I see the same kind of faulty reasoning on here

[TSwizzle]

I get your surface point Derec, but everything you say here (just like everything I say here) comes with over a decade of baggage consisting of everything else you have ever said. Don't act brand new. You have been posting here too long for that to fly.

I am doubly shocked at this statement from Athena. First, because she's admitting Derec has a "surface" point, and that everybody here ignores it to instead lob adhoms at Derec for what they read into his words or what he has said elsewhere. Second, because she insists nothing else will fly, like we are all incapable of addressing topics instead of attacking people. Is this really what a "Freethought" forum is?

Derec does have a point regarding moderators here too. He has been attacked numerous times in this thread, and things have been said that if said against the speaker would be censored and "warnings" handed out. If you are not in the majority here, you know exactly what I'm referring to.

Exactly.

 

[SimpleDon]

... as in this video

<snip>​

The rude interrupter claims that Hillary "called black people superpredators".
I am not a Hillary fan but here is what she actually said.

<snip>​

No mention of "superpredators" being solely or chiefly black. Neither did she say that black people in general were superpredators (as implied in the rude interruptor's (or RI for short) charge). In fact, she did not mention race at all. So where did the RI get the idea that she "called black people superpredators"?

I see the same kind of "reasoning" on here, with regard to word "thug". In a nutshell, the reasoning seems to be that if set of people to whom a negative term refers to contains blacks, then that word means that you are calling black people collectively that negative word. It's a very twisted kind of logic. Perhaps we should call it "social logic" because it bears as much resemblance to real logic as "social justice" does to justice.

I don't associate the word "thug" with race either. To me the word refers to a violent criminal, an assassin, especially one in a criminal gang where they are the enforcers, the muscle. A synonym would be "goon." The term "gun thug" is a term that I first came across as referring to paid assassins in Elmore Leonard novels usually referring to poor, not so bright, Southern whites. The original thugs in India were assassins or robbers and followers of the Hindu god Thug, they killed by cutting the throats of their victims.

I am not the most astute and sensitive when it comes to matters of race. I certainly don't think that it matters. I am always surprised by all of the things that people ascribe to race. So I wouldn't be in the vanguard of people who noticed that a word like "thug" had taken on a racial connotation. Certainly, if a lot of racists used the word repeatedly to refer to blacks without knowing their criminal history, then over time it can change the meaning of the word to the rather ugly one of any melolin gifted young male. I have only encountered this meaning of the word here, in this forum, largely in posts by you.

Likewise, I hadn't heard of the word "superpredator" until the 1990's when the superpredator theory was used to justify the last of the get tough on crime hysteria, resulting in the legislation supported by the Clintons (and Bernie too.)

The crime as a surrogate for racism hysteria was started by the conservatives as early as Nixon's southern strategy* when it became part of the conservative orthodoxy, resulting in bill after bill competing to be the toughest on crime and criminals committing street crimes while getting softer on our other criminal class, the very rich who cause much more damage.

Conservatives use fear to increase their ranks. They use racial fears in the same way that Democrats had for a hundred years. The federal government is going to help the black man to get ahead of you.

The pragmatic Clintons tried to box in the Republicans by adopting the conservative talking points on crime and welfare. This resulted in the last of the crime in the streets (and Biden's war on drugs) bills lengthening sentences and increasing the scope of felony crimes and causing much of the damage to an entire generation of predominantly young, black males. And like Obama's later attempt to box in the Republicans on health care these efforts just pushed the Republicans even further to right. To where we are today, to Donald Trump's fascism, as far right as you can go.

It amazes me that the Clintons enjoy such a high level of support from the black and the brown people of the country. The Clintons are responsible for validating so much of the bullsh*t conservative orthodoxy about crime, welfare and race.


* Goldwater touched on the crime in the street theme, as did the more effective Ronald Reagan in the 1964 election. But they couched their appeals to racism behind the well understood code words that had been used for a hundred and fifty years, "states rights."

 

[Malintent]

... as in this video

The rude interrupter claims that Hillary "called black people superpredators".
I am not a Hillary fan but here is what she actually said.

No mention of "superpredators" being solely or chiefly black. Neither did she say that black people in general were superpredators (as implied in the rude interruptor's (or RI for short) charge). In fact, she did not mention race at all. So where did the RI get the idea that she "called black people superpredators"?

I see the same kind of "reasoning" on here, with regard to word "thug". In a nutshell, the reasoning seems to be that if set of people to whom a negative term refers to contains blacks, then that word means that you are calling black people collectively that negative word. It's a very twisted kind of logic. Perhaps we should call it "social logic" because it bears as much resemblance to real logic as "social justice" does to justice.

I know precisely what you are saying and I completely agree. I have been called a racist on this site for exactly that. Besides the fact that I am a little racist.. about as much as most people, I have been pointing out this sentiment quite a bit recently. it is PC insanity.