You have the right to. We have the right to think it's worse for you to use that word than it is for black people to.
If anyone remembers our discussion on hypocrisy v. inconsistency, this is a perfect example. Danzig sees it as inconsistent to think it OK for a black person to use the word than for white people. His standard of consistency is that what is good for X is good for Y.
sndrake's standard is different, because a black person will never be meaning the word in the racist, offensive manner, while a white person might.
Neither one is inconsistent; each is merely elevating a particular ethical principle above another.
My thought is that it is worse for a white person to use the word, but it's not good for black people to. And, from a practical standpoint, the continued use of the word by black people will provide comfort to whites who want to use the word, too.
quote:My thought is that it is worse for a white person to use the word, but it's not good for black people to. And, from a practical standpoint, the continued use of the word by black people will provide comfort to whites who want to use the word, too.
I pretty much agree with this, although I don't think the dynamics are different for each particular group of people. I have a friend who's about my age and grew up in the South. N____ is not part of his vocabulary.
Different for different groups though. I suspect the words used by my ex-wifes' family (the males on her father's side) were a product of being brought up poor in an ethnically segregated neighborhood. There was a whole shared history and context that was something I only knew a little of.
It never even dawned on me that I should lecture them on their use of those words. Or that I should use them myself. They were older than me. They didn't quite know what to make of me and vice-versa.
I don't think this ever happened, but it would have been in character for my ex-father-in-law to invite me to use the same language, since I was family. My response would have been pretty simple - "It's not me. Why would I want to?"
That's about as much of a language lesson as I'm willing to give when it comes to how people refer to themselves.Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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nfl, if I am an adult I have that right. Rights are not defined by laws, no matter how much you wish they were. A civil society maintained by injustice is not worth maintaining. Just the opposite, in fact. I have no moral obligation to obey immoral laws.
quote:Certain groups have privileges that others don't.
It would be so easy to go somewhere with this.
sndrake, you may be right, and I am not saying I would, just that anyone using it has no rational reason to complain or take offense. I doubt that other blacks were using hoses on demonstrators, and that is a case of easily measurable harm anyway.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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If individuals decide which laws they believe are worth following than what's the point of haveing laws at all. Without laws you have anarchy, and with anarchy you have widespread death and misery. If you think a law is unjust then you have every right to oppose it and to try to get it changed, you do not on the other hand have to right to decide whether or not it should be followed in the first place.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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It is very simple. If all participants (excluding the state, if you consider them a participant) consent, it should not be illegal. Initiation of force should always be illegal. An action is not wrong just because the men with guns say so. It is at most unhealthy.
I suppose in your world women and blacks should have just stayed in their proper places and petitioned their oppressors to change the laws. Hurry, find some way to backtrack!
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Its disgusting that you would compare not being able to riddle your body with mind altering drugs to not being able to vote.
Since you don't exist in a vacuum, every action you take affects someone else. Whether your drug abuse leads you to crash your car killing someone or you require extra medical attention that costs taxpayers, all the "participants" aren't consenting.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Individuals do decide what laws are worth following. This is not a statement of anarchic ideology, it's just a fact. Now, the state does do its best to raise the threshold for deciding 'that law is just too inconvenient', by making it unpleasant to get caught breaking laws. And we are trained to believe that the existence of a law makes it good in itself. Nevertheless, whether it's speeding just a little or downloading warez, everybody has some law that's just too stupid, immoral, or inconvenient.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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