got to (according to some sects!) convert.
Others go by either parent, or even a single grandparent. Others still, don’t require a ‘conversion process’ so much as a ‘conversion of the soul.’
As someone who isn’t a Jew, I wrongly had the assumption that chosen people was some sort of reference to being “Favored by God”. Thanks for posting that and disabusing me of that idea. Ignorance fought and all that.
A) Welcome to post-war America. This was not always so, you know.
B) And what the Torah has to say on the subject of “chosenness” has long been debated within Judaism. Today we agree that it means separate but equal. Historically, however, I think favored by God is the more general interpretation, outside of Judaism.
It doesn’t mean “seperate but equal” and there was never any debate within Judaism that “chosen” meant anything like what you so evidently assume.
The fact that non-Jews have “chosen” to use the term as yet another anti-Jewish canard is neither here nor there, other than to raise the question as to why you are using it as such now.
Pure ignorance on my part. My most SO was the daughter of a rabbi and the subject never came up. I consider myself educated but am really uninterested in religion.
I hereby choose not to use chosen in this context ever again.
It is just another illustration of the strength and depth of anti-Jewish narratives in our society. A person who doesn’t actually study this stuff would, it would seem, almost invariably and without being aware of it absorb the narratives and assume they were true.
As for being interested in religion - I myself view this as more a matter of anthropology than piety. It is a good idea for everyone to be interested in something that motivates so very many folks for good or bad.
