So another non apology? We need another one of those.

IIRC Alex's position was that slavery is totally bad and all but we should have let the South secede and do their own thing because democracy yo.

It is probably better to call an idea racist than a person racist. You can make fun of and destroy ideas.

It feels just as good. It also makes women swoon and keeps you from getting addicted to being an *******. That is actually a real risk. Not making it up.

(I used "probably" incorrectly to play-irritate DS. I can do that because I genuinely like him)

Thou shalt not irritate me with bad psychoanalytical mumbo-jumbo in a thread you know I am in.

There's a great big Confederacy thread from the old days. I doubt you want to read it all. In it, I supported the legality of secession and that because of that, the war qualified as an invasion by the North. And I supported the historical fact that Lincoln didn't go to war to end slavery and that his real motives were morally suspect.

Basically, I argued that just because the South was evil doesn't mean the North was good. The North was pretty evil too. But, despite the fact that I do consider the North the lesser evil, that's enough for Fly to eternal damn me as some sort of Dixie sympathizer and racist.

IDK, dude's completely nuts. No idea what his mental disability is, but he obviously has one.

Calling out an idea as racist, at first, is fine. When you have 5 racist ideas on the forum? 10? When do we get to start calling the person a racist?

I forgot the part about Lincoln being a bad guy too but I was close.

This is true IRL.

Here in Los Dos Politardia it doesn't work that way. The usual suspects who whine about being called racists will still whine about being called racists even if we make this mindless semantic appeasement. Then they'll do their same old routine of derailing the thread and refusing to discuss the issues by claiming their feelings are all hurt.

No, my entire point was that if Lincoln had actually invaded for the purpose of ending slavery, it would have been justifiable, but since his purpose was basically just being anti-secession, it was not. Just because it worked out that slavery ended because of the war doesn't mean you get to rewrite history.

idk how relevant this is/isn't to the argument that I don't want to read but since people keep not linking posts, let's change that:

(^ bolding mine in the last post)

That is a great question and relates to an earlier question I posed about children that are exposed to racism. I asked if racism is child neglect, but I was driving at those children turning into adults.

When they become adults and choose a normal non-racist disposition their formative and environmental experiences do not simply vanish. Through family relationships exposure to peripheral racism is still a risk. It doesn't seem fair to punish or trespass much at all on a person in such a situation of condition. If anything- offering help if something seems unusual or just not interfering are better choices.

This situation is distinct than a person who has willful racist intent. It is quite the opposite to have a conscious human-oriented perspective.

My hunch and observation of various local cultures is that this type of person, who is conscious of racism and treats people appropriately, but still has an exposure to it that is beyond their personal direct control is not uncommon.

Obviously people who want to overcome their own exposure to racism are doing the correct thing. Even if I am overestimating how common this general disposition is, just one of these types of people have an important story to tell. How people can overcome unintentional racist and other prejudicial thinking is an important story to know. Finding an end of that kind of suffering is a celebration.

Shame those strawmen! Shame 'em hard!!!1!

So the compromise I was trying to achieve is unacceptable to both sides. Pretty good evidence it was a good one.

Are you telling me I need to put up another statue?

Recent history has shown that digging through a poster's history can unleash a lot of fun.

Thanks for the backup.

These are the posts in the Brown thread starting with the one that called out BruceZ's comments and up to Bruce's first response. I count 1 person calling him a racist. (I have no idea what and if anything happened in the mod forum during this time period.)

Hardly looks like a crazed mob calling somebody a racist. Looks more like a mob all surprised at the racist ideas from a mod.


Edit to add this one that I missed:

Meh so AlexM was duped by the propaganda of a bunch of redneck slave holding totalitarians, used to retroactively justify their actions as noble, and joined with racist free marketers to spin it into a whole ideology, he who is innocent cast the first stone...

I never said anything about what they did was noble. In no way have I ever said anything positive about the South.

Exactly what part do you think I was duped on?

I'm going to assume its an accident that you missed off tomdemaine's post about him being a clear racist. Bruce refers to in his response and it was clearly a source of the escalation.

That is incredibly an incredibly hard question to answer. Obviously on a politics forum, you are going to attract the wrong crowd and self-restraint is really difficult the 40th time you have to explain why voter id is combatting a nonexistent problem. There is a NIMBY aspect to it that I am very sympathetic to.

The problem is that by name-calling rather than calling out poor ideas you double your troubles. It invites in even more bad neighbors.

The other trouble is that you haven't really done anything. Same exact number of racist *******s running around I'm the world after you call them racist.

I'll go back and look. But I believe I got everything.

Well of course you didn't. I'm sure you were shedding crocodile tears for all the slaves. Like if you actuality had studied history you'd know the whole right of succession but feeling bad for the slaves was a crock of sh*t concocted by the aggrieved former slave holders who couldn't really argue that slavery was good anymore but still wanted to retain the power and prestige of their former lives, (if that meant having blacks still subservient then so be it) This was, of course, grafted onto the paleo-libertarian Mises ideology because it formed a nice political nexus for the ideology of anarchism and the run of the mill anti Federalist racist Southern whites. Rothbard purposefully put them together. That you were duplicitous in your own hoodwinking after having it explained to you isn't anyone's fault but your own and that other guy that argued it.

Duped is the wrong word. People associate arguing in support of the confederacy's right secession as code for supporting the racist ideology. The fact is that line of reasoning is the same one a racist politician trying not to appear overtly racist would use. So the association is valid. The misunderstanding stems from assuming you had the hidden motive to argue that position.

Sorry, you are correct that I missed that. There was another conversation going on at the time about jman that microbet had a lot to say about and I missed that this post was about both situations.