? What other definition of racism is there.


I know an American who had it happen to and she was shot too. Barely survived. Describing someone who does that sort of thing as an animal seems appropriate.


What's racist about it?


The quote is:
"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

Black teenagers can be fast runners. How is that racist? Is it saying they are superior in their ability to run fast?

Also, Ron Paul spoke out against them and said they were disgusting statements that he would never make so I think he thinks they are racist. Or he is lying and not sticking up for what he believes in. It is factually incorrect on some points as well. A black male who is a thief is more likely to steal from a particular random black guy than a particular random white guy.

Nielsio,

Please don't.

On the topic of shilling, "The Halo Effect":

You don't notice that it never makes mention of all the political structures and institutions that favor whites?

No offense, Nielsio, but it seems like you're pretty out of touch with American culture here. The "animals are coming" and "fleet-footed" comments are obviously designed to provoke anxiety about other races or incite animosity towards them.

What do you make of this newsletter? Did Ron Paul know about this thing? Has he issued an official response anywhere?

Like what?

Public Schools.
Criminal justice.
Mortgage deduction.
Social security / medicare.

Those may favor whites, but it is not institutionalized. i.e. there are not laws specifically stating that whites be favored or organizations or televisions that only allow whites, or are in the name of whites.

Aren't there laws specifically in favor of minorities for mortgages?

How does social security favor whites?

The official content of American laws is not obviously discriminatory. But the political institutions that control the United States (lobbies, the military-industrial complex, Congress) are largely administered and controlled by rich, white males. Through their political power, these institutions are able to promote policies that have hugely disproportionate impacts on blacks. For example, the drug laws lead to large numbers of blacks becoming incarcerated for innocent, voluntary transactions in plants and chemicals, while whites are often protected and not prosecuted. The public school system tends to label black children as problems, teach them that they cannot achieve, etc. This is the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. Not to mention the huge number of American laws whose negative impacts on the poor in general tend to strike black communities. The institutionalized victimization of blacks in the United States is very real.

In addition, the United States has a long, long, long cultural history--especially prominent in the South--of regarding blacks as inferior, unintelligent, criminal, etc. This newsletter plays directly into those latent sentiments.

They are things that de facto favor whites.

Mortgage deductions allow homeowners to get free monies from the gov't.

SS/medicare favor people who live well past 80.


I would imagine that whites make up a disproportionate share of the above groups.

That's not to say there aren't massive numbers of programs that help minorities.

Nielsio, if the only definition of "racist" you will accept is a law that discriminates on its face, I think we're done here.

They are programs that are ponies for the middle class, which is whiter than the set of poor people.
The laws I know about are against redlining. I'm not aware of mortage subsidies for minorities. I've heard of studies that found that minorities pay higher rates for mortgages even when controlling for risk.
Greater life expectancy means greater benefits.

The explicitly discriminatory programs like affirmative action are offensive in principle IMO, but pretty meaningless in actual effects -- it's small potatoes. It doesn't make sense to look at the small ways the government deliberately helps minorities and ignore the big ways government hurts them just because they didn't do it deliberately.

Racism isn't just an idea or belief its also an ignorance. These statements are the definition of that. If you can't see that i guess your just displaying your ignorance. Not meaning this as a insult at all so please don't take it that way.

Its just like Rush thinking that him paying millions of dollars to african americans athletes as an owner automatically gives immunity from being a racist. Or when he tries to defend himself and the first person he references his mecury morris. "well mecury morris is on my side, and he's black so how am i a racist?"

And also I thought i saw once were the by lines in those newsletters were by ron paul. Im not saying he wrote them, but either he did or was so irresponsible that he let it go on for a decade?

I don't know if you were here at the time. I think Neilso was still in ban hammer land, but the forum went through those newletters enough. Plus we have a solid thread around Iron's party viewpoints.

I personally agree with Iron, even though I do not want to at all. I think that he's describing something that he does that most everyone does to some degree. Although I feel that it's a not a positive trait and we should work to try and be the type of person who is strong enough to call whatever organization they belong to for their stupid ****.

I'd accept a reply by PM. Didn't mean to interfere with the thread.

You're right, it does not mean they are dumb. They are just doing one of the most infuriating things in politics. Shills who can't admit they are wrong or that their point is terrible because they have a vested interest in the group making the argument is what turns a lot of people off of politics imo.

I am more than happy to split out posts into a new "Neilsio Defends The Ron Paul Newsletters" thread if this is going to continue.

I would support that if you can get RB to guarantee that certain greens that will come out of the woodwork to troll that thread get banned.

I don't see why this explains why you, iron, have to "maintain party discipline" by not criticizing Obama on the 2p2 Politics forum. You think "maintaining party discipline" here on 2p2 has some tangible value?

Your interests (as a poster in this forum) aren't the same as Democrats in Congress or even prominent pundits on the left. At least they shouldn't be. That's not to excuse their schilling, but it's even less defensible for you on 2p2.

As to iron's point: It is a human tendency, but it is one that should be resisted if you want your positions as to the misdeeds of the other party to ever be taken seriously. The hypocrisy charge *is* indeed relevant because the criticism hurled by one side at the other isn't "You did X bad thing, and you're from the other side, so you should be fired/resign/whatever". It is just, "you did X bad thing, so you should be fired/resign/whatever, and people should agree with me because of course condemning x bad thing is not a partisan issue".

DrModern,

Very briefly: While Dr. Paul was out of Congress and busy doing other things (like delivering hundreds of babies to minority women), he had lent his name to some people to publish under. At the spearhead of this effort was Murray Rothbard. Murray had a weakness, going back decades, of trying to forge alliances of convenience between libertarians and variance other coalitions. He tried it with the left and got burned, and in the late 80s/early 90s he tried it with the socially conservative right and got burned. Murray was emphatically not a racist since he, like Dr. Paul, considered racism to be "an ugly form of collectivism", i.e. racism is anti-individualist, and Murray was nothing if not an individualist. Unfortunately as a strategery he tried to cozy up to the socially-conservative right. One avenue for this was the newletter being published under Ron Paul's name. It seems clear to me that some of the stuff in question is innocuous and being demagogued as racist, while other parts cannot plausibly be characterized as anything except an attempt to play on racial fears, at best. At the very best, it can easily be demagogued as racists, which these days is just as good as being racist (better, in fact; the left is full of racists and get no grief for it whatsoever). Which was at the very best massively stupid on the part of the people responsible for producing it. Ron did not review the stuff in question. He trusted the people involved implicitly, which turned out to be a terrible blunder that he'll have to pay for for the rest of his life. Anyone who has ever heard Dr. Paul speak, read anything he's ever actually written, or met him personally knows that he isn't a bigot. They also know that the stuff in question was simply not his style. Take out all of the racially controversial stuff, and it still does not read like something Dr. Paul would write. He is much more of a Lao Tzu type libertarian.

The people who smeared him of course know all of this very well, but he's a threat to them and their patrons in various ways, so he has to be destroyed. And to the everlasting shame of those involved, they unfortunately have the proper tool.

Lastly, I know Ron Paul personally and he doesn't have a bigotted bone in his body (that one's for you, DVault).

Please do not further hijack this thread with this subject.

I'm not sure it's technically a hijack if it was initiated in the OP.

Not quite correct. I don't believe Ron Paul was not involved. I also don't believe Ron Paul was involved. I don't believe either way because there is no evidence. It seems absurdly unlikely given the man's beliefs and character though.

Well, Ron Paul was mentioned in the newsletter, but Nielso is doing the modern conservative "nothing is racist" schtick(in this forum, Taso also plays this card a lot. In the mainstream, read anything on a right wing blog about Limbaugh's involvement with the NFL to see more examples), not the "I know it's wrong but I'm going to be quiet anyway" thing the OP is about.