Bigot Bigot Bigot - Page 9 - Politics and Economics

I am fairly sure that Stalin didn't personally ordered anyones execution or beating. He had puppet courts for that. I am also sure that you can't be half-way moslem. You take it as a package:

yet "half-way" muslims exist. odd

11-02-2010 , 04:51 PM

#202

MrWookie

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 3rdCheckRaise

I am fairly sure that Stalin didn't personally ordered anyones execution or beating. He had puppet courts for that. I am also sure that you can't be half-way moslem. You take it as a package:

Yeah, way to be bigoted. Do you even know the differences between the different sects of Islam?

11-02-2010 , 04:52 PM

#203

13ball

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I find it interesting that the people who complain most bitterly about the treatment of women in Islamic society tend to be apologists for starting wars wherein women in Islamic Nations become inevitable causalities of war.

11-02-2010 , 04:53 PM

#204

3rdCheckRaise

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Quote:

If you care about women you shouldn't want your arguments to be lumped in with the real racists because it weakens your position.

Of course if you don't really give a **** about women and just want to use the topic to dogwhistle about nasty muslims then carry on as you are. People like fly are going to keep hassling you about it though and I'm getting tired of his smug posts when he picks off more low hanging fruit.

Can you apply your argument to Nazi Germany or Stalins USSR? You don't use "underground rail" to help women escape the system instead you should probably break the system or at the very least make sure that system is not moving into your home.

11-02-2010 , 04:53 PM

#205

SnotBoogy

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 13ball

fighting (figuratively) for women's rights has always been an excuse to fight (literally)

11-02-2010 , 04:56 PM

#206

tomdemaine

Just tries harder

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 3rdCheckRaise

Don't be concerned about that whooshing sound you just heard around 5 feet over your head. It was merely the point.

11-02-2010 , 04:57 PM

#207

3rdCheckRaise

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Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

Yeah, way to be bigoted. Do you even know the differences between the different sects of Islam?

I grew up in the country with predominantly twelver shia population. What do you think?

11-02-2010 , 04:58 PM

#208

Money2Burn

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Let's just kill all muslims, that way they won't be able to mistreat their women anymore.

11-02-2010 , 05:06 PM

#209

lagdonk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Phone Booth

To be honest, I don't know how women are treated in "Islamic culture" nor do I know how women are treated in all "Westernized countries." There's also no "singular" Islamic culture - Turkey, Indonesia and Iran all have very different cultures. And in each country, every region is different, every socioeconomic class is different, every subregion is different, each family/household is different and each individual is different. In terms of specifics, I don't really know how women are treated by my next door neighbors either. I know that it's incredibly challenging to live as a woman, in "Islamic cultures" or "Western cultures" or New York city or Louisville, Kentucky and it's difficult to compare the experiences, not having any of those. I don't get to decide what works in the long run, which is the ultimate judge of those practices.

Of course, I have some ideas of how things are in the real world and my own ideas as to how I should treat women. But it's not at all clear that I'm right on any of those. I could be wrong about what goes on in the West or the Middle East and it's quite possible that my own ideas about how I should do things are completely wrong and unsustainable when applied to others. What I do know about, however, is how little I know, how little anyone can know and how we should approach these subjects, given that we're largely in the dark.

What do you think is important for women? What do you think is important for society to provide for women? Why? What do you find acceptable, what do you find superior and why are you correct? Your contention, after all, appears to be that billions of people are wrong in a very specific way about how they live their lives and you have the solution. Why are they doing it wrong and how could you help them fix it? In what specific ways would their lives improve and their societies function better, by adopting your ideas? If your ideas are so good, why haven't they adopted it?

My points are largely covered in this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/41...litics-873483/

This is an excellent synthesis. And tomdemaine's pragmatism on how to proceed in casual discussions on these topics is also refreshing.

11-02-2010 , 05:13 PM

#210

adios

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 13ball

Right they should vote the misogynist bastards out in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

11-02-2010 , 05:24 PM

#211

[Phill]

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 3rdCheckRaise

I am fairly sure that Stalin didn't personally ordered anyones execution or beating. He had puppet courts for that. I am also sure that you can't be half-way moslem. You take it as a package:

You realise the bible says rape is fine, provided the woman is not promised to another man and that you then marry the woman, right?

It also says that if you rape a woman in a city (the context is clearly rape given the following passage of rape in the country) and she is already promised to someone then the woman who is raped is stoned to death for not screaming loud enough.

The fact is you cannot just leap to Quoran quotes and claim if they arent following the words of the book they arent "proper Muslims" for the very fact that the bible is pretty damn easy to reference for passages of similar barbarism.

End of the day you dont get to ignore the bible allowing you to sell your daughter into slavery whilst demanding that Muslims follow the quoran to the letter.

11-02-2010 , 05:28 PM

#212

Huehuecoyotl

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The bible sucks.

11-02-2010 , 05:33 PM

#213

Chimp

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 3rdCheckRaise

Can someone explain to me the difference between disagreeing with ideology of one large group of people and being a bigot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

It's still functionally the same thing, and can have just as disastrous consequences, even if for some reason people think being bigoted against a race is somehow less deplorable than being bigoted against a religion.

Sundried Tomato is correct to distinguish between voluntary/involuntary characteristics. "Bigotry" against the latter is far less defensible than against the former. The holier-than-though set ITT would presumably admit to being bigoted against white supremacists (although they might recoil at the term "bigot"). There is no reason to consider any ideology immune from criticism. That extends, of course, to religions. And the fact that people are likely to follow the religion of their parents does not change anything. The same is true of political parties afaik. It doesn't make someone a "bigot" to hold beliefs that are negative toward a particular ideology...at least, not in the pejorative sense.

Which leads to another problem raised by the OP. Labeling someone a "bigot" is not a useful method of discourse. Too often it is way to hand-wave away arguments the accuser disagrees with. It does not add anything, other than to belittle and minimize the target. Rather than engage in an ad hominem, perhaps people should simply address the argument.

11-02-2010 , 05:37 PM

#214

Vael

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Phone Booth

Of course, I have some ideas of how things are in the real world and my own ideas as to how I should treat women. But it's not at all clear that I'm right on any of those. I could be wrong about what goes on in the West or the Middle East and it's quite possible that my own ideas about how I should do things are completely wrong and unsustainable when applied to others.

I understand how you can turn out to be wrong about the descriptive claims. I don't quite get how you could turn out to be wrong about normative claims unless you think rightness/wrongness is to be evaluated in terms of criteria that aren't accessible to reason alone. That is, you need to understand what's going on and all or the most important consequences of actions, before you can evaluate the rightness or wrongness of these actions.

The poster who asked you this question probably thinks that for some actions, we can come to a conclusion without understanding the economics/social structure of a country/culture because it's wrong on a fundamental level and this outweighs other concerns.

11-02-2010 , 05:43 PM

#215

Boris

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Quote:

Originally Posted by MrWookie

Yeah, because so many countries outside of Western Europe and North America have the same free speech and free press provisions we do.

Exactly. That's why Western Culture is obviously superior to most other cultures.

11-02-2010 , 05:45 PM

#216

gumpzilla

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Chimp

For like the 17th time, a big part of the issue here is that religions (at least as practiced by their actual adherents) do not represent easily identifiable ideologies, and a good deal of the prejudicial mindset is in thinking that they do. What are the political and moral commitments of a self-described Christian?

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boris

Exactly. That's why Western Culture is obviously superior to most other cultures.

sundried tomato has it right. What you mean is that it's one of the reasons that you prefer Western culture to other cultures. I prefer it too! But I'm far from convinced that this is anything like an objective truth, and these arguments about objective cultural inferiority are easily hijacked by those with warlike aims (much like Islam itself).

11-02-2010 , 05:55 PM

#217

Nootka

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Quote:

Originally Posted by gumpzilla

For like the 17th time, a big part of the issue here is that religions (at least as practiced by their actual adherents) do not represent easily identifiable ideologies, and a good deal of the prejudicial mindset is in thinking that they do.

This may be true, of course. If someone is refusing to hire a muslim as a secretary because they're afraid she's a suicide bomber, then obviously that should be criticized.

But if for example you're criticizing the official position of the Catholic church in lying to prevent usage of condoms in Africa, leading to the deaths of millions, then that's not bigotry. And if you are loose in your language and say something general like, Catholics are evil for what they are doing in Africa, it's not helpful to simply dismiss this person as a bigot. The problem is, people have a knee-jerk reaction to criticism of religion and label anyone who engages in it a bigot. See, this thread.

Quote:

What are the political and moral commitments of a self-described Christian?

They vary, of course. That doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. And it certainly doesn't mean that the critic is a bigot.

11-02-2010 , 05:59 PM

#218

DWetzel

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nootka

Sure, but that's the sort of thing that the "sloppy language user" can quickly and easily clarify, isn't it? After about the tenth time of using the sloppy language in exactly the same way, it kinda moves beyond sloppy language and at LEAST into the realm of sloppy thinking indistinguishable to the viewer from bigotry.

11-02-2010 , 06:04 PM

#219

gumpzilla

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nootka

They vary, of course. That doesn't mean they're immune to criticism.

Of course it doesn't. However, your example of the Vatican represents a specific policy initiative strongly associated with a central authority who happens to be the most important figure in a particular Christian sect. This is pretty far removed from "How Islam Treats Women." Calling the two equivalent is pretty ludicrous, to my mind.

11-02-2010 , 06:18 PM

#220

Nootka

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Quote:

Originally Posted by gumpzilla

I'm not sure what you're saying is being called equivalent, or who's saying they are. Criticism of Islam's treatment of women can be valid (and not bigoted), even if it is not as monolithic as the Pope example. As in all things in politics, generalizations have to be made. Sometimes they are too general to be useful, but the solution is to point this out rather than to refer to the arguer as a bigot. As DWetz said, it comes down to sloppy language, but I would say it applies to both sides.

11-02-2010 , 06:24 PM

#221

DWetzel

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Bad: Dem Catholics treatz womens bad.

Better: Stupid Vatican policies treatz womens bad.

Best: Treating women badly is bad. Here's some people who are being bad (insert citation).

11-02-2010 , 06:32 PM

#222

zan nen

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Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyWf

See, this answers my question about what you want to die. What you really want to die is discussion of racism, because you can't come up with A SINGLE EXAMPLE where it was inappropriately injected, but you still hate when people talk about it.

One big reason is that many of the stupider libertarians on this forum are truly, truly terrible at reading comprehension. I don't mean just processing the words, I mean placing them in context and understanding WHY the author wrote them.

So we get people linking to white supremacist blog postings, and then getting FURIOUSLY ANGRY that people won't stop talking about racism. I mean, all they wanted to talk about was state's rights and freedom of association and the rights of a property owner to exclude people, and these goddarmn libruls won't stop talking about race. WTF?

Not so fast my friend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MissileDog

Dude, I cut/paste'd the Wikipedia quotes, what do you mean it doesn't say that? William Anderson, an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, from http://mises.org/daily/926,,,

While living near Greenville, South Carolina, a couple of years ago, I attended a dinner that featured the late Sherwin Rosen [...] spoke that evening on Austrian economics--or, at least, he attempted to talk about Austrian economics. [...]

Mainstream economists are especially critical of Austrians for their lack of desire to incorporate mathematics in general, and multivariable[sic] calculus in particular, into their economic analysis. [...] many in the mainstream claim that Austrians disapprove of the extensive use of mathematics in economic analysis because they are unable to do math themselves. [...]

Furthermore, the most vociferous critics of math in economics, Murray N. Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, [...] did not build mathematical theoretical models because they believed it was inappropriate for economic analysis, not because they lacked mathematical competence.

What is the problem, then, of using math for economics, and why are Austrians opposed to such a methodology? In a word, math is not an appropriate tool to describe human action. As Mises and Rothbard often pointed out, one cannot quantify human action [...] we cannot accurately use math to describe how humans behave.

In using mathematics as the main tool for advancing economic thought, economists must operate on the assumption that human action adheres to a constant mathematical formula. While, as Rothbard and Mises note, that might be appropriate for the physical sciences, it is not appropriate when describing how humans behave.[...] it is impossible to make those deductions with the precision that mathematical reasoning requires.

Basically the "Austrian School" rejects the scientific method because it is impossible to isolate a person in an experiment. Well, how can this possibly be a reason to reject the scientific method? Physicists haven't rejected the scientific method because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

And basically the "Austrian School" rejects mathematics because they don't understand what math does. There is no such thing as a "constant mathematical formula" that needs to be assumed, or any such non-sense. It is the same kind of anti-math where they claim they can "prove" something from one axiom, as they do in their "praxeology". You can only prove tautologies with one given.

But the scientific method is logical and math is truth. Both of these are the anti-thesis of what the "Austrian School"'s job in life is... to produce mind-numbing propaganda for the libertarian (&etc) cultists.

Who pays the bills at misers.com anyway? You're cottage publishing industry is hardly self-supporting. Who is behind this "School of Non-Sense" and what do they get out of it?

Here's MissileDog arguing against something he doesn't even know the first thing about. At least he doesn't lie about having read all these LvMI scholars' books like Fly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimM

MissleDog,

Here is a better exposition of the Austrian epistemological position:

Praxeology: The Austrian Method | David Gordon

Yes, his voice is not the best, some of his jokes are pretty bad, and it's an hour long, but the guy obviously knows his stuff.

If you have the time I'd really recommend the whole Mises University 2010 to anyone interested in learning about Austrian economics, even if it is only with the intention to critique it. (OK to skip the first two and go right to The Marginalist Revolution video).

TimM tries to help him out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyWf

Fun Fact:
David Gordon is perhaps best known to readers of this forum as the guy who gave Michael Levin's book about the genetic inferiority of blacks a glowing review as "bold scholarship," which started that huge Civil War thread that eventually made Borodog leave the forum.

Again, there's really nothing to learn about Austrian economics. It's incredibly simple and easy to understand. People who disagree with it don't do so because they need to hear the concepts repeated. Once someone has been exposed to and rejected a religion based solely on praxeological reasoning more praxeological reasoning isn't going to convince them.

Right on cue comes Fly playing the race card.

11-02-2010 , 06:41 PM

#223

AKSpartan

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Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyWf

See, this answers my question about what you want to die. What you really want to die is discussion of racism, because you can't come up with A SINGLE EXAMPLE where it was inappropriately injected, but you still hate when people talk about it.

One big reason is that many of the stupider libertarians on this forum are truly, truly terrible at reading comprehension. I don't mean just processing the words, I mean placing them in context and understanding WHY the author wrote them.

So we get people linking to white supremacist blog postings, and then getting FURIOUSLY ANGRY that people won't stop talking about racism. I mean, all they wanted to talk about was state's rights and freedom of association and the rights of a property owner to exclude people, and these goddarmn libruls won't stop talking about race. WTF?

Fly, does it really shock you that I don't want to devote a lot of time digging through old threads to present evidence to you? It's a game where I waste a lot of time and accomplish nothing, because it doesn't matter if I present that evidence or not. Fly doesn't change. You just love to lambast and rant about others, just as you do in this post I'm quoting. Maybe I just hate the Fly schtick, I don't know.

11-02-2010 , 06:51 PM

#224

FlyWf

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zan nen- Yeah, and around two days after that you got banned for linking to a white supremacist website about how stupid black people are. Which proves my point(already explained by DrModern earlier ITT) pretty neatly.

AK- My point is not that I want you to dig through old threads for fun, my point is that those threads don't exist. Like Wookie said, the threads that get overrun with discussion of racism are threads on subjects that are about racial ****. Immigration. Juan Williams. The NBPP, Shirley Sherrod, the Tea Party, the GZ Mosque, the CRA, whatever.

I think part of this might be that you take this forum very seriously and I obviously do not, but more fundamentally the libertarian freakouts on race in this come from some real serious discomfort.

I don't know exactly where that discomfort comes from.