Attention: "alt right" is no longer politically correct

[Elixir]

Reality: Those things are socioeconomic status, not race.

Reality: They correlate strongly with race. White privilege is the prime causal suspect for that correlation, unless you can come up with another factor that accounts for the stark division in what you prefer to call socioeconomic status.

I answered this already. History and lack of proper social support and equal opportunity for individuals. You rubes don't even have universal health care nevermind universal basic income or free education (which we also lack). And both our countries still allow massive transfers of wealth from parent to child upon the death of the parent with minimal taxes. Think about it. Change that and you go a LONG way to creating a more even playing field, and over generations it should even out. This isn't racist and is far better than throwing gasoline on the flames as Loren put it, by the government actually pushing racism rather than combating it.

I agree with that, and it's well said. But doesn't negate my point.

Seriously, if you are for racist treatment of people, pushing for policies based on race groups rather than on individuals, race instead of merit, race instead of need, etc, how are you so different from racists from the past? You've just changed the favoured race.

That's a well-dressed strawman. I'd prefer that counter-productive measures like affirmative action were not invoked to cover up basic systemic flaws like for-profit healthcare. Privileged white people are the proponents of that status quo.

 

[laughing dog]

If you believe that conservatives treat blacks as individuals and not as a group I need you to explain Mr. "Blacks deserve to be poor because of genetics." Is he treating blacks as individuals or is he tempering his support for ending racism with whatever he needs to say to support the discussion of the moment? And exposing his deep seeded racism in the process.

You have to agree that it is highly disingenuous that the political sector, the conservatives, who embraced legal racism for hundreds of years now are the loudest for getting rid of racism in such a strict sense only when there are the least attempts to help blacks. It is hard to believe that they have become so altruistic and that they aren't still responding to the fear of being overtaken if blacks are elevated in any minor way.

Once again, I point to the sole outrage in affirmative action left for the right is apparently over professional and elite university admissions, where in most cases the universities admission policies are justified. It is just a minor portion of what has been going on in these universities since they were founded. These highly selective universities reserve the right to make up their student bodies any way that they want for any reason that they want.

As long as the concept of race has such a hold on our society the professional universities believe that each race deserves to have doctors, lawyers, etc. from their own race. This is not unreasonable. Remember that an extremely conservative Supreme Court found that this is justifiable, as well as the idea that the universities should have control over who they admit. Note that this is now only the case for private universities, public universities have for the most part, strict color blind policies imposed by conservative state legislatures, except in the professional schools as I pointed out. No one is being denied an education by these admission requirements. Not like blacks were denied an education in the era of legalized racism.

Racism is still rampant in hiring in the private sector. This results in blacks being over represented in the public sector. And predictably, disingenuous conservatives see this as further evidence of inverse racism.

Racism is still rampant in education. Blacks are still over represented in the underprivileged. The schools that serve the underprivileged are poorly supported, a result of the uneven funding created by the reliance on property taxes. The solution is a more even funding of the schools, but this is opposed because it would mean sending our money to help others, a strict redline of redistribution for conservatives. The intentional redistribution of money is required in a capitalistic system where the system over rewards capital and rentiers and under rewards labor and invention.

The idea that this should be ignored results in large degree of pain to the poor and disproportionately then to blacks. This is racism from specious economics, fully supported by the grateful sponsors and beneficiaries of movement conservatism, the already wealthy. The redistribution of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the already wealthy, supported by conservatives largely because of its appeal to their residual racism and sexism. How else can you explain the singular most striking racial imbalance in this support, the large number of white middle and lower class men who support the wealthy against the men's own economic interests?

It is also due to "enabling racism" which results from insisting racism be judged solely by individual cases and then dreaming up any myriad of SES variables to explain away any racism. As you point out, people take race into account. Which makes the remedy of "stop thinking about race" very ineffective and which does nothing to help the actual current victims.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Unfortunately racism is so ingrained in our culture that it won't disappear until the very concept of race disappears. Fortunately the kids are handling this now. In Atlanta where I live about one in four young couples would be considered interracial in the past, if the part of town that I live in is any indication. It is hard to hate black people when your grandchildren are black.

Yes. I have long advocated this as a solution. We need to breed the concept of race away. Its harder for people to have racial bias when they themselves don't fit neatly into one of the race category boxes people make up.

If you believe that conservatives treat blacks as individuals and not as a group I need you to explain Mr. "Blacks deserve to be poor because of genetics." Is he treating blacks as individuals or is he tempering his support for ending racism with whatever he needs to say to support the discussion of the moment? And exposing his deep seeded racism in the process.

I do not believe that all conservatives treat blacks as individuals. Some do and some don't. Same with Liberals. Anybody who as the person you quote says "blacks deserve" anything, good or bad, isn't treating people as individuals. Same goes for "whites are this" or "asians are that".

You have to agree that it is highly disingenuous that the political sector, the conservatives, who embraced legal racism for hundreds of years now are the loudest for getting rid of racism in such a strict sense only when there are the least attempts to help blacks. It is hard to believe that they have become so altruistic and that they aren't still responding to the fear of being overtaken if blacks are elevated in any minor way.

First, we need to acknowledge that conservatives of years ago are not the same people as conservatives today are. Again, we need to see them as individuals who share some but certainly not all opinions and ideologies. Second, getting people to speak against racism creates a sentiment or at least quotes by them that can be turned around to apply to all. When you speak against racism, you are a hypocrite if you are racist about it. That goes for the conservatives as much as it goes for the regressive left.

These highly selective universities reserve the right to make up their student bodies any way that they want for any reason that they want.

Including racism. I see a problem with that.

As long as the concept of race has such a hold on our society the professional universities believe that each race deserves to have doctors, lawyers, etc. from their own race. This is not unreasonable. Remember that an extremely conservative Supreme Court found that this is justifiable

Yes, it is unreasonable. I don't care who from what ideology finds it reasonable. They are wrong and they are excusing racism. If a conservative refuses to be treated by a doctor because he is black, then that conservative if being racist. If a liberal insists on a black doctor, then they are also being racist. I have little sympathy for them and don't really mind them suffering the discomfort of being treated by their disliked race.

No one is being denied an education by these admission requirements. Not like blacks were denied an education in the era of legalized racism.

It isn't nearly as bad, no. Not even close. But it is bad. And yes, people are being denied due to their race, as the spots are limited. I have numerous Asian friends who were well above average on scores but lost the positions to others with lower scores because there are "too many Asians". If that isn't racist, I'm not sure what is. It isn't like they did deep background checks on the candidates. They just looked at the scores and then at the races. Perhaps Canada has gone further over the bend than the USA has, but I suspect it has happened there too.

Racism is still rampant in hiring in the private sector. This results in blacks being over represented in the public sector. And predictably, disingenuous conservatives see this as further evidence of inverse racism.

If people are being hired in the public sector because they are black, then yes, that is racism. And it doesn't in any way undo the racism in the private sector. The answer to racism is to route it out and to create empathy between people of different races, not to create more racism elsewhere, such as in the private sector, or in minority owned shops.

Racism is still rampant in education. Blacks are still over represented in the underprivileged. The schools that serve the underprivileged are poorly supported, a result of the uneven funding created by the reliance on property taxes. The solution is a more even funding of the schools, but this is opposed because it would mean sending our money to help others, a strict redline of redistribution for conservatives. The intentional redistribution of money is required in a capitalistic system where the system over rewards capital and rentiers and under rewards labor and invention.

The property tax for funding idea is a bad one. End that. Have equal public funding for all. No need to involve race in that. It will help more black people than white people, but it will do so in a non-racist way.

The idea that this should be ignored results in large degree of pain to the poor and disproportionately then to blacks. This is racism from specious economics, fully supported by the grateful sponsors and beneficiaries of movement conservatism, the already wealthy. The redistribution of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the already wealthy, supported by conservatives largely because of its appeal to their residual racism and sexism. How else can you explain the singular most striking racial imbalance in this support, the large number of white middle and lower class men who support the wealthy against the men's own economic interests?

Again, this is addressing class as much as or more so than race. If they are using class as a racial proxy to sneak in their racism against black people by abusing the poor overall, then champion the poor overall. This is the reverse of the same racial proxy argument we hear from the regressive left, who want to help the black because the black are equated with the poor. Helping the poor is the answer to both of these proxy failures of logic.

As for why white middle and lower class men support conservatives who want to screw them over against their own interests, you'll have to ask those people. I have asked a few, and usually the answer is that they care more about other social issues, religion, abortion, guns, military jingoim, etc. Some of them have racism mixed into that, as we saw with some Trump supporters last election, but that is far from the complete picture.

Are there any other reasons for this level of support for laissez faire economics among white middle class and poor men?

Again, you'll have to ask them. I suspect that yes, there are many. I'm so far on the other end of that though that I can't even pretend to speak for them.

What I don't support is the national basic income. It will always be derided by the right as welfare (or an entitlement) even if everyone receives it. You don't have to look any further than long time the Republican targets of Medicare and Social Security to see the truth of this.

So, some people will oppose it. That doesn't make it a bad idea. We need to convince them and bring them on board. Again, as I noted above, "conservatives" are not a hive mind who all agree with one another, as much as they may appear that way to us liberals (and yes, they often do!). There will no doubt be cries of "Socialism!" and scare tactics used, but eventually we'll get used to it and own't want to give it up, just how Conservatives in Canada don't want to lose universal health care.

Most people would see most or all of their national income taken away in the higher taxes needed to pay for it.

I disagree with that. A large chunk sure, taxes will go up, but it won't take all of everyone's money. There are a number of ways to fund it, and one is the end of inheritance as I noted in previous posts above. Heavy sales and consumption tax is another. Setting mandated wages employers must pay, rather than having the government put in UBI, puts the load entirely on employers, as those who automate or run businesses requiring fewer workers, and the idle rich, don't pay their fair share.

The rest of your post was an interesting read about economics but rather off topic to the current conversation. Maybe a good starting point for a new separate thread?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Reality: They correlate strongly with race. White privilege is the prime causal suspect for that correlation,

I answered this already. History and lack of proper social support and equal opportunity for individuals. combating it.

I agree with that, and it's well said. But doesn't negate my point.

Were you saying that white privilege in history was the cause? That is certainly true. Or were you saying present day white privilege is the cause? That is less evident. Does a wealthy black person enjoy the same rigged economy an equally wealthy white person does?

I'd prefer that counter-productive measures like affirmative action were not invoked to cover up basic systemic flaws like for-profit healthcare. Privileged white people are the proponents of that status quo.

I'd prefer giving everyone a fair shot, regardless of race, and not allowing the rich to distract us from that goal with identity race politics.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How would you go about it, for instance, when confronted with job applicants being discriminated against on account of being black?

That does not look good.

Appears to be a meta-study, involving, in total, 55,842 applications submitted for 26,326 positions.

"Contrary to widespread assumptions about the declining significance of race, the magnitude and consistency of discrimination we observe over time is a sobering counterpoint."
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full

I've seen a lot of garbage in such studies. A meta-study doesn't get rid of the garbage.

 

[Elixir]

Were you saying that white privilege in history was the cause? That is certainly true. Or were you saying present day white privilege is the cause? That is less evident.

I don't see the utility of searching "the cause" within a system as chaotic as human societies. Almost everything is multi-causal. Obviously, any move toward a more egalitarian society, e.g. universal health care, would help. In the US we're headed in the opposite direction, and the historical precedent of white privilege will maintain for the near future.

I'd prefer giving everyone a fair shot, regardless of race, and not allowing the rich to distract us from that goal with identity race politics.

Americans have been taught that they are exemplary in that regard, no matter how blatantly racist ithe country is in real life. From the Tobacco Lords to the Koch brothers, it has always been thus.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Thank you for providing an excellent example of the kind of thinking that makes the 'individuals only, never groups' approach so ineffectual.

Jolly, I hope you're paying attention.

When confronted with evidence that Native women in Canada are going missing and being murdered at alarming rates, Loren calls them whores and says their deaths and disappearances are their own fault. It's perfectly circular: he thinks they were whores because they went missing or were murdered along a remote stretch of highway, and he thinks they went missing or were murdered because they were whores.

Please note that I said "streewalking", not "whores". Streetwalking is very dangerous!

He denies that anti-Native bigotry had anything to do with his assessment, and that might be true. It might be simple sexism. Or it might just be lazy thinking. Either way, he immediately settled on an uninformed opinion that excuses him for not giving any more thought to the thousands of women being murdered, kidnapped, or lost. Unfortunately, the authorities charged with investigating these cases may have done the same.

You are assuming it's because they aren't trying rather than because the perps are hard to catch.

A single death or missing person case is easy to overlook. A hundred of them that are considered individually and not compared to each other are easily dismissed, nothing to see here folks, case closed. It's only when the cases are considered in the aggregate that the extreme peril faced by Native women in Canada comes into focus. There could be a very prolific serial killer or two, cruising the Al-Can and looking for the next victim, and you'll never come to grips with it if you won't even talk about the group with the high murder rate.

Streetwalkers have a high murder rate, period. Every country, every race.

I think that old saying about 'not seeing the forest because of the trees' applies here.

Your problem is once you see a racial pattern you take it as proof racism and refuse to look if it's really just a proxy for something else.

How are you going to address the needs of poor people if you can't talk about groups? How are you going to address the factors that impede the progress of poor people if you refuse to discuss the most common, persistent, and obvious obstacles to self-advancement and success?

The group you should be looking at is poor people!

The thing is real solutions cost money. Government money. Blaming discrimination puts the cost on the supposed discriminators and thus appears to be free.

The only people who think it's free are idiots, ignoramuses, and children too young to have learned how our government works.

Note that I said "appears to be"--of course it isn't really. It's just you think you have solved the problem by putting the burden on those you imagine are at fault so you don't care about the cost.

You say you understand my point and then go one to completely mischaracterize it.

No--I pointed out the flaw. You have good evidence of white privilege in the past. You continue to insist that it's current.

Someday you and I can talk about that 'thief' comment. It looks like Ayn Rand-style libertarian whinging about social spending, but I'm not sure you made it all the way through Atlas Shrugged.

Taking from those who did no wrong is theft.

I do understand current factors. I understand that institutional racism is a thing of the present. It happens every single day, across all sectors of the economy, and in all communities. And I understand the desperate hand waving and cries of 'everything that gave whites undeserved advantages are all in the past' whenever privileged whites feel their advantages are threatened. Most Americans have a very precarious position on the economic ladder, and the ladder is sinking. It's scary to think you might be worse off next year. I get that. But fairness and social justice are better than unfairness and injustice.

You continue to see racism everywhere but it's shoddy research that fails to consider if race is simply a proxy. Basically all the research that does try to consider whether it's a proxy finds race isn't a factor. (You build a matrix of possible factors and see which ones are predictive. The "researchers" routinely put race in the list but leave off socioeconomic status. Oops--if you put socioeconomic status on the list you find race is no longer predictive.)

The first step towards self improvement is to admit you have a problem. The first step toward a more just and fair society with equal opportunities to succeed for all, is to admit the current system falls short of that goal and to understand why. And in order to do that, you're going to have to come to grips with how groups of people are advantaged or disadvantaged by the current system.

Why am I reminded of the woman I used to know who was diagnosed as an alcoholic despite being a teetotaler? Once they decided she was an alcoholic they used her denials as evidence that she was. (The actual problem was one question: "Have you ever lost friends due to alcohol use?" to which she answered yes. It's a poorly worded question, she had lost friends due to their alcohol use.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's evidence that race itself has an impact on socioeconomic status. The above stats are of all blacks and all whites - regardless of socioeconomic status. Ignoring race, as far as blacks are concerned, is not going to fix their problems then, is it?

You can't fix racial discrimination on an individual basis. How would you go about it, for instance, when confronted with job applicants being discriminated against on account of being black?

Congratulations--you just proved that ice cream sales cause rape. (The evidence is as strong as your "proof" of discrimination here.) Do something useful--crusade against ice cream in order to protect women!

Correlation is possible evidence of causation. You have not presented any evidence that ice cream sales are correlated with rape. Nor have you presented any explanation as to why one would think they indicate rape. Hence you are literally babbling nonsense.

Correlation is possible evidence of causation. One may feel that it is not convincing evidence or that it masks the real causal factors, but then one ought to present an actual argument to that effect, along with actual data. Until you successfully do that, your arguments are equivalent to ant farts.

Ice cream sales & rape is a standard example of the correlation/causation fallacy.

Finding a correlation simply means you look for how they are linked, you don't assume one causes the other. (In the ice cream case they're both related to weather--when it's cold women are out less and thus less likely to be raped. They also don't buy as much ice cream.)

 

[ruby sparks]

How would you go about it, for instance, when confronted with job applicants being discriminated against on account of being black?

That does not look good.

Appears to be a meta-study, involving, in total, 55,842 applications submitted for 26,326 positions.

"Contrary to widespread assumptions about the declining significance of race, the magnitude and consistency of discrimination we observe over time is a sobering counterpoint."
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full

I've seen a lot of garbage in such studies. A meta-study doesn't get rid of the garbage.

Nice mudslinging and kudos for not just ignoring the study. But not really much of a counter either, though.

Loren, I say this while still respecting both your intelligence and your views, imho you need to just take unpalatable stuff on board some times in order to avoid unreasonably holding on to a prior pov. There is in all probability quite a lot of racism in the USA. The 'supposed racism' does not 'vanish' as readily as you suggest. This is not a reflection on you. I am not saying you are racist. I think you may (in fact do) come across as an apologist for it at times though. And I'm not sure why you do that.

 

[Elixir]

Finding a correlation simply means you look for how they are linked, you don't assume one causes the other. (In the ice cream case they're both related to weather--when it's cold women are out less and thus less likely to be raped. They also don't buy as much ice cream.)

Correlations don't necessarily indicate the existence of causal arrows at all, but do often betray their presence. If one is determined to put a label on "the cause" of something as undefined as racism (which is a flawed concept in itself IMO), then looking for correlations is where ya have to start.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree with most of this. I don't support affirmative action, it hasn't worked. I support raising up all of the underprivileged by raising their wages. I believe that racism is the ultimate sin, used to divide people arbitrary for hundreds of years. Unfortunately racism is so ingrained in our culture that it won't disappear until the very concept of race disappears. Fortunately the kids are handling this now. In Atlanta where I live about one in four young couples would be considered interracial in the past, if the part of town that I live in is any indication. It is hard to hate black people when your grandchildren are black.

Actually, affirmative action worked quite well. It broke the back of the entrenched discrimination. The thing is it's long since done all that it can do, continuing to do it produces no benefits.

Once again, I point to the sole outrage in affirmative action left for the right is apparently over professional and elite university admissions, where in most cases the universities admission policies are justified. It is just a minor portion of what has been going on in these universities since they were founded. These highly selective universities reserve the right to make up their student bodies any way that they want for any reason that they want.

No--those are simply the most clear cut cases. And the general opinion is that those selective universities should not be allowed to make up their student bodies any way they want, any more than they could hang up a "no blacks need apply" sign.

As long as the concept of race has such a hold on our society the professional universities believe that each race deserves to have doctors, lawyers, etc. from their own race. This is not unreasonable.

That's racist. It doesn't matter what race they are!

Racism is still rampant in hiring in the private sector. This results in blacks being over represented in the public sector. And predictably, disingenuous conservatives see this as further evidence of inverse racism.

Blacks are overrepresented in the public sector because of discrimination in public hiring.

Racism is still rampant in education. Blacks are still over represented in the underprivileged. The schools that serve the underprivileged are poorly supported, a result of the uneven funding created by the reliance on property taxes. The solution is a more even funding of the schools, but this is opposed because it would mean sending our money to help others, a strict redline of redistribution for conservatives. The intentional redistribution of money is required in a capitalistic system where the system over rewards capital and rentiers and under rewards labor and invention.

Most places fund education on a statewide basis. The shitty schools are that way because of the parents.

What I don't support is the national basic income. It will always be derided by the right as welfare (or an entitlement) even if everyone receives it. You don't have to look any further than long time the Republican targets of Medicare and Social Security to see the truth of this. Most people would see most or all of their national income taken away in the higher taxes needed to pay for it. And it would subsidize lower wages. We will get more of anything that the government subsidizes. Just look at the example of tax cuts for the rich.

None of these are reasons against a national basic income.

All that we need to do is to stop intentionally suppressing wages to increase profits. This is the way that we built up the income and wealth inequality over forty years. Start doing those things that we know boost wages, raise the minimum wage, encourage unions, discourage globalization and capital and IP flight, etc. This will take a long time to work but won't be as abrupt of a change as the universal income.

Minimum wage--increases unemployment. Bad idea.

Unions--they have basically destroyed themselves. It's in the union's interest to push the company to the edge, sometimes they fall over the edge.

Globalization--very little effect on wages. There was a short term effect at the start of it as the market adjusted to the new reality. Now that it has adjusted, though, companies are finding that foreign labor is generally very low quality. The real loss of jobs has been due to automation, not offshoring.

Capital flight--prohibit it and it's just going to get destroyed as the companies go under due to competition.

Raising incomes does risk inflation if done too quickly. This is because of the immediate effect of wage increases, above inflation, on the economy. You have to allow for production to catch up with the new demand. Unlike raising profits and the incomes of the already rich which doesn't produce inflation because it for the most part doesn't impact the economy, only the cost of real estate, the stock market and niche sectors of luxury goods like expensive and collectible automobiles, the so-called good inflation of capital gains, considered to be good apparently because it is inflation that benefits the wealthy.

Quickly has nothing to do with it. If incomes rise more than productivity you get inflation. It's just if it's slow the inflation is hidden in the noise.

A good start would be to pass a law that the sole purpose of a corporation isn't just to make profits for the owners but that they have an equal responsibility to the well being of their employees and to society in general.

The general welfare is the job of the government, not of business.

I also would be interested in the idea of the corporation being able to own themselves, to buy their own stock on the open market to the point that they own themselves. Under current accounting rules if a corporation owns more than 50% of the outstanding shares it is bankrupt because the outstanding shares are a liability of the corporation, not an asset. Therefore they would be converting assets, the excess profits above what is needed for reinvestment, into buying back the stock that remains a liability. The corporation has to retire the stock making it disappear to maintain the 50% of the outstanding shares available to the market in order to be a public corporation.

Huh? Bankrupt is when you don't have the money to pay the bills.

But if the corporation could own itself it could be operated for the dual purpose of supporting the employees and serving the customers, without the complications that an employee owned cooperative has with the dual nature of the employee/owner.

Yeah, they could go bankrupt and be replaced by those who don't try to ride two horses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've seen a lot of garbage in such studies. A meta-study doesn't get rid of the garbage.

Nice mudslinging and kudos for not just ignoring the post. But not really much of a counter either, though.

Loren, I say this while still respecting both your intelligence and your views, imho you need to just take unpalatable stuff on board some times in order to avoid holding on to a prior pov. There is in all probability quite a lot of racism in the USA. The 'supposed racism' does not 'vanish' as readily as you suggest. This is not a reflection on you. I am not saying you are racist.

We have tons and tons of studies that don't consider whether race is a proxy for socioeconomic status and they almost all find racism.

We have a much smaller pool of studies that do consider it, and they rarely find racism.

The conclusion we should reach is that the big pile of studies are fatally flawed and should be thrown in the trash.

 

[SimpleDon]

No, racism is never justified, no matter who is doing it or who it is being done to. Neither is sexism or other forms of negative prejudice. You can't judge from the colour of my skin how much hardship or privilege I have had in my life. Doing so is wrong. Period.

This *used* to be the liberal position. What the fuck happened!?!?

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism and their desire to always treat people as individuals rather than as a member of a group rather selectively. The selectivity seems to come in depending on the argument that they are trying to make at the time.

There is someone here, a conservative who lectures us repeatedly on the need to not help blacks if it means addressing them as a group and then will turn around to themselves address blacks as a group when they feel that it supports their argument of the moment, for example when they try to prove that blacks deserve to be poor because of inferior genes. I am sure that a quick search will help my faulty memory of the moment.

I feel like I would rather trust liberals on these matters in spite of their lack of a strict principle of avoiding racism to try to mitigate the damage from generations of conservative lead racism rather than to go with conservatives' situational application of racism sometimes, and not in others, most often when they believe that they are being disadvantaged.

 

[SimpleDon]

It still is.

What the fuck happened!?!?

Conservatives either became stupider or even less scrupulous.

It's called the progressive stack, not the conservative stack.

The conservative stack can't exist. It is presumptuous to call something a stack when it has only one level, white males of advancing years.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism and their desire to always treat people as individuals rather than as a member of a group rather selectively.

So we call them out on it. I'm consistent in this. I don't want to tolerate racism for or against any group.

I feel like I would rather trust liberals on these matters in spite of their lack of a strict principle of avoiding racism to try to mitigate the damage from generations of conservative lead racism rather than to go with conservatives' situational application of racism sometimes, and not in others, most often when they believe that they are being disadvantaged.

You appear to be looking at this as liberals and conservatives. I suggest looking at it as race based or not race based policies. There are policies that will offend this on both sides of the political aisle.

 

[ruby sparks]

I've seen a lot of garbage in such studies. A meta-study doesn't get rid of the garbage.

Nice mudslinging and kudos for not just ignoring the post. But not really much of a counter either, though.

Loren, I say this while still respecting both your intelligence and your views, imho you need to just take unpalatable stuff on board some times in order to avoid holding on to a prior pov. There is in all probability quite a lot of racism in the USA. The 'supposed racism' does not 'vanish' as readily as you suggest. This is not a reflection on you. I am not saying you are racist.

We have tons and tons of studies that don't consider whether race is a proxy for socioeconomic status and they almost all find racism.

We have a much smaller pool of studies that do consider it, and they rarely find racism.

The conclusion we should reach is that the big pile of studies are fatally flawed and should be thrown in the trash.

If you want to counter, I would rather you critiqued the meta-study on the 'blind' job applications in the 1st instance. Consider me open to suggestion. I don't doubt, in principle, that racism can be, is, often overstated in the current climate. Ditto for the gender earnings gap. But you seem to be pedalling just a bit too hard towards saying that there is no or negligible racism. Which I admit I find very hard to accept.

 

[laughing dog]

Correlation is possible evidence of causation. You have not presented any evidence that ice cream sales are correlated with rape. Nor have you presented any explanation as to why one would think they indicate rape. Hence you are literally babbling nonsense.

Correlation is possible evidence of causation. One may feel that it is not convincing evidence or that it masks the real causal factors, but then one ought to present an actual argument to that effect, along with actual data. Until you successfully do that, your arguments are equivalent to ant farts.

Ice cream sales & rape is a standard example of the correlation/causation fallacy.

Non-responsive. Not only did you fail to present any evidence, but you ignored the crucial point that correlation is possible evidence of causation. So, your earlier response stands as babble.

[
Finding a correlation simply means you look for how they are linked, you don't assume one causes the other. (In the ice cream case they're both related to weather--when it's cold women are out less and thus less likely to be raped. They also don't buy as much ice cream.)

Wrong. Finding correlation means finding linked. How things are linked depends on theory and reality, not statistics.

Correlation is an indiction of possible causation.

 

[ruby sparks]

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism and their desire to always treat people as individuals rather than as a member of a group rather selectively. The selectivity seems to come in depending on the argument that they are trying to make at the time.

There is someone here, a conservative who lectures us repeatedly on the need to not help blacks if it means addressing them as a group and then will turn around to themselves address blacks as a group when they feel that it supports their argument of the moment, for example when they try to prove that blacks deserve to be poor because of inferior genes. I am sure that a quick search will help my faulty memory of the moment.

I feel like I would rather trust liberals on these matters in spite of their lack of a strict principle of avoiding racism to try to mitigate the damage from generations of conservative lead racism rather than to go with conservatives' situational application of racism sometimes, and not in others, most often when they believe that they are being disadvantaged.

You know what they say. Consistency, it's a bitch.

 

[Hermit]

Orly? Let's have a look at a couple of examples then, shall we?

Hourly pay
Black Americans - $18.49
White Americans - $25.22

Student debt
Black Americans - $52,726
White Americans - $28,006

Home ownership rate
Black Americans - 41.3%
White Americans - 71.9%

Infant deaths/1000 births
Black Americans - 11.1
White Americans - 5.1

I am curious what you think this proves? Loren said socioeconomic status is what's causing it. If race and socioeconomic status is highly correlated, and we know it is, then that could indeed explain it, and these stats don't touch on that one way or the other.

It's evidence that race itself has an impact on socioeconomic status. The above stats are of all blacks and all whites - regardless of socioeconomic status. Ignoring race, as far as blacks are concerned, is not going to fix their problems then, is it?

You can't fix racial discrimination on an individual basis. How would you go about it, for instance, when confronted with job applicants being discriminated against on account of being black?

Congratulations--you just proved that ice cream sales cause rape. (The evidence is as strong as your "proof" of discrimination here.) Do something useful--crusade against ice cream in order to protect women!

(Hint: You have made the standard correlation/causation mistake.)

Congratulations - you have just attempted to prove that the sun does nothing at all because it only shows up when it's daylight anyway.

Truth is that as a group blacks are worse off because they are discriminated against on account of being black. If that were not the case there'd be no differences in average pay rates, student debt and so on between whites and blacks.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I can't think of any other non-fascist conservatives off the top of my head, but there exists at least one.

Aren't libertarians considered conservative? Isn't libertarian the opposite of fascist?

No and Yes in that order.