Another Martin Luther King Jr he is not.
If he wants to move the goal post, or rephrase what he meant, then he’s free to do so. Until then, I can only judge what he writes, not what he might have been thinking.
And if no one thinks this, why did monstro try to prove it?
So, is the proposition that more Democrats think racism is a problem than Republicans? If someone wants to put that forth, then great. Not very sexy, but great. But when someone says “Republicans think racism is over”, I don’t see any reason not to take them at their word. If they didn’t mean it, they shouldn’t have said it.
I’m pretty sure the unspoken end of that phrase is “as a significant problem in America”. That is, Republicans don’t think racism (against black people) is a major problem any more. For the record, I think this statement is true of many or perhaps even most Republicans.
Someone found examples of Republicans saying it, and then you turn around and insist that you were only talking about the party as a whole, and then declare that other people are moving the goalposts.
I don’t know what your deal is in this thread, but it ain’t pretty.
The latter.
This is the cornerstone of GOP hopes to win a national election. They can’t win on their platform; they can win only by suppressing the votes of those likely to vote for a Democrat.
And black votes–overwhelmingly Democratic–are the major target (though students and anyone at the lower end of the economic spectrum of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, as likely Democratic voters, are also targeted).
In gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts gave as his rationale, “our country has changed.”*
Making sure it’s harder for black people to vote can be done only under the cover of the claim that Our Country Has Changed and that we are now in a Post-Racial period. That claim permits the enfeebling of voting rights provisions of all kinds. And that claim is undermined if anyone swerves from the party line that racism is a thing of the past.
After the November 2014 elections, some observed the gains made by GOP candidates that would, in all probability, have been impossible if not for voter-suppression efforts:
The article goes on to detail the likely-changed outcomes of 2014 races in two other states. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-voter-suppression-laws-are-already-deciding-elections/2014/11/10/52dc9710-6920-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html
If racism exists, these efforts to restrict voting rights to likely-Republican voters will be undermined. Therefore, racism cannot exist–or at least, right-wing speakers must continue to hold to the line that it does not exist.
Here’s the whole quote:
If he didn’t mean it, why did it write it twice? And the first time it’s put in quotes.
Like I said, I can only judge posters here by what they write. If he wants to come back and say he was wrong, that’s cool. We all make mistakes.
The website is already down (not just down, but obliberated) but you can access it through archive.org and the text is here:
It’s not a mistake. You’re pretending you don’t know how to read. I know you’re pretending because on every other topic you are able to make these natural inferences like an intelligent person. It is on this topic in particular that you fail to make such inferences. That is a sign of pretense.
Socrates you are not. You need to be more straightforward.
As you know–as everyone here knows–it is part of the skill of reading to make inferences about an author’s meaning that are not limited to the literal content of the words the author wrote down. This one is not a difficult problem in non-literal reading. It is a run of the mill, unobjectionable and unsurprising case of someone abbreviating a complicated idea through the use of a catchphrase. As you know–as everybody here knows–the quotation marks serve to signal this, and do not serve to signal an exact transliteration of a thought the poster imagines is happening in people’s head.
I don’t know who you think you’re fooling here, John, tbh. Perhaps it is you yourself.
Actually, about ten years ago that is almost exactly what happened in Seattle, except it was a Jewish community center instead of a Synagogue and the general reaction from the politicians and the Press, including not just a Presidential candidate, but an actual President, behaved largely that way, strongly downplaying the idea that this was an example of Islamic extremism and avoided largely referring to it as terrorism.
In fact, the Justice Department under the bleeding heart liberal George Bush declined to pursue the idea of this being a case of domestic terrorism.
Personally I think they made the right decision, but presumably you feel differently.
This is the last I’m going to write about this until the poster comes back and clarifies his post…
There are two reasons to use quotation marks. One is scare quotes, when you are making fun of what you say, or saying something tongue-in-cheek. The other is to emphasize the literalness of what you are saying. Those weren’t scare quotes, so I can only conclude that he wanted to emphasize the literalness of what he posted. Plus, as I noted, he said the same thing twice.
So, if by “read” you mean ignore obvious attempts to make something look important, then no, I can’t do that. And when someone posts something that they don’t mean, then they have made a mistake. It’s funny that you’re all bent out of shape because Republicans won’t call the this guy “racist”, but you’re twisting yourself into a knot trying to avoid calling that post a mistake. Good think I stopped buying irony meters a long time ago.
Plus, in a debate forum such as this, I would hope we’d all strive for accuracy of posts rather than relying on interpretations, because if you don’t think interpretations are going to vary by reader, then you haven’t been paying attention to how this forum works for very long. Write what you mean, and mean what you write. If you make a mistake, it’s no big deal to correct it.
Then I’ll leave the issue alone as well, so as not to grab the last word.
No one said anything about whether violence committed because of political ideology ought always be prosecuted as terrorism. That’s a complete red herring.
My claim was that in such circumstances as are analogous to the Charleston case except the basis of the hate and the identity of the victims, a leader would be criticized for suggesting we wait until conviction before definitively identifying the nature of the motivation or talking about a broader social response.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the Seattle case is similarly an obvious call as to motivation, did President Bush say something along the lines of “we don’t know the motivation, but maybe it was anti-Semitism,” and then further say nothing more about Islamic extremism or how we ought to respond to it? I highly doubt it. But I’m open to you proving otherwise.
Bush made a point of not labelling it Islamic extremism or terrorism and the usual right-wing groups such as Campus Watch etc. pissed and moaned about this.
I’m sure that the incident was debated on this site, though it was long before my time.
For the record, I think Bush, the Mayor of Seattle and others were correct to avoid making this about Islam so as not to inflame tensions and to show respect for the Muslim community within the US.
I’ll also note that over the course of the three years it took to bring the case to trial a lot of evidence turned up to suggest the case wasn’t nearly as simple as many thought.
It’s been less than three days and we’ve already learned some pretty surprising things.
Cite? (I’m not very familiar with that attack, but from what I’ve just googled in the last 3 minutes, I don’t actually think that case was very analogous since the shooter’s motives were known to be more complicated quite early on–but again I’m just saying let’s assume it were otherwise for the sake of argument. Can you cite Bush’s response in which he acknowledges the attacks but downplays the anti-Semitic motive?)
Did you have a problem with Bush talking about Islamic extremism with respect to 9/11? If not, what was different about the Seattle shooting other than the degree to which the motive was less clear? Note that making this about Islam and making this about Islamic extremism is exactly the line Bush was always (superficially, at least) careful to walk.
Nothing we’ve learned or could reasonably learn about the Charleston shooting would cast doubt on white supremacy being the principal motivation in this case. Yes, it’s possible that his express justifications for the attack before, during, and after it are all some elaborate ruse for something else. Or that the witness who reported that are lying. But within the realm of reasonable expectations, there’s simply no reason to hedge our bets at this point.
Acknowledging that this shooting was racially motivated is not analogous to making a shooting “about Islam.”
Nobody is saying this guy shot up a church because he’s white. Nobody would object if Jeb Bush demurred at the suggestion that white people have a mass shooting problem. The controversial point is not recognizing the fact that the guy shot up the church because the victims were black. The analogous move by George Bush would be if he had said something like “well, it seems like it was probably relevant that this was a Jewish community center, but how can we know for sure.”
You said nothing in your original hypothetical about a politician refusing to define it as an example “anti-Semitism”.
Instead, you argued that you would feel that politicians downplaying the idea of “Islamic extremism” which of course in this real life experience, the Mayor of Seattle and others, including the news media at large did.
Once again, I think they behaved responsibly and I commend them for this, though the normal scream and shout crew on the right did squeal about “political correctness” etc.
I think you’d agree.
For those a bit confused by this, what I’m referring to is the infamous case where a self-identified jihadi, who was also an American born citizen of the US, walked into the Seattle Jewish Federation community center, identified himself as “A Muslim American angry at the Jews” over the way “Israel had treated my people” who was also angry at the way America was “giving money to the Jews” and then began shooting up the place, murdered a number of people(most of whom ironically enough were IIRC gentiles) before being captured.
The case bears lots of striking similarities to the current case as well as to Richard Paker’s hypothetical.
It’s part of the reason I was so shocked by Parker bringing up the hypothetical since it struck me as so similar and respectfully, undercut his case.
I think you are finding salient parts of the hypothetical not intended to be relevant. You could re-construct my hypothetical with “anti-Semitism” instead of “Islamic extremism” and it would serve the same goal. My only purpose in using the latter term is that it might more easily call to mind the kind of secondary issues raised by the attack–but those are equally present with anti-Semitism.
Note also that in your description of the attack you’ve omitted several details making his intent a lot less clear, including the claim that he did it because he didn’t like George Bush.
My statement dealt with the OP. There are a couple of posters who want to run out and condemn an entire group of people for not saying what you claim is the “correct” thing in this case. Your “evidence,” (such as it is), has been a short list of cherry-picked quotations in which several people expressed concern for the tragedy, but did not run out and cry “Racism! Racism!” (Much as President Obama did not cry “Racism!” in his first remarks.)
The point is not that anyone has denied racism, (even the idiot Doocy did not actually deny it). The point is that you are attributing denial to a simple failure to use the word in a brief statement that may or may not have been taken out of context, (or even quoted in full). (Bush was accused of claiming it was not racism when he, in fact, said he believed it was–which is more than Obama said in his first comment.)
I would guess that the reason that a number of people are not running around crying “Racism” has nothing to do with a denial of racism, but a recognition that racism is so clearly an element that it needs no further comment. Your inference that the quoted pieces were examples of “doubt or denial” were exactly that: your inference. They are not actually expressions of “doubt or denial”; they are simply too short and uttered too soon after the news broke, to draw any conclusions. Doocy identified himself as an idiot. Santorum has subsequently declared his own “religion is under attack” agenda. However, the rest of the people have not expressed doubt or denial.
The reality is that such incidents become immediate beacons to which numerous groups attach their own agendas. Fox decided to push their combined agendas of attacks on religion and the need for churches to provide armed guards (or armed pastors) to prevent such events from recurring. The NAACP decided to use the event to call for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the capitol grounds. Obama decided to use the event to push for greater limits on gun possession. You decided to use it as a bully pulpit to condemn people whom you regard as supporting or denying racism, (including Bush who said it was racist and not Obama who did not say it was).
I have not heard anyone calling for an investigation to see where Roof picked up his ideas. It is not currently part of anyone’s agenda. He had no record of racism in high school, dropped out of sight of his friends, and came back as a white supremacist, (albeit such a wild-eyed loon that no one, white or black, who knew him believed he was serious). Where are the calls to find his sources. (I am sure that the FBI is interested in tracking them down, but I have not heard any of the “bring down the Confederate flag” voices expressing an interest in that. Blaiming the vague word “racism” is pointless.
Racism still infects this country, but this sort of event remains rare. As such, trying to assemble a group to be condemned for not declaring racism to be “the problem” is pointless and counterproductive. I know racists and I cannot imagine any one of them contemplating this act. “Racism” does not even answer the question “Why did he do it?” What public issue was behind the actions of James Holmes in a Colorado Springs theater? Was the Virginia Tech massacre (Seung-Hui Cho) the result of prejudice against people who do not speak clearly? Now that we have evidence that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were never bullied, what social ill is “the reason” behind the Columbine shootings? As clearly racist as Roof is, racism does not explain his actions and there is no evidence that eliminating racism would have prevented him from going off the deep end and finding another reason to murder. Condemning people for not being explicit in condemning racism is nothing more than using this event to push a personal agenda.
We are better off looking for better ways to eliminate racism. Crying “Racist!” at people who did not respond with the proper condemnation of racism after this event will not actually do anything to eliminate racism. It is little more than a self-congratulatory circle in which those people whom we let into that circle are celebrated as non-racists.
When Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, or Mark Sanford declare that they are not sure that racism was involved, I will join you in condemning them. I will grant you Santorum, but he has long been a twit. You can’t have Jeb Bush because he has already noted the aspect of racism.
If you find other people talking about emulating Roof, then let’s stop them. If the aforementioned political leaders actually promote racism, then let’s oppose their actions. This thread has no purpose beyond self-congratulatory recreational outrage.
Got it. I thought it dealt with the entire thread:
And in mistakenly thinking you were referring to the entire thread, I took the following to apply to the whole thread (including my follow-up posts) as well:
That is why my my reply to you consisted in showing you later posts of mine in which I explained why the quotes from post 20 do constitute effective denials and acts of doubting towards the question of whether the shooter was motivated by racism.
My mistake.
and since I apparently wholly misunderstood your post, it is entirely understandable if you wish to ignore that explanation and simply continue asserting the irrelevance of the quotes from post 20.
As I said above, it is entirely understandable if you wish to ignore (as you are here) my explanation and simply continue asserting the irrelevance of the quotes from post 20.
It is entirely understandable if you wish to ignore (as you are here) my explanation and simply continue asserting the irrelevance of the quotes from post 20.
What you are saying here has jack-all to do with any argument I’ve made, but perhaps you’ve honestly misunderstood the OP, and since you were addressing only the OP and not the rest of the thread, you have not yet seen further remarks in the thread which should make it even clearer than the OP does that what you’ve said here has jack-all to do with any argument I’ve made. There is nothing wrong with an honest misunderstanding.
If I didn’t know better, I would think you were referring to Richard Parker and not me, as he is the poster who has suggested anything like (and btw, only like) this. Myself, I’ve suggested no such thing. In fact I agree with John Mace that politicians are often too quick to, as he put, “shoot their mouths off” about things.
See, if I didn’t know better, I’d think all that. But to think all that would require assuming you meant your post to address the entire thread and not just the OP, so I do know better.
it is entirely understandable if you wish to ignore (as you are here) my explanation and simply continue asserting the irrelevance of the quotes from post 20.
But theuy do not. your explanation requires you tio know the context and the complete statement, (for which I hacve seen neither), and requires them to say something challenging the idea that racism was involved.
I believe that you really want them to have been in denial, but you have utterly failed to have substantiated your claim. I grant you Santorum and his desire to make it a religious attack, but you have nothing else but your own desires that they be “bad” people who are avoiding racism. No evidence.