Possibly both. It is a generalisation, as you take racists then lump them together as idiots, but it really just sounds like an insult, as you cannot really prove someone is or isn’t an idiot, so its not necessarily an untrue generalisation. Now if you said "racists are blond haired, blue eyed idiots … then you would be incorrectly generalising.
Agreed, but thats not really the discussion though, I don’t think I’ve said anything regarding politics and moral philosophy in this discussion, so please correct me if I have.
Agreed, however I’ve made no mention of the validity of their beliefs or the politics, I’ve just tried to keep it clear what those beliefs are and what they are not and what they do and do not entail.
Yes, I know. However, you explained yourself only by substituting in your view of what constitutes equality which clearly differs from that of a racist, a racists is someone who clearly believes in race, obviously he must believe that there a differences. Thats the only point I was making, you said it was false, do you still disagree?
Your objection:
The first part makes the same error that you were pointing out to Nitroadict.
I wouldn’t care about diversity or multi-culturalism as long as it was never forced upon me involuntarily.
It’s not my business what others do, & I’d wish them well if they wish to be strict multi-culturalists or strict mono-culturalists (I think either extreme is a social trap & not worth fretting about, regardless, but whatever).
I shouldn’t be forced to choose either or, by idiots (on either side) who think they know what’s best for me, per being an individual.
I am only quoting this line as I think it sums up many of your points (correct me if I am wrong on that). Indeed you are right on this. You will find no disagreement from me, and perhaps I was unclear, assumed without warrant, or sloppy in presentation. So maybe I can shed some light on my meaning
If I own a business and I hire people to perform various jobs to carry out the function of the business I can classify it as a group, it is more for the benefit of looking at an action carried out by multiple people to achieve a singular purpose. Yes, it is made up of individuals. Yes, it is made by individual choice. Yes, it is in the literal sense individuals acting. However, they are acting out to produce a common cause. They are working to fulfill a single purpose. In this way they can be classified as a group (employees of business X). And it is in this way I am referring to a group embargo. Individuals, yes; but they are individuals trying to achieve a common purpose and actively working together to do so.
This is an entirely different situation
To perhaps further illustrate my point with an example: If as children I were in the car with my sister on a road trip and she wished for my company, and I ignored her for the sole purpose of angering her, that is a provocative action. I am provoking her with my inaction. The important thing to look at in the situation is the motive. If for no other reason, many people tend to hold motive in high esteem (this is where my jury nullification and theory and a strong reason why I believe one is on adding fuel to the fire for violence come into play).
This is an entirely different situation. You are the members of your posse are either threatening violence, or actually doing violence. There’s a world of difference between that and you and the members of your posse walking away from a left-hander every time you meet one.
I don’t know if you caught one major point I was trying to make. That is if a group of individuals want to belligerently (even if it is in a more passive form, such as an embargo) target another group of individuals, a division is inevitably created and the chances for violence increase. Once again: yes each left hander is an individual person but they are all targeted for the reasons of their handiness
Also I think there has been enough debate between the two of us, and since I am a firm believer of Godwin’s law: you’re Hitler
You sister, in the example, is a child, one who presumably does not yet understand that she can’t always get what she wants. Adults should realize this. If I don’t want to associate with you, and you force your company upon me, you are in the wrong. No matter the provocation, individuals choose how to react to said provocation. If the provocation is in of a non-violent, non-threatening manner, then violence using said provocation as an excuse is wrong and should be punished.
When the Rat Pack was about to do their famous “Summit at the Sands”, Sammy Davis, Jr. was denied a room at the Sands. The group didn’t resort to violence. Sinatra didn’t ask his mob buddies to take care of it. He simply told the manager that if Davis didn’t get a suite, the show would be cancelled.
Violence will only happen if individuals initiate it. Continuing your example, if you’re refusing to interact with lefties, and are not in any way threatening or violent yourself, then the leftie who starts the violence should be held accountable. To not do so is to claim that lefties are like children, and don’t realize that they can’t always get what they want, and are prone to temper tantrums when they don’t.
Not caring seems to be pretty multi-culturalist to me.
As a self-avowed cosmopolitan multi-culturalist, I can tell you that - believe it or not - we don’t go around trying to make you dance like an African tribesman or listen to mariachi music. We’re not like the social conservatives who specifically fight to force something on people - the loss of the option to listen to African bands or dance to mariachi tribesmen… Wait…
I never argued that libertarians that remains indifferent/neutral are being oppressive. I think you’re conflating two different premises. I am argueing that those that actually engage in racial discrimination and communitarian exclusion of races are engaging in oppression. The libertarians that are indifferent or neutral to that are not “oppressors” - what I would argue, however, is that they function as enablers of “oppressors”, reguardless of their intentions.
I would posit that just about anyone that was actually subject to racial discrimination or separatism themselves would consider it oppressive. That’s one sense in which it is intuitive. And on a societal level, most people do consider racial discrimination or separatism to be a negative thing, so in simple ad populum terms, my claim is correct.
As I’ve exhaustively tried to clarify, this is a non-sequitor. Strongly having an anti-racist social viewpoint does not equal coercion. Coercion is a non-sequitor from the social viewpoint itself, and you people are conflating social viewpoints with political policy positions.
For the millionth time, this is incorrect. I’m not advocating “forcing” anything on others in terms of aggression. I’m simply argueing for a social viewpoint and advocating a social context in which that social viewpoint is generally understood and adopted. Concluding something “unlibertarian” from this is simply a non-sequitor. It does not follow from the fact that I’m an anti-racist that I’m rationalizing coercion.
You’re strawmanning my definition of “oppression”. I never claimed that being neutral or indifferent is oppression. I claim that deliberately engaging in the act of racial discrimination and forming explicitly separatist communities is.
Oh please - the social engineer strawman is beyond cliche at this point.
For god’s sakes, stop conflating rights concepts with virtue and morality as a whole. I’m not saying you’re legally obligated to help a homeless man. I’m saying that it’s virtuous to help others in need as a general social viewpoint, and that it is unvirtuous to prejudge people based on superficial identity categories such as race and exclude them from entire communities because of it; I’m not putting foreward a political policy position.
I am honestly still confused what thick libertarianism is supposed to be after skimming through this again.
I guess a single person could be modestly “oppressive” on their own. In realistic situations, where is the impact without a “community of oppressors”? Isn’t a community of anti-racists doing effectively what they oppose? (By anti-racist or racist I mean people who would not sell a loaf of bread at their standard price based on their skin color or that person having been branded a racist, not someone who merely dislikes a race or racists).
Correct me if I am wrong. This means that the NAP is somehow on equal footing or below whatever stance like anti-racism to a “thick”. I would be tempted personally to kick someone out of my store if I hear them having a racist rant in line. This is standard right of free association stuff, like putting up a “no blacks” sign. But what do thick anti-racists suggest you do? Write down the guys name from his credit card and send it off to the local anti-racist boycott consortium? Where is the tolerance threshold or required level of proof? Will there be reeducation camps? If I refuse to join ARBC and advertise that I am happy to serve racists will you boycott me too? How much time and money are you willing to spend on combating counterfeit anti-anti-homo ID cards?
I don’t like the use of oppression either… maybe de facto aggression or marginalization suits you better. To me, using these would have to mean a consortium of diversity nuts or some other extreme example. I think the best means is only using these tactics when actual crimes are being committed.
Actually I qualify as an ethical egoist and have more in common with Rand’s philosophy than you do (and Rand herself wrote an excellent essay against racism on individualist grounds), so pulling out the “altruism” card won’t do you very well. The difference is that I see a society in which poverty and racial discrimination is prevailant as not being in my rational self-interest.
And the allusions to the Wilson era are stupid strawmen (and historically inaccurate to boot with respect to the racial issue - that was before the “dixiecrats” moved over to the Republican Party; the Democrats, including Wilson himself, were overwhelmingly on the side of the KKK, they were hardly model “anti-racists”). Wilson isn’t remotely comparable to left-libertarian indie-anarchists.
But this misses the point, as usual, because it’s not a question about forcing people to choose things. It’s a question about the sensibility of one’s social views in general, outside of the question of physical violence. Continually talking only about “force” is to misunderstand what the issue is about.
Actually it does, because I actually produce. Do you produce anything?
The real difference is that you have a poor conception of what a market is, and so you see failures in voluntarism, because like your progressive think-alikes, you expect man to do his worst when given his freedom, instead of realizing that with freedom, man’s inner sense of compassion, cooperation and virtue (which are tied to trade via reputation and mutual aid) should ceteris parabis thrive and a free market incentivizes such behaviour. Most of the progressive arguments I read, seem to be based on the notion that the market doesn’t work as a social mechanism.
Not at all. You have progressive values, which today are considered culturally left values. It’s the same brother’s keeper mentality that you promote, that was used as cause to engage in WWI. In Vietnam. To create social welfare schemes.
You want the same ideals without the violence, without honestly acknowleding that the ideals are part and parcel with violence.
I’m sorry, but I keep looking at you and your ideological peers, and I struggle to see what is truly radical about the very ideas that have held man back for so long. Not that it is a competition, but I have been much more radical in language, ideas and I suspect action than you, for a good 9 months now. You’ve embarked on that road to authoritarianism, and no matter how much you strawman anarcho-capitalists as monarchists or being pro-state, which I suspect is a defense mechanism (attack first), your ideas are the truly conservative ones. It’s one thing to talk a good game about individualism, it is another thing to insist that individuals must function collectively under universally objective values.
Only if one can grasp nuance. Which sadly, some of the folks on this forum who tend to bellowing and caterwauling are incapable of grasping. You can spot the emotionally stunted by their inability to effectively socialize beyond their ideological perspective.
You should look up the etymology of the term “redneck”. Race baiters twisted it into a pejorative that is completely divorced from its original meaning.
Author Jim Goad’s 1997 book The Redneck Manifesto explores the socioeconomic history of low-income Americans. According to Goad, rednecks are traditionally pro-labor and anti-establishment and have an anti-hierarchical religious orientation. Goad argues that elites (having a special distrust of the liberal elite in the Northeast and the west coast) manipulate low-income people (blacks and whites especially) through classism and racism to keep them in conflict with each other and distracted from their exploitation by elites.
Of course the people who use “redneck” as an insult, don’t actually stand for populism. It’s granola and patchouli elitism.
Children dressing up in their parent’s clothes and playing at Lords and Ladies of culture.
You’re not the only one. It’s an artificial distinction that (intentionally and unintentionally) fractures libertarianism.
No, the issue is that the thin libertarian doesn’t think his preferences are so virtuous that they must be universal preferences. He can imagine living in a world with people who are multi-cultural, and people who are mono-cultural and everyone getting along through mutual respect for boundaries.
The fallacies, falsehoods, evasions and bizarre personalized claims in your posts never cease to amaze me, LS. It’s a wonder that I even waste my time making long-winded responses to such a sniveling weasel.
What test scores?
I’m not a strict “Randian”, so this doesn’t exactly point out any hypocrisy in “my side”.
This is an ad hominim or personalization - you tend to engage in them often. We’re talking about ideologies and concepts here - the accusation that I’m a garden-variety “altruist” in ideological terms is false.
Yes, I do produce things. But I find your invokation of this in a moralistic manner to be fairly full of shit, and it has nothing to do with the validity of my ideology or my arguments. Drop the personalizations.
I’m sorry, but these are unfounded accusations, and you’re continueing to address the person rather than the argument. Stop it. I do not “expect man to do his worst when given his freedom”, I just realize that social philosophy cannot be reduced to nothing more than questions about legality, politics and the use of force; that there are meaningful social concerns in life that cannot be reduced to politics. Neither is my politics in line with contemporary “progressivism”. Nothing about what I’ve said implies that I believe that “the market doesn’t work as a social mechanism” - what it does imply is the inherently obvious fact that “social problems” don’t immediately dissapear simply because a given state falls. I’m actually the one concerned with those social problems in and of themselves and advocating using “the market” (as a catch-all metaphor for social interaction) as means to address them.
I’m sorry, but you’re strawmanning and are confused. I do not have the ideology of “the progressives”. Furthermore, the original “progressives” were not modern “cultural liberals” by any reasonable standard. Comparing my viewpoint to rationalizations for WWI and Vietnam is simply ridiculous - especially considering my anti-war position. You really need to stop conflating “cultural liberalism” with left-statist politics.
The notion that being an anti-racist and giving a shit about poverty inherently leads to violence is simply stupid. You’re commiting a huge fallacy here - because group X claims to adhere to goals Y and Z, it does not follow that anyone that has goals Y and Z is in line with group X or favors the political policies of group X or favors violence. Really, your premise here is incredibly bizarre - that strong empathy is “part and parcel with violence”. While strong empathy can be and has been used by political groups to rationalize bad political policies and violence, that is not a problem with strong empathy in and of itself. Sorry, but you’re way over the line on this one.
You really need to stop making sweeping, uninformed proclaimations about what me and others think. As for individuals functioning universally under objective values, you really need to check your premises and take a good look around - libertarianism, even in the thin sense, demands that individuals function in accordance with the values of non-aggression and property rights. It is not a totally relativistic position, it strongly insists that people follow certain norms, even if it is a small set of norms or a single norm (non-aggression). Appealing to a sense of relativism to condemn the norms of others as somehow being intrinsically authoritarian while simultaneously getting all moralistic about your own norms is hypocritical, and is part of the mentality of many “thin” libertarians. In either case, it is a non-sequitor to imply that having extra-libertarian values inherently is authoritarian. I had thought that at least some of this was already clarified in the “thick and thin” talk, but you’ve demonstrated a general lack of understanding of the concepts at play here.
People who are active in the market place, tend to ask as an opening question, “What do you do?” with the intent being “What do you do, to serve your fellow man?”. I want to know, what you contribute to society. Not what you think you contribute, but what your fellow man recognized and rewards as a contribution.
I want to know if you produce things that your fellow man is willing to pay for. I want to know what your role in the division of labour is. Do you produce, and if so, what?
Strawman. I don’t believe anyone has proposed this.
No one claimed that either. Another strawman.
Well does it, or doesn’t it?
Why wouldn’t people in a market, voluntarily address their own needs and problems? I’m curious to know why people would voluntarily choose a bad option, where a better one exists? And if they did choose the bad option, where the better one exists, are they determining value, or are you?