Thursday, May 28, 2015

One Kleptocracy, Under Greed...

In response to a Facebook post which pointed out that much of what we feared would befall us if Communism won the Cold War has come true under capitalism, I responded:

Sort of.  I have no respect for unrestricted free enterprise, but the United States does not currently follow this capitalist ideal.  We are becoming less a democracy and more a kleptocracy in which the government serves the ultra wealthy in amassing ever greater amounts of our national wealth through corrupt politics, tax breaks, and immunity from legal restrictions or consequences.

Of course, it could be argued that this is the inevitable result of under regulated capitalism.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Soul Cutters

In response to yet another Facebook attempt at cleverness by self styled Conservatives, I posted:  At a certain point, you really start to worry about the emotional well being of Conservatives. They live in a constant state of self induced rage and terror.  They are the spiritual equivalent of cutters, who abuse their own bodies.  I wish I could help, but I honestly don't know how to heal them.

I mean, where could you even begin?

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Segregation Now! Segregation Forever!



Warning! Lengthy quotes regarding race and diversity! Sensitive readers may not wish to continue! Nonracist members of superior races and cultures are especially warned not to continue!

Once again, I am amazed at the foolishness of my fellow human beings. Listening to C-SPAN today my attention was caught by a rather remarkable statement  made by an individual. In about 2 1/2 minutes I had checked his statement and found it to be totally invalid. Let's start with his own words:
HOST:  We are getting your take on crime and policing in your community. What is it like and do you think there's any changes that are needed.  Jay is in a suburb of Pennsylvania, Souderton, go ahead, Jay...

JAY:  The first gentleman, he mentioned the word homogeneity, And of course the most homogenous areas or countries are always the most peaceful. And always have the most trust.
Even though we continue to say this  incredibly Orwellian mantra, diversity is our strength. Which is insane...(he refers to his tiny homogeneous community when he was a child and emphasizes that his superior Pennsylvania German culture kept everyone well behaved.)
The culture and the race of a neighborhood matters. And I do want to say also that that is actually the words and the studies of people not just like me but you look at Robert Putnam, The Harvard professor. I wish you would have him on.  He did that in-depth study 2005 The effects of ethnic diversity on populations. And he's a liberal!  He's the author of a book called Bowling Alone and he didn't like what he found and he was forced to reveal it. And he found, of course he studied tens of thousands of people and communities. And he found that racial diversity… One of the major reason diversity casualties of it is a loss of trust...(He specifies various types of trust which are lost to the detriment of the community)… and at least we should recognize that and stop promoting this insane idea of diversity as strength when it's torn apart civilizations throughout human history. 

Why that's shocking! A liberal Harvard professor discovers that racial diversity is evil destroyer of society and tries to conceal the facts but is forced to reveal them!  Racial prejudice isn't prejudice! A liberal has proven it!  Only gullible fools believe diversity has any value whatsoever!  All it does is destroy civilizations!

That doesn't sound very believable, does it? So of course, I checked it out.

What did the professor actually say? Well here we have, in his own words from an NPR radio interview, the real meaning of his report:
Prof. PUTNAM: I do need to step back a minute and say I think that the - it's not merely a fact that America's becoming more diverse. It's a benefit. America will - all of us will, over the long run, benefit from being a more diverse, more heterogeneous place. Places that are more diverse have higher rates of growth on average and they have better cuisine. And it's just a more interesting place to live. 
So in the long run, waves of immigration like we're going through now and that we've gone through in the past and increasing diversity is good for a society. But what we discovered in this research, somewhat to our surprise, was that in the short run the more ethnically diverse the neighborhood you live in, the more you - every - all of us tend to hunker down, to pull in. The more diverse - and when I say all of us, I mean all of us. I mean blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos, all of us. The more diverse the group around us, ethnically, in our neighborhood, the less we trust anybody, including people who look like us. Whites trust whites less. Blacks trust blacks less, in more diverse settings.
So what he actually said was diversity, in the very short term does tend to create mistrust. But he also stated, unequivocally stated, that diversity is of great benefit in the long run. The bad effects are temporary while the good effects are permanent. I did not see any evidence that he tried to suppress his findings. Or that he even wanted to suppress his findings. Or that anyone forced him to publish them. In fact, except for the short-term effects,  his study solidly confirmed his liberal beliefs. He didn't find evidence that diversity was harmful, causes civilizations  to be destroyed, that some cultures and races were superior and others inferior, or any of the rest of the mental manure  Jay somehow managed to project into the study. I repeat, a study which actually shows how totally wrong Jay is about the entire subject. 

In fact, the professor went on later in the interview to state:
Prof. PUTNAM: Well, I don't know that I'm disappointed in the findings. I'm disappointed that it turns out it takes some time for us to get adjusted to people who look differently from us. And I'm a little disappointed that, as our findings become public, some people - some conservatives, some people who are racist, frankly, have taken comfort from my research. And they've made the inference that if we hunker down in the presence of diversity, it would be just great if we had a little ethnic cleansing and we all just live around people who look like us. That's absolutely not my view.

Pardon me, Jay, but your racist bigotry is showing. Please zip it up. I can't stop you from having such an ugly thing, but you really shouldn't wave it around in public.

Oh no! I have played the race card! When a man says, falsely, that races and cultures are different with some being superior and others inferior and that mixing them is a wicked thing which destroys civilizations, I unfairly suggest he might be a racist! After all he only talked about race while I, with malice aforethought, talked about race.

Sorry, Conservatives. Holding up a mirror that reflects your racism back in your face is not playing the race card. Your whole deck is racist.