Maybe that training is a bit *too* fast...
As her patient doesn't look so good:
Libertarians, My Libertarians!
Cruel to be kind means that I love you . Because, while I think you are mistaken, your hearts are in the right place -- yes, even you, Silas -- unlike some people . This Breitbart fellow (discussed in the link above), by all appearances, deliberately doctored a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her remarks appear virulently racist, when they had, in fact, the opposite import. I heard that at a recent Austrian conference, some folks were talking about "Callahan's conservative turn." While that description is not entirely inaccurate, I must say that a lot of these people who today call themselves conservative give me the heebie-jeebies.
Gene, off-topic but do you have any thoughts on Cliven Bundy's controversial comments on "the Negro", and the arguments of the libertarians who are rushing to his defense?
ReplyDeleteNo, I didn't even see (hear) it.
DeleteI'm a libertarian and even I haven't heard about this (and I'm currently writing up something about Cliven!). But then, there's a lot that I have said that has been taken out of context, so I can automatically take many things with a grain ...
DeleteLo and behold, here's a fuller version of what Cliven said:
Delete…” and so what I’ve testified to ya’, I was in the WATTS riot, I seen the beginning fire and I seen the last fire. What I seen is civil disturbance. People are not happy, people is thinking they did not have their freedom; they didn’t have these things, and they didn’t have them.
We’ve progressed quite a bit from that day until now, and sure don’t want to go back; we sure don’t want the colored people to go back to that point; we sure don’t want the Mexican people to go back to that point; and we can make a difference right now by taking care of some of these bureaucracies, and do it in a peaceful way.
Let me tell.. talk to you about the Mexicans, and these are just things I know about the negroes. I want to tell you one more thing I know about the negro.
When I go, went, go to Las Vegas, North Las Vegas; and I would see these little government houses, and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids…. and there was always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch. They didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for the kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for the young girls to do.
And because they were basically on government subsidy – so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never, they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered are they were better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things? Or are they better off under government subsidy?
You know they didn’t get more freedom, uh they got less freedom – they got less family life, and their happiness -you could see it in their faces- they were not happy sitting on that concrete sidewalk. Down there they was probably growing their turnips – so that’s all government, that’s not freedom.
Now, let me talk about the Spanish people. You know I understand that they come over here against our constitution and cross our borders. But they’re here and they’re people – and I’ve worked side-by-side a lot of them.
Don’t tell me they don’t work, and don’t tell me they don’t pay taxes. And don’t tell me they don’t have better family structure than most of us white people. When you see those Mexican families, they’re together, they picnic together, they’re spending their time together, and I’ll tell you in my way of thinking they’re awful nice people.
And we need to have those people join us and be with us…. not, not come to our party."
So what? Can you be prejudiced without being a hate monger? It's not like the NYT did the sort of thing NBC did to try to whip up hysteria in the Martin case. They quoted him without lacunae and accurately. When you quote Bush to discredit him do you include every word he said in a speech or on a topic?
DeleteIf your claim is that he is prejudiced against blacks, I'm not seeing it, and in fact I am seeing the exact opposite. As for using the term "negro", well many pro-black people and organizations use (have used) that term. Would you say that the UNCF or Franz Boas are/were prejudiced?
DeleteWhen you say "you quote Bush ...", are you speaking generally, or are you referring to me specifically?
I don't generally talk about Bush much, and if I do it would be directed towards his actions (he's a politician, so I take it as granted that anything he says is BS). However, if I were to use a statement of his to discredit him, it would be used in conjunction with an actual event that contradicts his statement (which is fortunately very easy to do with Bush). IOW, it is taking a claim, comparing it to the evidence or course of events, and then showing that the claim is not consistent with the evidence or courses of events.
That is far different from taking sections of a statement in order to paint a person as racist, when it's very easy to see in the fuller context that the person is not racist at all, and that they may even be empathetic and sympathetic to the current state of affairs in negro communities.
Robert P Murphy has a graphic up, which I am too polite to characterize, and some of the comments are interesting.
ReplyDeleteThey cannot help themselves. Murphy's site is overflowing with Bundy apologetics and worse. Much worse http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/04/lessons-from-waco.html#comment-460963
ReplyDeleteThe comments on Murphy's Lessons from Waco thread are remarkable. He has shut off comments on the other Bundy thread. Too much candor from his band of merry men I suppose.
ReplyDeleteHow did this joke turn into a thread about Murphy-on-Bundy?
ReplyDeleteI think that it might have to do with Ken. B's infatuation with Bob and Bob's rejection of him last Tuesday (this post of yours was published the next day, and I think that it was merely serving as an outlet for Ken). He's Bob's little internet stalker.
DeleteWhile I'm trying to keep a lower internet profile lately (at least in terms of spending time commenting and debating), I find it hard to not respond in cases where I think that somebody is wrong; they pull me in, you know how it goes. Of course, this is only exacerbated by the fact that I consider Bob to be a good friend, so there is a feeling of obligation on my part (I know it sounds a bit hokey, but I'm quite traditional and loyal in my friendships. Somebody like Pinker might decry my sense of honor in this respect).
BTW, I certainly found the original post to be quite funny, and was going to comment in that vein, but I got sidetracked instead. All apologies go to you in that regard.
(in case you haven't figured it out, Bodybuilder is Ken. B).