The Talk.

POSTED BY: Wulfenstar
UPDATED: Friday, April 13, 2012 00:04
VIEWED: 8856
PAGE 3 of 12

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Originally posted by WULFENSTAR:
Instead, I simply do 2 things.

One is post the musings of another person.

The second, ask you to disprove those ideas.

Let me give you some boundaries, however. Prove them (being the entirety of the article and its views) wrong (NOT in a moralistic point of view).

You want to say these ideas are wrong, go for it. But PROVE it using the scientific method.

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argumentum ad ignorantiam

Case Closed.

NEXT!

-Frem

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Originally posted by WULFENSTAR:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This is unquestionably true.

I don't argue against this, nor seek to say that it is an outdated ideology that doesn't meet the needs of a 21st century society.

Instead, I simply do 2 things.

One is post the musings of another person.

The second, ask you to disprove those ideas.

Let me give you some boundaries, however. Prove them (being the entirety of the article and its views) wrong (NOT in a moralistic point of view).

You want to say these ideas are wrong, go for it. But PROVE it using the scientific method.

This is not simply a moral question. In fact, for too long it has been framed as such.

Instead, I would argue, it is a scientific, survivalist question.

Take it point by point.

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Wulfie, can you PROVE - using the scientific method, of course - that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?

Can you use the scientific method to (a) PROVE a "Creator"; (b) PROVE that all men are truly created equal, with ALL of the same rights? All of them? Not just American citizens (the document doesn't say a word about that, remember), but EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE. After all, if it's "self evident", then it should be obvious where everyone truly has such rights, and where they don't.

I can disprove the second part with two words: Guantanamo Bay. Obviously not ALL men have the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, do they?

So now, having disposed of your entire premise for your argument, what say you?




"I have no real clue of what you're speaking." - AuRaptor.

"Yes. I was wrong. I am sorry." - AuRaptor.

Note to self: Mr. Raptor believes that women who want to control their reproductive processes are sluts.

Reference thread: http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=51196

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Conservative writer John Derbyshire, who was fired from The National Review in response to a racism-laden piece he wrote for a little-known website, serves up a 15-point alternative that nonblack parents should provide for their children. His suggestions are a rogue’s list of racist stereotyping and codified prejudices that even he admits his own daughter rejected as racist and offensive.

(Note: from an interview with Derbyshire:

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Have you given your children any of the advise outlined in your "The Talk: The Nonblack Version"? If so, how did they receive it?

Both took it with some skepticism, even some disgust in my daughter's case. So I'd have to say they weren't very receptive. But at least they've heard it, and know that there's another point of view besides the PC flapdoodle, a point of view held by non-crazy persons. One does one's best.

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I read what Derbyshire wrote with open-mouth amazement. He’s someone I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to in the past, so I assumed this was some sort of Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert-like send up. Nobody would seriously say this, I thought.

I was wrong. Derbyshire, I’ve since learned, is a British-born uberconservative writer for The National Review. Or was. Apparently Derbyshire’s article proved too much for even National Review editor Rich Lowry, who sacked him after enduring withering criticism for employing him as a featured writer. In announcing his departure, Lowry wrote:

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His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways.

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There was no other choice. The man had to be fired because he was bad for business, even if the business is spouting conservative views that some readers come to expect and uncounted others actually embrace.

In fact, a lot of this has been going around lately and Derbyshire is the latest in a string of hard-right conservative reactionaries losing their moorings. Pat Buchanan lost his highly visible (and lucrative) position on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after writing an odious book lamenting the decline of white supremacy in the United States. More recently, Rush Limbaugh saw advertisers flee his syndicated radio talk show after he called Georgetown Law student and women's health advocate Sandra Fluke a "slut."

But perhaps there’s a larger and uplifting message in this trend of right-wing flameouts. Conor Friedersdorf, a writer for The Atlantic, seems to think so. He avers that hardline racist views find a receptive audience only among a dwindling number of older white Americans, mostly those for whom segregation and Jim Crow represented the good old days. Some of those folks read The National Review or watch “Morning Joe,” but not enough of them to make those media outlets profitable.

The future, especially one based on social media outlets, belongs to younger people. Even among the young who embrace conservative issues and policies, overt racist attitudes don’t work. In fact, many are offended by the blending of racism and their politics.

Friedersdorf makes this point rather dramatically by quoting Derbyshire’s own views as expressed in a 2003 interview where Derbyshire described the challenge of writing about race for a changing audience of conservative readers like those at The National Review. An older set of readers longed for stridently racist views that recall an earlier day. Younger conservative readers, he said, are “determined to make the multiracial society work.”

“On subjects related to race,” as Friedersdorf concludes and I agree, “that's a very good thing.”

Derbyshire, like Buchanan and Limbaugh, appealed to the losing side of the demographic

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