Ultraconservatives pretend homophobia/racism doesn't exist

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In the wake of the kerfuffle over the NAACP saying that there were 'racist elements' in the Tea Party, they decided to actually visit some tea party meetings around the country and report on what was being said. This is the report that came from that direct observation:

http://teapartynationalism.com/index.ph ... Itemid=261

When people are called murderers for reasons having little to nothing to do with murder, you're flawed analogy might just work. Maybe. If you squint a little and un-focus your eyes.

I think at this point you've sufficiently demonstrated your lack of understanding as far as the mechanisms and nuances of communication are concerned that I feel comfortable letting the rest of your post debunk itself.

So, calling people racist because they think blacks "just don't work as hard as whites" is completely unrelated to racism? Thanks for your typical right-libertarian clear thinking, Dox.

What, you can't debunk the polls and statistics cited? I suppose you're right in not bothering to do so. After all, polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality," and reality has a well-known liberal bias. All that really matters is the truth, unfiltered by rational argument.

But if police department is plagued by scandals involving false arrests, that will tend to make the jury pool skeptical.


If Obama would disclose his long form birth certificate and let the Social Security Administration explain why he has a Connecticut social security number when he has never lived there in his life, that would lay the rumors to rest. But instead he has spent millions of dollars suppressing that information.


It's substantial, but so what? If you are trying to claim that this is a sign of racism, the people that are skeptical of Obama's birth certificate wouldn't accept a Canadian with bogus documents either.


That's because they scream persecution to get their way. I make about as much money as blacks in poverty do, and just like them, I will never make anything of myself until I get myself organized enough to land a decent job.


Would you care to explain how people land a job with middle class pay on your planet?


Checking to make sure that those people are reliable would create a needless security headache that would be best solved by moving them to non-sensitive positions but let them keep the higher pay.


Are you suggesting we raise welfare to a middle class wage? We can't do everything for them. They have to meet us at least half way, but they don't. There are social security and welfare to work programs but most do not use them. There are options for people who don't resign themselves to being a crackhead.


How do you explain this?


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/doj-voting-rights-attorney-resigns-over-black-panthers-stonewalling-94202249.html
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/washington-post-blockbuster-confirms-concerns-about-politicized-justice-department-105598023.html

Here is a picture of the black panthers that the Obama administration had all charges against them dropped after they committed voter intimidation against white voters at a poling place in Philadelphia in November 2008.

Browning is a birther: what a surprise.

Faux news' "New Black Panther Party" was two scary-looking black dudes.
quote:
"This doesn't have to do with the Black Panthers; this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration," said Thernstrom, who said members of the commission voiced their political aims "in the initial discussions" of the Panther case last year.

"My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president," Thernstrom said in an interview with POLITICO.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201007170012

Ah Orwell, you're going to force me to do what I'd hoped to avoid; wasting my time "debunking" attack posts that I'm really paying too much attention to by responding at all. I'm going to do it this time, but probably not in the way you might expect, and not in a way I'd care to repeat. Hopefully I can put this to rest, and if I meet resistance in that, link back to this post rather than bothering with time consuming individual rebuttals. So, to lay it out point by point:

1. I don't have to explain "framing" to you Orwell, so surely you've noted that Master_Pedant has latched onto this technique in a major way, using it to couch his thread titles and posts in language designed to push the reader towards a particular conclusion. To use a crude analogy, many if not most of his posts are worded along the lines of "when did you stop beating your wife?", no win scenarios to anyone attempting to rebut his assertions within the framework that he's created. When other posters either ignore the framing or point it out, they are attacked using more loaded language and terms, or he claims a "right" to do this because "the Right does it all the time" (more on that later). Yes, this is not a unique vice on this forum, but seldom is it used so often and with such bombast and hyperbole.

2. Master_Pedant either views or is choosing to portray "the Right" as some monolithic bloc of people who all share the same view, or if they don't exactly share them are "complicit" in them because other people with those views are part of the demographic. In this way, using his logic, a moderate Republican is equivalent a WBC member because they happen to fall on the same side of an artificial political measure, and he can avoid actual debate by linking his opponent to people he views as "extreme" and calling them discredited.

Take me for example; you yourself said that my views are "idiosyncratic" and don't place me in any particular political camp, yet Master_Pedant has spent considerable time and effort attempting to portray me as some sort of "Right wing extremist" ("Ultraconservative" in his parlance, or at other times saying I have a "militia mindset") and calls me paranoid (another "Right wing" trait) when I point this out. I can understand some amount of confusion, I come down Right on guns, property rights and small government, but I come down Left on many other issues including gay rights, immigration, civil liberties and separation of church and state.

I think what muddies the waters further is when I choose to step in; I do tend to call BS on Left leaning posts more often than Right because in the case of Right leaning posts that need BS called, I'd have to get in line. Especially when I first came to this board, I don't think a lot of Lefties were used to having their points disputed, W was in office and anti-right rhetoric was the order of the day in here. I don't like an echo chamber, so I tend to speak up when I see something that's not being properly addressed, and in here that more often than not means attacking Left wing hyperbole. That does not automatically mean I support the Right wing position, it just means I'm disputing the Left one.

Be that as it may, I think I've made it abundantly clear what I'm not, and yet Master_Pedant keeps up the mudslinging, trying again and again to tie me to unsavory Right wing elements (cue another paranoia accusation). I'd write it off as simple Aspie black and white thinking, but given the duration and bullheadedness on display, I'm viewing it as rather more malicious at this point.

3. In portraying a homogeneous Right wing Bloc who all share the sins of every individual that he's chosen to include in this framework, Master_Pedant has created a justification for his use of extensive framing and manipulative language; "They did it first / do it too". Thus when other posters point out the ridiculously biased thread titles, rigged polls, and misleading rhetoric, they're either accused of being part of said Bloc and thus complicit in similar deceptive tactics employed by individuals also belonging to this construct, or berated with abusive language and insinuations about their "blindness"or ignorance.

Just look at his reply to Visagrunt earlier in this very thread for a perfect example, in that same post he goes on to essentially justify bigotry and gross over-generalizations as long as they're the right types of such.

4. In his portrayal of a homogeneous Right that all share complicity in the excesses of every individual, he's in effect created the ultimate straw-man; he doesn't have to debate anyone if he can connect them in any way, however tangentially, to the racist, homophobic Right. This quote is particularly illuminating:



He admits that his "monolith" framework is invalid, then simply dismisses the suggestion that he shouldn't make such false generalizations.

To conclude, these are my thoughts:

Master_Pedant is not here to engage in discussion or debate, he is here to push an agenda through any means available to him.
To this end, he is willing (and willing to justify) using misleading framework, gross generalizations, and character assassination among other things.
He's shown himself eager to pursue vendettas against those who question him and go to great lengths to discredit them or damage their reputation.
He consistently baits those who he views as his ideological enemies, essentially trolling the forum with generalized attacks on groups with whom he disagrees.
He's unable to accept criticism of his worldview or even his presentation of it, and takes things personally when such criticism occurs.

In light of these observations, I feel no need to waste my time engaging with him any more than necessary to correct some of the more glaring errors and the constant egregious mischaracterizations of myself and others like me, hence my curt reply in this thread. I could care less what a bunch of polls of Republicans say, I'm not a Republican but will defend them when I think they're right, same as any other group or poster.

Hope that clears things up for you Orwell.

I'll add some particularly apropos words by Radley Balko,when responding to a similar situation:



Does the part in bold sound familiar to anyone?

OK, but that's not really relevant to the racism argument.


MP rebutted the claim "racism is extremely rare" with various statistics and poll data indicating that racism is still evident in a significant portion of the population, with notably higher levels among conservatives. The "monolith" argument is irrelevant here. It is not necessary to claim the Tea Parties are a monolith, only that a large portion of the individuals in those groups hold a certain viewpoint.


But when given empirical data in the form of poll results you ignore it and instead write a lengthy dissertation on why MP is not worth your time to rebut?

MP showed off some statistics, but resorted to sensationalism and made no attempt to rule out possible causes as to why people might have held those particular beliefs without harboring racist motives.

You certainly could nitpick several of the numbers he cited, and I would say a couple of them might be a bit of a stretch to infer racism, but the overall picture looked clear enough. Several of those numbers unambiguously indicate racist attitudes.

I think you misread my intent, Orwell. I'm not interested in debating the stats, you know as well as anyone how easily manipulated poll data and numbers are, it's the dishonesty and manipulation, along with it's self righteous justification that I'm responding to. To make an analogy, would you expect a serious public figure to respond to charges leveled by The National Enquirer? I'm not the one who thinks my positions need propping up with hyperbole and broad generalizations here.

MP showed statistics that show people hold those beliefs, but he did not show that they hold those beliefs because they harbor racist sentiments. He failed to rule out other reasons why people might harbor the views listed in the statistics. MP failed to disprove that many Americans question Obama's birth certificate simply because he has been extremely evasive about the matter for more than 2 years now, yet he jumped to the conclusion people are just using his birth certificate to slander him because he is black.

MP failed to disprove that conservatives want the poor to rely less on the government and take more initiative for themselves, and it just so happens that a lot of black people are poor. MP is suggesting that conservatives are deliberately out to belittle the black community. What he could never ascertain from his statistics is that conservatives and especially libertarians are willing to put their money where their mouth is- many of them would never accept any substantial government aid. I've never known anybody who refused help getting food but these people wouldn't be caught dead on welfare.

Conservatives work hard and do a good job to work their way up to a better paying job based on the merit from their past work. Conservatives simply expect other groups to live up to the same standards they hold themselves to. Picking the most competent employee for the job, regardless of race, is how companies stay productive. It doesn't matter what race you are, if you are getting passed up for promotion, you shape up. How MP figures that's racist is quite a stretch.

People want to know they are safe flying commercial airlines. The problem with using Arabs and Muslims for security is that they have earned a really bad reputation in the last decade, and part of that reputation is keeping a very low profile for a very long time before carrying out an attack. Arabs/Muslims current reputations are a lot like a product recall or financial scandal that shakes consumer confidence- once the problem is corrected people eventually be open to using the product or service again. Likewise, when the Islamic community finally outs the radicals and starts policing itself, the flying public will start to feel safer having Arabs and Muslims for sensitive airport security jobs. Once again, it's not about race, it's about behavior.

Several of those beliefs are explicitly racist, for instance the racial profiling of Middle Easterners in airport security. As to the birther idiots, don't kid yourself, that is largely a racial thing. No one questioned McCain, even though he was the one who actually was not born in America. Why? McCain was white. He looked "American." Obama had a funny name and dark skin, so obviously he must be a foreigner.


The statement was that "black people would be as well off as white people if they just worked harder." Agreeing with this statement indicates that one believes blacks are generally lazier than whites, rather than being poor because of institutional factors such as lack of educational opportunities, limited class mobility, residual racism in society, and other issues contributing to the ongoing cycle of poverty.


BS. I have never known a conservative to turn down government money, whether they needed it or not, and I know a lot of conservatives. I also know several hard-core rightists who collect welfare and unemployment checks without realizing the irony. I've also had conservatives working for government institutions tell me that "taxation is theft" seemingly without noticing that their paycheck was drawn from tax money.

Point is, conservatives are often hypocrites who hold to ridiculous double standards.


Typical self-aggrandizing conservative myth that conservatives are "real, hard-working Americans" and anyone else is just a whining free-loader. Before you make such an ignorant comment again, please recall that red states receive more federal assistance than they pay in with taxes, while the reverse is true for blue states. Put another way, liberals are subsidizing conservatives. On balance, liberals fund the welfare state while conservatives draw from it.


So not only are you a racist, you also can't read. The poll question was not about Muslims working as airport security workers, it was about targeting and harassing Muslims who try to board airplanes.

And I don't care what rationalization you try to make up, as you did above. Saying "this ethnic group is unsuited for this job" or "this ethnic group should be singled out for different treatment in this area" is racism, plain and simple. You can't get around that without severely redefining words. How the hell do you imagine it's "not about race" to block an entire racial group from a certain job based on no criteria other than their ethnicity?

You have just made a great deal of sense.

ruveyn

This isn't bad as a quick and dirty refutation of many of MP's points, it's not perfect, but like I've stressed repeatedly I really don't want to waste my time digging into the sources and methods used in those studies. JB's basic assertion is quite valid however; that there is simply not enough data here to throw the racism accusation around as cavalierly as it has been, even if the numbers are accepted at face value. Where I continue to have a real problem is the fallacy that because a majority of racists identify as conservative, an assertion that I'm willing to entertain, that a majority of conservatives therefore must be racists. That's a textbook logical fallacy, one that I think certain poster's own ideological sympathies and or general antipathy towards conservatism have blinded them to.

I don't think MP has ever claimed that. The claim was that racism is more common among conservatives than among other groups, and in particular that racism is much more common than conservatives like to believe.