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The smug style in American liberalism

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Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#421
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accusation of racist where there is no racism.

Yep, we already covered that. Feel free to call it xenophobia and religious bigotry instead.

But it is not xenophobia to want to keep terrorists out by temporary stopping immigration from countries with ties to terrorism. And that has nothing to do with their religion. It has to do with the fact that terrorists want to blow people up.

Calling that xenophobia and religious bigotry is just a straight out lie.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a former evangelical Christian, then you should understand that according to most modern evangelical strains of Christianity (Southwestern Baptist anyways), treating LGBT people like human beings basically means rejecting the Christian faith. Sodom & Gorromah (& all that Old Testament jazz) & Romans 1:24 - 27 & 1 Corinthians 6:9 - 20 (& etc) were all impressed upon me from a very young age. Oh, and religi…

There's plenty of errors in their theology on this but I'll say that the fact Jesus in his own teachings and that of his followers thereafter saw a distinction between matters of the spiritual and the temporal means they're in error. The laws of the land protecting individuals are not tests of faith except where such laws force to you to believe or espouse otherwise. Marriage in this regard is civil marriage and not…

Theologically, I agree, but I'm not sure what would cause the followers to actually question current teachings. Usually, followers of a movement don't question the path taken until they lose confidence for some reason (like Democrats recently discovered). When it comes to religion, such losses of confidence seem to usually be on the personal level, so a large scale reckoning seems unlikely.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#423
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I did not question anyone's motivations, simply expressed curiosity, because the scientific questions that interest yummyfajitas are so unusual. It was through him that I first learned of contemporary scientific racism, and I am truly and honestly curious about this. E.g., how far do they go? Do they also think we should investigate whether people of Irish descent are more intelligent than people of German des…

If your curiosity is genuine I can tell you the answer. First, a casual perusal of any human biodiversity blog will tell you that they do in fact care about differences between Germans and Irish as well. Or Tamils and Gujuratis, or a variety of other groups that exhibit interesting differences. Intelligence is particularly interesting relative to other traits since it explains so many social outcomes, but many other…

> If you want a more traditional "give me a grant" motivation, here it is: public policy.

In that case, I can set your mind at ease. There is a wide scientific consensus -- no less conclusive than the consensus on global warming and based on decades of research -- that social policy itself and other social forces are by far the leading causes for power disparity.

Just to be clear: differences in ability among social groups are real, variance of ability among individuals due to biology is also real, and ability is indeed one factor in power disparity among individuals. What we're debating is the relationship between the three. The debate is whether biological differences are the main explanation for differences in abilities between social groups, and, more importantly, whether biological differences have any significant explanatory power for the vast power disparity between social groups.

Also, it is unclear to me how a positive answer for the biological explanation could possibly affect public policy. Your point that "if ... equal outcomes is your goal, you would choose a quota system to cap the number of Asians" is a non-sequitur. For one, "equal income" in the public policy sense doesn't remotely resemble what you imply you think it does in your suggestion. For another, I don't see why your suggestion would be different if the difference in ability was environmental rather than biological.

> don't have the same negative emotional reactions to it that you do

My emotional reaction stems from the fact that empirical evidence is so much against a biological explanation for the power disparity, and arguments against it are based on findings of such small effect size (which doesn't even suggest causality, but even assuming it does) combined with strong potential self-interest. This is a very similar emotional response to that towards climate-change deniers. Their evidence is weak, and denying human-caused global warming serves their interests. Maybe the reaction is unjustified and we should approach every single time anyone brings up an idea without consideration for the thousands of times similar ideas have been expressed in the past, but the reaction is nonetheless, I think, very reasonable.

> calls them racist

I think you are way too obsessed with labels. Definitions in social science are not the same as definitions in the exact sciences, and they are more used as a shortcut to frame a first guess. The opinions you express are textbook scientific racism, lifted almost verbatim from late-19th or early-20th century texts. I use the name to roughly place them in a tradition of ideas; you think it is an insult. Such rough categorization (which are well recognized by social researchers as such) are an invaluable tool in disciplines with too many variables. Without them, we cannot even begin to discuss models in the history of ideas. Denying that your ideas are part of the traditions is silly and factually wrong, and completely separate from the question of whether they're true or not. So how about instead of saying that you're a scientific racist, I'd simply say that your ideas are part of the scientific racism tradition?

You may counter and say that because scientific racism has bad connotations today (even though it was once the consensus), this is an implied insult. But scientific racism has always made scientific claims, and those claims have turned out to be false, that I think that if you're trying to go against scientific consensus (as you yourself claimed you do) -- which is certainly scientifically valid -- and if you think that unlike previous incarnations, scientific racism in its current incarnation is different the burden of proof is on you. If you want to dispel the negative connotations behind scientific racism, you can't attack their validity, because they are very valid; you should just prove us wrong (I would suggest, however, that you employ better data and better analysis than you did, for example, when writing about women's abilities in STEM, because your assumptions basically dictated the result, and were absolutely not justified, so that's going to do the very opposite of changing scientific consensus).

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#424
post #408
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overcrowding of the country is a valid concern, for more than purely economic reasons, the south east is one of the nost densely populated parts of Europe already. As I say, if you want to see racism everywhere, and if you presume that the economic arguments are all won then fine, you just carry on shouting everyone down as mad and racist, and watch as your political viewpoints fail to gain traction over and over aga…

Ah yes, "overcrowded". Like the posh restaurant that’s “fully booked”, or the country club that’s “not accepting any new members at the moment”. If people were really worried about overcrowding, they’d be advocating for a one child per couple policy, not trying to reduce already rather moderate migration figures.

Now that is some fucked up thinking. Deeply fucked up.

Firstly, natural population growth in the UK is at around 150k per year, under half the net migration figure. Secondly, are you kidding me? People should favour continuing migration pver having their own children?

WOW. Are you even human?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read this: http://observer.com/2016/09/colin-powell-is-right-birtherism...

I see nothing in that article that shows the birther movement (again, no matter how stupid) was based on racial reasons, other than certain people's opinions that it did.

What else was it based on though? Honest question, to my knowledge there was never ever any similar issue raised for any president before and there seems to never have been any really good reason to doubt he was born here, no you, except that one. So I don't really think it's just opinion but the only logical conclusion to why this was started, no?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#426
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, we already covered that. Feel free to call it xenophobia and religious bigotry instead.

But it is not xenophobia to want to keep terrorists out by temporary stopping immigration from countries with ties to terrorism. And that has nothing to do with their religion. It has to do with the fact that terrorists want to blow people up. Calling that xenophobia and religious bigotry is just a straight out lie.

He called for a ban on all Muslims. Try explaining how that has "nothing to do with religion".

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#427
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know that David Duke supported Trump. We don't know of anyone associated with the KKK supporting Hillary. That the voters don't care is to their discredit.

We do know of Hillary's mentor, he claimed to have left the KKK. We know of other KKK Grand Master who have claimed to have donated to Hillary. It's all just claims and accusations to smear the opposite opponents in the election cycle. These are not important issues. Voters knows these are just election smears.

Nope, we know for sure that David Duke endorsed trump. Everything else you're referencing is baseless speculation.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#428
post #424
post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, "overcrowded". Like the posh restaurant that’s “fully booked”, or the country club that’s “not accepting any new members at the moment”. If people were really worried about overcrowding, they’d be advocating for a one child per couple policy, not trying to reduce already rather moderate migration figures.

Now that is some fucked up thinking. Deeply fucked up. Firstly, natural population growth in the UK is at around 150k per year, under half the net migration figure. Secondly, are you kidding me? People should favour continuing migration pver having their own children? WOW. Are you even human?

[deleted]

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#429
post #424
post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, "overcrowded". Like the posh restaurant that’s “fully booked”, or the country club that’s “not accepting any new members at the moment”. If people were really worried about overcrowding, they’d be advocating for a one child per couple policy, not trying to reduce already rather moderate migration figures.

Now that is some fucked up thinking. Deeply fucked up. Firstly, natural population growth in the UK is at around 150k per year, under half the net migration figure. Secondly, are you kidding me? People should favour continuing migration pver having their own children? WOW. Are you even human?

The 300k net migration figure is bogus, as I already explained. The effect of natural population growth and immigration on the size of the population is roughly equal (http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings...), and natural population growth could be cut much more than immigration. You're illustrating perfectly that people don't really care about "overcrowding" at all. If they did, they wouldn't find the idea of limiting natural population growth outrageous. My reference to a one child policy was hyperbolic, but more funding for family planning would probably do the job.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#430
post #429
post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that is some fucked up thinking. Deeply fucked up. Firstly, natural population growth in the UK is at around 150k per year, under half the net migration figure. Secondly, are you kidding me? People should favour continuing migration pver having their own children? WOW. Are you even human?

The 300k net migration figure is bogus, as I already explained. The effect of natural population growth and immigration on the size of the population is roughly equal ( http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings... ), and natural population growth could be cut much more than immigration. You're illustrating perfectly that people don't really care about "overcrowding" at all. If they did, they wouldn…

Family planning, to allow people to choose, is a far, far different proposition from the one you put forward.

In order to limit population growth you think people should stop having kids in order to be better able to play host to newcomers.

It's a position almost beyond parody and so far out of touch with human wants and needs. I repeat - are you human?

Your figures are interesting but not conclusive, over half of population growth between 1991 and 2014 was due to migration. The latter years of that period saw far higher rates than the early and middle years, and it continues to be over 300k pa, according to the ONS.

Regardless, I'll say again, you're not talking to a die hard brexiter or Trump supporter. I voted to stay in the EU, for a start.

You're talking to someone who thinks that the bigotry of calling anyone that disagrees with you a racist is political poison, and that it will continue to set back progressive politics.

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