Even into the 1990s, crime rates in predominantly minority neighborhoods were being held up by notorious figures like David Duke as evidence that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. The effects of poverty and discrimination in reducing educational and economic achievements had nothing to do with the analysis. In later years it would turn out that while the vast majority of crack users were white, the vast—overwhelming—majority of federal crack prosecutions were against blacks. As I asked in another thread a couple days ago, could the Tulia outrage have occurred if a black cop of similar stature had tried to take down the white population of a town with the same lack of useful evidence?
I've also read about the discriminatory practices in drug prosecutions and I agree that it's wrong. The problem I have, though, is that the arguments for things like affirmative action are based on the idea that if one group of people suffers (and, for the record, lots of groups have been discriminated against in America, including white people) then someone else MUST suffer to make up for it.
If somebody kept vandalizing my wife's car, I wouldn't try to make it "fair" by encouraging them to screw with my truck or my neighbor's motorcycle instead. I would do whatever I could to make them stop screwing with peoples' stuff, period.
With education, the only reason people object to variable standards is because blacks benefit more than whites.
So people couldn't possibly be objecting to varying standards because it's unfair and hypocritical?
The only fair thing to do, then, is to keep in place the system that makes it harder for a traditionally disadvantaged demographic to demonstrate its merits.
I think we can both agree that there is no perfect solution. Personally, I believe that while treating everyone as equals may not make things as easy for people who may have been disadvantaged, it's a lot more morally justifiable than punishing certain groups for things they didn't do and have no control over.
Those who say they did it all on their own ... look, he got admitted to Yale, and he didn't need the state to help him out. Well, if I had a legacy connection, I could have gone to an Ivy League school despite the fact that I was a horrible student.
Not everyone who gets accepted to prestigious universities or hired for great jobs had someone working for them on the inside.
Screwing over "Person A"? This exemplifies the myopia of the argument. People get screwed over every day for really stupid reasons. Eliminating longstanding racial and ethnic disparities in our society will bring positive benefits in many ways, not the least of which are productivity and the crime rate. But this isn't important, is it? Sure, it's just fine if someone gets screwed over because their boss wants a summer house in the tropics. But possibly getting screwed over—e.g., was the job guaranteed to be yours aside from the fact that a black man got it?—by a system designed to bring broad benefits to society as a whole? That's just unacceptable, isn't it?
It IS unacceptable, actually. You're right that people get screwed over all the time. But you seem to be using one person's crappy behavior to justify some other crappy behavior that you happen to agree with.
I don't think that we'll ever be able to prevent people from being screwed over (and in some cases it's simply none of our business to try), but we should at least try to prevent people from being screwed over by discriminatory policies enforced by the state.
You're arguing to perpetuate a long social ill with broad impact for the short-term benefit of a limited number of people.
Actually, I think that's what you're doing. The root cause of all of these problems is that some people were discriminated against by and/or by order of the state. It's you who is arguing that this should continue.
So what was the purpose of packing heat at a presidential event? What does one expect to communicate when invoking Jefferson (refreshing the tree of liberty) and carrying a gun? That is, if you show up at a presidential event carrying a gun and advocating armed insurrection, what would you expect to communicate?
He seemed to be communicating that he will not be tread on by the government.
Mr. Kostric said that a firearm is a defensive tool. Against what was he defending himself?
I have no idea. I wasn't there and I don't know what sort of neighborhoods he may have had to pass through to get to the event. I have read that labor union members have been urged to confront protestors, so maybe he was worried about that? Or maybe he just wanted to make a scene. Neither would surprise me.
And yes, one can certainly seek to deliberately intimidate and still be law abiding.
Sure, and it's not always wrong to try to intimidate someone.
It should also be noted that the Philadelphia incident did not involve the Black Panthers, but rather an unaffiliated group called the New Black Panther Party. The NBPP is considered a black supremacist group, denounced by the actual Black Panthers, and listed by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. Even so, the NBPP suspended its Philadelphia chapter over the incident (
Weich).
Lots of people have made the mistake of thinking the NBPP is the same as the Black Panthers; still, though, nobody seems to be doing much to correct the mistake in discussions such as these, and, as the source Ganymede (who also made the mistake) provided shows, some conservatives are perfectly willing to perpetuate the confusion.
Fair enough. But, if I recall correctly, the post I responded to referred to the Black Panthers rather than the "new and improved" version.
So one version of the organization has a history of violence. The other is made up of hatemongers bad enough that even Morris Dees has no choice but to criticize them. Neither has any business being allowed to "patrol" voting areas.
People would have been alarmed and, as Challenger suggested, outraged. However, I understand if community standards mean little to you. Still, though, from an analytical standpoint, does the coincidental change of community standards (Obama becomes president, expectations for participating in public discourse decline) strike you as significant or even suggestive?
If the change of standards were across the board, it might. But they aren't.
It's all the result of people overlooking their golden child's shortcomings. A lot of the people going apeshit about the Obama-Joker picture probably had no problem with the even more insulting images of Bush that were circulated. A lot of the people who freaked out about the Bush-vampire pictures and the like probably thought the Obama-Joker picture was brilliant.
And what was he defending himself against while advocating armed insurrection?
Tyrannical government.
In the past, the Secret Service confiscated things that weren't even weapons, but merely looked like one. Seriously, we've gone from confiscating combs to carrying a gun and advocating armed insurrection.
That's a pretty big change, and I would suggest it's a significant factor in many people's negative reactions to Mr. Kostric's behavior.
So Mr. Kostric gets crucified in the court of public opinion because the Secret Service aren't doing their jobs as well as they used to?
