More DeSantis agenda

[BootmanLA]

On 3/5/2023 at 5:22 PM, BlackDude said:

3. Bi-racial people are considered black in America culturally. That’s not what I say, that’s what white society has decided. Society operates along cultural lines, not genealogy.

Indeed. If Eros's daughter marries a black man and has children, most of society is going to consider those children black, Even if the parents may sometimes use the term "mixed" or "bi-racial" on forms, or whatever, people will see those kids and say "black". 

On 3/5/2023 at 5:22 PM, BlackDude said:

5. If you don’t want to feel ashamed because white people owned slaves, you don’t have to. Hell, I’m not ashamed when a black person commits a crime in Chicago. 

I think it might be useful to draw a distinction between feeling personally ashamed for something you didn't yourself do (which is admittedly silly) and being cognizant of the advantages you've enjoyed because of generations of mistreatment (both slavery and discrimination) of people not like yourself. Thus far, in my limited genealogical research, I've identified no slaveowners in my lineage, but I know absolutely that my forebears benefitted from that system. One of my great-grandfathers worked as the livestock (mostly horses and mules) manager on a post-bellum plantation. Not a single black person ever worked in a supervisory capacity on that plantation, ever. Even now, when the plantation is almost totally mechanized, I don't think there are any African-American supervisory people there. In 2023.

I can't say I'm "ashamed" of any of my ancestors for benefitting from this kind of system, but at the same time, I am disgusted by the social fabric that created the system and allowed it to flourish for so long.

[BlackDude]

24 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Lincoln was on record as early as 1854 saying he was personally opposed to slavery, period. I agree he wasn't "perfectly fine with the status quo" but it's a slur to suggest he had no feelings on the issue. He was simply resigned to the fact that keeping slavery where it existed was almost certainly a prerequisite to maintaining the union, despite his clearly and unequivocally stated opposition to the institution.

Two more points about Lincoln: he is also quoted as saying he vowed the superior position as being “assigned.” Not through capitalism, morality or productivity.

He also had a well documented plan to send all the freedman to Panama. 

Im not going to even go into his own suspected lineage.

He was no friend to black society. 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by BlackDude

[BlackDude]

19 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Indeed. If Eros's daughter marries a black man and has children, most of society is going to consider those children black, Even if the parents may sometimes use the term "mixed" or "bi-racial" on forms, or whatever, people will see those kids and say "black". 

I think it might be useful to draw a distinction between feeling personally ashamed for something you didn't yourself do (which is admittedly silly) and being cognizant of the advantages you've enjoyed because of generations of mistreatment (both slavery and discrimination) of people not like yourself. Thus far, in my limited genealogical research, I've identified no slaveowners in my lineage, but I know absolutely that my forebears benefitted from that system. One of my great-grandfathers worked as the livestock (mostly horses and mules) manager on a post-bellum plantation. Not a single black person ever worked in a supervisory capacity on that plantation, ever. Even now, when the plantation is almost totally mechanized, I don't think there are any African-American supervisory people there. In 2023.

I can't say I'm "ashamed" of any of my ancestors for benefitting from this kind of system, but at the same time, I am disgusted by the social fabric that created the system and allowed it to flourish for so long.

I agree with 90% of what you said. But it wasn’t just the ancestors who benefited. Those ill gotten resources didn’t disappear. They were used to create institutions and systems which are still present today. 
 

Those resources are used to empower and incentivize those to keep those systems and institutions in place today. Unfortunately, the benefits for whites are often additional resources passed down, while the resources for black and non-black “POC” are usually only symbolic or psychological. 
 

Edited March 7, 2023 by BlackDude

[BootmanLA]

1 minute ago, BlackDude said:

Two more points about Lincoln: he is also quoted as saying he vowed the superior position as being “assigned.” Not through capitalism, morality or productivity.

He also had a well documented plan to send all the freedman to Panama. 

Im not going to even go into his own suspected lineage.

He was no friend to black society. 

Certainly not going to dispute that. But there is a distinction between "I believe in white supremacy" and "I believe slavery is a moral good" (or, if you prefer, between "I believe in racial equality" and "I think slavery is a moral abomination"). It's possible to believe that one race is "superior" to another while not believing the "inferior" one can morally be enslaved, which I think probably accurately reflect Lincoln's views (as far as I have been able to determine).

It's possible to admire some characteristics or viewpoints of a person while loathing others. Very few people, if any, have no moral flaws. Unfortunately, one legacy of the traditional way of teaching history in the west is elevating people as "heroes" because of some significant accomplishment while ignoring the problematic side of the same individual. 

[BootmanLA]

1 minute ago, BlackDude said:

I agree with 90% of what you said. But it wasn’t just the ancestors who benefited. Those ill gotten resources didn’t disappear. They were used to create institutions and systems which are still present today. 
 

Those resources are used to empower and incentive those to keep those systems and institutions in place today. 
 

Oh absolutely. Not denying that in the slightest. My point was merely to refute a poster's notion that because his own ancestors (save one) didn't own slaves, they didn't benefit from that institution and its progeny (like de jure segregation/discrimination). 

[BlackDude]

1 minute ago, BootmanLA said:

Certainly not going to dispute that. But there is a distinction between "I believe in white supremacy" and "I believe slavery is a moral good" (or, if you prefer, between "I believe in racial equality" and "I think slavery is a moral abomination"). It's possible to believe that one race is "superior" to another while not believing the "inferior" one can morally be enslaved, which I think probably accurately reflect Lincoln's views (as far as I have been able to determine).

Yet that is the very essence of white supremacy. 

[BlackDude]

38 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Oh absolutely. Not denying that in the slightest. My point was merely to refute a poster's notion that because his own ancestors (save one) didn't own slaves, they didn't benefit from that institution and its progeny (like de jure segregation/discrimination). 

And this brings us back to Desantis, who’s using the same strategy LBJ laid out years ago: tell white Americans they are they greatest success story in the history of civilization, and they had no help, as a means to justify keeping all power and resources in the hands of white society. 

[ellentonboy]

I have to admit, in all honesty, I am scared.  When I first arrived here I did not think much about politics, yet I was a Federal employee.  I have been a Federal employee all my working life.  I never thought about Republicans and Democrats, I NEVER THOUGHT PERIOD.  See, that is the problem, someone in their 20a who does not care much, does not understand how their lack of involvement can shape the results of what might come for all gay people in the future.

I am not preaching, I know some posters may think I am not speaking for the majority.  But am I am scared?  HELL YES, and do I know what will happen in 2024, I don't know.

I am willing to be screamed at by veteran posters, I am educated yet stupid.  But DeSantis and the rest of them scare the hell out of me and I am willing to admit to that.....

So, with that being said, anyone have any suggestions regarding my lack of involvement?  Frankly, I am damn embarrassed.  I should know better....

 

[ErosWired]

18 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Oh absolutely. Not denying that in the slightest. My point was merely to refute a poster's notion that because his own ancestors (save one) didn't own slaves, they didn't benefit from that institution and its progeny (like de jure segregation/discrimination). 

Jesus. I entertained no such notion, and made no statement whatsoever suggesting that they did not enjoy the societal benefits of being white. I am not attempting some kind of ludicrous justification of Confederate heritage. What I said was that they were poor as dirt and were not sitting there thinking through the macroeconomics of it all. It’s a grassroots humanist perspective based on principles of practical need. Don’t get it twisted.

I don’t buy your apologetics about Lincoln, by the way. If he had such fine moral principles about slavery, it doesn’t matter how earnest he made them sound - he traded them in for political coin. He was born about a half hour from here, one county over, by the way. I’ve done work details over at the Birthplace. Integrity is kind of illusory when it comes to Lincoln. Fun fact: The cabin that’s supposed to be the one he was born in is actually reconstructed out of pieces from two unrelated cabins, and they put them together wrong. The chimney’s on the wrong side.

If some of my arguments are too simplistic for you, I would frankly far rather err in that direction than tortured rhetorical cabin-building.

As to this whole sense that seems to pervade the air that all white people in the society share guilt for having benefited, by circumstance of their genetics, from a system that they were born into, by that logic, this must then apply equally to the white abolitionist as to the white supremacist, both equally condemned, as both benefit the same. If you draw the same brush against all, all receive the same coat of paint.

That’s not how it works, of course. An individual is directly responsible for how he treats others; he is not necessarily responsible for how others treat him. To claim that every stratum of a stratified society is equally responsible for the stratification simply because they are not on the bottom is absurd, and utterly ignores the reality of the inequity of power. A dirt farmer in the rural antebellum South may not have been treated as a slave, but he had no significant power to change the system, either. He had no money or influence and, critically, little education, so even his vote was subject to the manipulations of political operatives (and don’t try to pretend it wasn’t, because it’s happening right under our noses today). Similarly, if the stratum of society wielding the power to wage war opts to use it in support of an unjust system, that is not a decision that the soldier is in a position to make, and if the result of the decision to wage war is that William Tecumseh Sherman is planning to come burn down his house, he may not even have the luxury of deciding whether or not to be a soldier. If Henry V is correct, even if every man’s duty is the King’s, every man’s soul’s his own and he must be individually judged - he cannot be judged on the basis of the motives of the King.

The only way any of this ever gets resolved is at the individual level, one brain at a time, teaching people to respect the priceless value of every human soul.

 

And then, once we get all the issues of white privilege finally squared away, we can get started on Neurotypical privilege, and how it works the same way when neuronormative people - of every skin color - make life a living, breathing hell for people with different brains. Don’t imagine for a moment that they stop at race.

[BlackDude]

1 hour ago, ErosWired said:

As to this whole sense that seems to pervade the air that all white people in the society share guilt for having benefited, by circumstance of their genetics, from a system that they were born into, by that logic, this must then apply equally to the white abolitionist as to the white supremacist, both equally condemned, as both benefit the same. If you draw the same brush against all, all receive the same coat of paint.

That’s not how it works, of course. An individual is directly responsible for how he treats others; he is not necessarily responsible for how others treat him. To claim that every stratum of a stratified society is equally responsible for the stratification simply because they are not on the bottom is absurd, and utterly ignores the reality of the inequity of power. A dirt farmer in the rural antebellum South may not have been treated as a slave, but he had no significant power to change the system, either. He had no money or influence and, critically, little education, so even his vote was subject to the manipulations of political operatives (and don’t try to pretend it wasn’t, because it’s happening right under our noses today). Similarly, if the stratum of society wielding the power to wage war opts to use it in support of an unjust system, that is not a decision that the soldier is in a position to make, and if the result of the decision to wage war is that William Tecumseh Sherman is planning to come burn down his house, he may not even have the luxury of deciding whether or not to be a soldier. If Henry V is correct, even if every man’s duty is the King’s, every man’s soul’s his own and he must be individually judged - he cannot be judged on the basis of the motives of the King.

The only way any of this ever gets resolved is at the individual level, one brain at a time, teaching people to respect the priceless value of every human soul.

 

And then, once we get all the issues of white privilege finally squared away, we can get started on Neurotypical privilege, and how it works the same way when neuronormative people - of every skin color - make life a living, breathing hell for people with different brains. Don’t imagine for a moment that they stop at race.

1. Abolitionist also benefited from slavery and white supremacy. Many didn’t care about the issue at all, it was something they could make money off off (similar to the relationship the feminist and LGBT community has  with blacks). 

 

2. This isn’t a teaching issue. There are to types of people: those who want to end white supremacy and racism and this who want to find comfort in it. 
 

3. Even those “poor dirt farmers” were allowed to own land, given property rights, and will it to their heirs. Land that was not there’s indigenously. Regardless of how it was acquired, they were not just ants blindly going through the world waiting to be crushed. They were given a choice of hoe and where to live, and may have found comfort in the political climate of the region. 
 

4. When other groups are harmed, we hold groups responsible: nations, religions, political bodies, etc. When blacks people are harmed, people want to parse out blame to individuals. 
 

 

[BlackDude]

2 hours ago, ellentonboy said:

I have to admit, in all honesty, I am scared.  When I first arrived here I did not think much about politics, yet I was a Federal employee.  I have been a Federal employee all my working life.  I never thought about Republicans and Democrats, I NEVER THOUGHT PERIOD.  See, that is the problem, someone in their 20a who does not care much, does not understand how their lack of involvement can shape the results of what might come for all gay people in the future.

I am not preaching, I know some posters may think I am not speaking for the majority.  But am I am scared?  HELL YES, and do I know what will happen in 2024, I don't know.

I am willing to be screamed at by veteran posters, I am educated yet stupid.  But DeSantis and the rest of them scare the hell out of me and I am willing to admit to that.....

So, with that being said, anyone have any suggestions regarding my lack of involvement?  Frankly, I am damn embarrassed.  I should know better....

 

Ron DeSantis specializes in performative extremism due to his lack of charisma. He has no original ideas, and most of his policies shot down at the court level. He barley beat Andrew Gilliam for the governors seat, who was a dumpster fire as a candidate.

Those antics may fly in Florida were alot of the electorate are these self hating, anti-black immigrants, but you can’t run a county being against everything. 
 

Also, real recognize real. If Trump runs, Desantis is finished. He won’t survive one debate.

 

 

 

 

 

[hntnhole]

4 hours ago, ellentonboy said:

So, with that being said, anyone have any suggestions regarding my lack of involvement?  Frankly, I am damn embarrassed.  I should know better....

Well, put that embarrassment aside, as it's only productive as a potential inducement to alter your thinking.  Congratulate yourself for arriving at a new level of understanding, and keep asking yourself questions.  And, trying out those new answers with active use.  Embarrassment is a great motivator, but what really counts is what happens after that particular realization comes. 

Congrats !!! 😉

[BootmanLA]

On 3/7/2023 at 3:38 PM, ErosWired said:

I don’t buy your apologetics about Lincoln, by the way. If he had such fine moral principles about slavery, it doesn’t matter how earnest he made them sound - he traded them in for political coin.

And my point remains: What one personally believes, and what one is able to accomplish within the political realm given the political realities of the local, state, or federal system in which one is operating, are two different things. Conflating the two, or worse, pretending that anything that transpires while a given official holds power is directly attributable to him, is silliness. You're definitely doing the first. I can't speak for the second.

On 3/7/2023 at 3:38 PM, ErosWired said:

As to this whole sense that seems to pervade the air that all white people in the society share guilt for having benefited, by circumstance of their genetics, from a system that they were born into, by that logic, this must then apply equally to the white abolitionist as to the white supremacist, both equally condemned, as both benefit the same. If you draw the same brush against all, all receive the same coat of paint.

That’s not how it works, of course. An individual is directly responsible for how he treats others; he is not necessarily responsible for how others treat him.

You phrase this as though "taking responsibility for" (or not) is the only relevant response, in order to shoot down the idea that we are personally responsible for what happened before. Of course we're not.

The problem is that today's suit-and-tie white supremacists use that argument to say we can't then actually look at the system to see how whites benefitted (and blacks were harmed), because we don't have to "take responsibility" for those actions. These people don't even want us acknowledging those systems existed, because it utterly destroys their narrative that black people have been free to better themselves for generations and we have no responsibility to fix those problems.

Individually, no, we don't have to "take responsibility for" something we didn't do. But COLLECTIVELY, as a society, we sure as fuck OUGHT to, morally speaking.

I know that anecdotes are not the singular form of data, but I will give a little of my own background as one example. Of my four great-grandfathers, one was a dirt poor farmer with about a third-grade education, one was a traveling sharecropper, one was a general laborer on a plantation, and the fourth - the only one to have made a little "something" of himself, managed the livestock at a different plantation. The first one's son, my paternal grandfather, managed to get at least a partial high school education and ended up working for the postal office, rising over the years to the local superintendent of carriers. His wife, my paternal grandmother (one of 11 children) somehow managed to finish high school and got a clerical state job.

On the other side of the family, my paternal grandfather left school in the 6th grade and went to work for a window and door company owned by his uncle by marriage, then started his own glass business in his 1930's. His wife, my maternal grandmother, was one of 7 children who lived to adulthood, and the six girls ALL got a higher education of some sort, even though for some it was business education (like stenography, typing, or bookkeeping) - my grandmother was a teacher until she got married and had kids.

None of that would have been possible if my four great-grandfathers had been black, not white. Higher ed was closed to black students at that time (the only historically black college in La. at the time was more like a high school because so few students had a secondary education worth a dime). Starting a business like my grandfather did wasn't an avenue open to blacks, either - at least not one that would serve white customers. The post office was segregated and hired very few blacks at the time - especially in the south - and most state jobs (other than basic manual labor), like my grandmother's, were white-only.

And none of them started with any material advantages. My mom's dad died rich, because he made a small fortune in glass contracting as our home city boomed dramatically in the 20th century. My dad's dad retired with an extremely comfortable pension from the post office and played golf. My own parents and most of their siblings got higher educations. My generation basically lacked for nothing (and some of my cousins grew up in comparatively wealthy families). 

And yes, each generation along the way worked for what they got. But they at least had the opportunity to do that work, and to advance, in ways that for 100 years after slavery was impossible for almost any black person.

To acknowledge that slavery and its racism/discrimination progeny is responsible for a big chunk of the gap between my economic status, and that of some of the black kids I grew up around, is the  LEAST I can do. I don't have to "take responsibility" for what the people in power did in 1870 or 1890 or 1915 or 1940. But I'm certainly not going to say I didn't ultimately benefit from it. Focusing on what one "takes responsibility for" and nothing but that misses the point entirely.

 

[ErosWired]

5 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

pretending that anything that transpires while a given official holds power is directly attributable to him, is silliness.

So Trump bears no responsibility for what transpired at the capitol on January 6? Try again.

So far in this thread you’ve belittled my comments as both simplistic and silly, which is little more than name-calling, and I’m surprised at you. This rhetoric is not your best work.

No, the President of the United States is not directly responsible if the price of gasoline spikes or FEMA does a sucky job managing a hurricane relief effort…except when he is. A President might, for instance, personally change the trajectory of a national health crisis by directly instructing his subordinates to quash scientific data that made him look bad politically.  He absolutely is responsible for the way he uses the explicit powers of his office, from the stroke of his pen to the bully pulpit. He has both immediate power and direct influence. He is responsible for not only what he does but what he fails to do, and his decisions have far-reaching consequences. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

The personal responsibility of federal officers in the conduct of their duties is very clearly spelled out, I assure you, in regulation - 21 CFR 19.6 if you want chapter and verse, and it applies to officials up and down the chain. If nothing that transpires when an official holds office is his responsibility, then there should be no need for any process of discipline or impeachment. Yet there is. And if wrongdoing in office matters, so does doing in office.

5 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Individually, no, we don't have to "take responsibility for" something we didn't do. But COLLECTIVELY, as a society, we sure as fuck OUGHT to, morally speaking.

I honestly don’t know who you’re talking to. Who said we shouldn’t? You say we don’t have to individually take responsibility (which for some reason you keep putting in quotes) but we do need to collectively? The individual doesn’t but the collective does - how does that work, exactly? Because the collective is nothing but the sum of its individual parts, and if all those individual parts individually take no responsibility, the collective has no will to do so. The only way that the system you say disgusts you is going to change is if people take up the personal responsibility to change the way things are, even if they were not directly responsible for causing the problem. The fire brigade is not, after all, largely composed of arsonists.

It’s not sufficient to simply be cognizant that a problem exists; it’s not enough for white Americans to be cognizant that they have benefited unequally from the system; they must individually accept the responsibility for ensuring that it changes, and then act collectively. That is not necessarily the same thing as accepting blame - you can choose to put out a fire even if you weren’t the one who set it, and even if it kept you warm, if extinguishing it is the right thing to do.

That said, I have now spent absolutely all the time I’m prepared to spend debating this on a site for bareback assfucking.

I’ll leave you to it.

[hungry_hole]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:00 AM, tallslenderguy said:

"don't say gay"

Using a fake name for a law is not a proper way of debating the issue. I'm not American so I don't know what the name of the law is, but I know those opposing to the bill likes to call it that way to disqualify it.

I'm against confusing children about any concept, and especially gender. Many concepts are ambiguous and that may include gender. I say "may" because it's never been confusing to me.

Take the concepts of "door" and "window" which at first glance they seem simple. A door is to go in and out of a room, and a window is to let light and fresh air come into a room. That's what children learn by observation. But it turns out that a window can also be a door and a door can sometimes be a window, but not because of that we teach two-year old children the nuances of concepts like window and door. Children learn about the nuances of windows and doors with experience. 

Yes, sometimes for some gender is not as clear as it is for more than 99% of the population in the Western world, but that doesn't mean that you have to confuse every child with the nuances of gender. Because if you do, many children with emotional issues unrelated to gender will gravitate to the ideas of gender theory because they find emotional support among other young people.