A post about Keith Smart turned into GSOM political forum by Naticus!

9-31 with that roster isn’t too bad.

I agree with all Naticus’s and antihero’s suggestions, mdb. More broadly, I would say this: at your age, you could probably stand to spend more time reading (ideally, stuff a notch or two above what you read on GSoM) and less time posting. You could also, I suspect, spend a bit more time just living life. Good writing is generally less about grammar and syntax and stuff than about having a distinctive style and a “voice” that people are interested in hearing. I’m sure you’ll develop that voice eventually; in the meantime, keep working to make yourself a cool and interesting and well-rounded person.

How about you make arguments against the content instead of just broad generalizations and attacking the people. Good luck with that. Also, conservative foundations buy the books and give them away for free??? Whoa! Point me in their direction, so I can get some free books!! (What a LIE).

Alan Colmes and Kirstin Powers are real liberals, by the way. Colmes has his own liberal talk show (or had… I doubt it was successful).

Dude, if you write more posts that show genuine effort, I will be happy to politely critique them. One of my creative writing professors suggested that the best way to learn to be a good writer is to write. Getting feedback can only improve your writing, if your ego can handle that. Then again, I am reasonably nice, when it comes to giving advice about writing. It doesn’t get under my skin like left wing condescending, dismissive political dogma.

Indeed, our friend Naticus is already on record on this board saying (presumably jokingly?) that he’s going to go on a shooting spree if Rahm Emmanuel continues his fascist ways. (At least that was the gist of it — correct me if I’m wrong Nat). I can’t seem to find the post now … either it was deleted or just buried somewhere amid the piles of posts herein. What may have been most remarkable about it is that amid all the other borderline hateful comments he has spewed in these threads, it didn’t even really stand out.

I always try not to be alarmist about these things. I mean, extremist zealots say extreme and zealous things about leaders they hate all the time — doesn’t mean they’re going to go out and get a gun and try to kill them. Worrisome thing is, when you look at our country’s history, it’s not exactly unprecedented.

Naticus: obviously, I don’t mean to imply you’re remotely capable of such a thing. But as Belialugh suggests, there are others out there with similar views who are angrier, more desperate, and less kind than you. You could really, really stand to take better account of the negative force of some of your words.

I forgot to mention that if you see those tea parties and there is one Black person there, that is the bravest Black person on the planet. That person is going to be called all the liberal racist stereo-types in the book by all the liberals, of all ethnicities. But the idea of calling him or her those names, to the left, is perfectly acceptable.

Everyone is qualified to talk about race.

I do agree with this. I was not clear in my wording. What I was getting at was that White people shouldn’t be trying to inform everyone about race. Discussing race is good, though. Coming from, not just a White person, but a naive White person, it just comes across as so prideful, that’s all. I don’t think White people should preach down to anyone about race. Talking (as in a two- way conversation; not a speech or a novel) about race with a modicum of humility and tact is good, though, regardless of your race.

Everyone has different perspectives that only their race provides them.

Being White doesn’t often provide much perspective, because White history month is every month, White accomplishments are well-known, White’s “owned” this country from its inception and White culture and influence permeates the entire country. Minorities know Whites better than Whites know themselves. There is nothing you can teach minorities about Whites, that they don’t already know 99% of the time.

You probably honestly believe you are trying to help POCs by saying this

I think a lot of minorities find this term offensive. Don’t White people have a color also, which is beige? We all have color. The most polite term, I think (and perhaps someone can correct me) is minorities, because it makes no mention of race at all. To call minorities “people of color,” suggests minorities are “others,” rather than “one of us.” This ubiquitous attitude among White people is why American society is still self-segregating.

I am the only one who even brings racism up from both sides. Naticus only talks about Barbara Boxer, Sonia Sotomayor, etc. Yet he is the one trying to tell people to not use racism for their benefit.

In fact, I have mentioned racism coming from both sides and acknowledged any valid points people have made about racism coming from the right. You haven’t read this entire thread. However, the reason I bring up Democrats is because their brand of racism is prevalent and is not taboo. It’s an accepted form of racism. It is universally accepted that the racism from the right is simply wrong, so much so, that type of racism is kept hidden, except around minorities. That pisses me off just as much, I’d say.

SO HE IS A WHITE GUY! HE CONSIDERS HIMSELF A WHITE GUY! YET HE CALLS HIMSELF NOT PARTICULARLY WHITE AND HISPANIC WHEN IT SUITS HIM!

I am a White guy, by government standards. However, I do not consider myself particularly White. I don’t really feel White, as I don’t identify with White America. Furthermore, I never called myself Hispanic. I said that the government considers my father and his father Hispanic. However, because I am several generations removed, according to the government, I am not Hispanic. Interestingly, the reason my father is considered Hispanic is because his great grandparents were Spanish speaking… Jews. The reason he is labeled Hispanic is because of the Spanish language. Hispanic is not a real race. It is a category invented by, of all people, Richard Nixon (yes, I know that sounds crazy). My father considers himself more Jewish than anything, to the point that my family celebrates Passover (although he is more English than Jewish).

I hope that every time a POC says a racial epithet you jump on them and tell them how offended you are

If it was a racial epithet against a different minority, I would be offended and politely and humbly suggest to that person that I don’t think that’s cool. I would do the same, if they called someone an Uncle Tom or a banana, also. Oddly, in person, I am not nearly as belligerent as I am online, but I am still honest. Of course, I never hear that coming from minorities, because they know not to mention those terms about other ethnicities.

If you are saying that white people are affected by race, so then why should they not be allowed to talk about it?

The thing is, minorities don’t need to hear White people’s side. But White people need to hear minorities out. How about White people do more listening, instead.

Contradicts his entire statement that he did not read it.

This is true. I lied that I did not read it. In fact, there was evidence that I lied about that, so you shouldn’t have believed me when I told that lie. I thought it was a funny quip. Wasn’t so much meant to actually deceive you.

Beli, like I said, I don’t think you’re a horrible person. You are however naive and unqualified to harangue people about race issues. It comes across like you think you understand race well, when compared to minorities, you know zilch. That’s not to say I know something. I look White, so people think I’m White, so I don’t know how it feels when 1/10 people show subtle signs of racism (or perhaps more or less. I don’t know, not having experienced it) I don’t claim to have a lot of knowledge about race; however, I have listened and learned what an idiot I was when I thought I did know something. I didn’t know sh**, kind of like you, Belilaugh. I have nothing against you. I just don’t think you’re qualified to harangue people about race.

I wrote “negro”? I did? Actually, I posted some quotes from a website discussing racism in the United States. I certainly didn’t go on any harangues arbitrarily throwing around genuine racial stereo-types and derogatory terms, as you did. Repeating actual stereo-types or derogatory terms should only be done in the context of quotes or references to history, for example. In the right context, you can get away with doing that; however, coming from a position of pride and arrogance, and throwing them around loosely, it is offensive.

As far as “midget,” most people get the joke. Furthermore the term midget doesn’t carry with it half the weight of a lot of racial slurs. It is not a derogatory term per se. It does denote an “otherness” in quality of little people, though. If you read my signature carefully and ponder it, it is actually an insightful joke that uses irony to illustrate how it would be if the role was reversed and non-little-people were the “others” instead. It is both very funny and insightful at the same time. Oddly, I am a “politically correct” conservative. I started calling Native Americans, “Native Americans,” even before the Left.

I never said I’m proud of being White. White people don’t like me, particularly… at least not my culture. White people treated my ancestors like sh**. I might be proud of being Mormon, as the Mormons I know are great people. (Please don’t think most Mormons are like me. I am a very crass and argumentative individual and not remotely a good indication of what most Mormons are).

The fall of the Soviet Union involved a lot of strategies that wouldn’t work on Iraq. One of them involved military support of Afghanistan, which resulted in not only depletion of funds but a loss of status in the world and among their own people. So we did have one military victory (or more particularly, the Afghanis victory with our help), which helped lead to their fall. Other factors involved economic warfare via the cooperation of the Saudis to reduce the value of Soviet oil. Another factor was our escalation of our military power, forcing the Soviets to deplete their treasury to compete.

Now, at best, we could reduce Iraqi income through competition, but they were a much smaller country with much lower costs. They were not spending themselves to death with an arsenal of nuclear weapons, they were not waging wars on any countries since Kuwait. They were a failed nation. Regime change without us would have resulted in the same thing or worse, as Saddam’s son was next in line.

We could have let them be; however, after 9/11 and all the prior attacks and attempted attacks, it was clear we were not in a COLD war but a hot war that was gradually escalating. France, for example, was supplying Iraq with income with an oil deal, having crossed U.N. lines. Saddam and his friends were rich, in fact, while his people starved, partly due to the corruption of the U.N. (remember the oil for food scandal?) Two Al Qaeda training camps existed in Iraq and Saddam himself was supporting terror against Israel, for example.

He was a proven enemy of peace, having used chemical weapons on his own people and certainly had vengeance on his mind against the U.S. As they say, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This is made evident by the fact that Iraq had met on friendly terms with Al Qaeda in 2001 (which gave rise to the rumor that Iraq was at least partly behind 9/1;. it would be no surprise, though, if they had provided Al Qaeda aid an comfort).

So you comparison is purely superficial. While that sounds nice, it is not remotely nice. That kind of approach would have FAILED.

We’ll never know now cause we never tried

We didn’t try it, because it would have been a stupid idea.

We do know our money is spent, all gone!

The money we’ve spent in Iraq is not only an investment in world economic interests (oil in Iraq… yup. blood for oil and to fight terror), an investment in preventing terror attacks on economic interests, an investment in preventing getting hit on our home soil by another 9/11, it is nothing compared to the entitlements the government owes. If you understand what a terrible economic position the U.S. is in, with or without the war, the war would not be a big deal as far as costs go. Entitlements dwarf the cost of the war.

poor stance from which to preach peace to any other countries who might be considering military solutions to their problems.

We have the U.N. to prevent rogue nations from going in unilaterally and our own military might. Besides, who is looking to us as a moral authority, with the N.Y. Times preaching how evil we are and the world reprinting their articles?

But we do have some [liberal hawks] happy that they killed so many heathens before being reigned in.

The same could be said of Clinton, JFK and FDR. A neo-conservative is a type of liberal, actually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-con

The idea of preemptive strikes to spread or protect Democracy was behind Vietnam and was considered a liberal philosophy. The far right typically has more of a protectionist philosophy, like the libertarians (whom I sympathize with). Many so-called neo-conservatives are not neo-cons but conservative hawks. The war on terror is not really preemptive, in fact. Afghanistan was a logical counterattack to 9/11. Saddam came into the picture as a logical target, largely because we were technically still at war with Iraq after the Gulf War. While we had a peace treaty, Iraq was firing on our planes weekly nullifying it. So attacking him was technically a counter-attack as well. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t go after Iran instead; Iraq was a more politically viable move.