quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Wow. I'm not sure I remember reading anything by Card that was bluntly racist like that. It's possible I've forgotten. And I suppose not so surprising considering the general arc of frothing Card has done about Obama.
The closest he's come to that level before was his hypothetical scenario where Hitler-Obama recruits "urban youth" or something like that to be part of his New Nazi Party.
I was actually pretty disappointed with this article. I completed expected him to lay the blame of this crisis on Obama and use it as evidence of his incompentence/evil plan to ruin America. I wasn't expecting the racist lecturing that followed. Especially this bit:
quote:If, whenever the police officer is nonblack and the would-be arrestee is black, the police officer knows that any mistake might lead to him standing trial or going to jail or to massive rioting, it only makes sense for the policeman to shirk his duty, step back and allow the black criminal to go about his criminal activities. Thus life is safer for the policeman – and far, far more dangerous for the black communities in which most black criminals operate.
Yeah, that's totally the problem here. Police aren't arresting enough black criminals.
Also the bits later about how black leaders don't really care about all the other black people being killed by all those black criminals, justifying a "handful" of blacks "accidentially" killed by police being for the black communities own good.
I think it's a new low for him.
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I wish he would come here and have a discussion about some of the things he writes. I wonder how that would go.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Wow. I'm not sure I remember reading anything by Card that was bluntly racist like that. It's possible I've forgotten. And I suppose not so surprising considering the general arc of frothing Card has done about Obama.
quote:The NaPo will be recruited from "young out-of-work urban men" and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities. In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies.
Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people "trying to escape" -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama.
I wanna put this one firmly in the list of ships that have sailed, cause
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Eh. What does he want, a cookie? He finally found religion about poverty and race being criminalized in Baltimore? How brave of him.
Watch as he continues to promote the same economic and social policies that have led us down this merry path the last 35 years. It's okay though. He gets it.
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honestly, yes, give him a cookie. there is an entire tidal wave of numbskullery you have to dig out of in terms of this whole issue and if he's willing to come out and say, as a conservative, to conservatives, that there is a big ****ing issue
previous to that, his attitude on civil control was the all too common conservative kind that denies any significant racist hardship imposed on blacks by the police. while he's sure to differ in a lot of ways on the subject of coming to a solution to the problem, he's willing to stand up in front of other conservatives and say 'you can't honestly ****ing deny this is happening anymore people, come on'
bit by bit, person by person, why not celebrate chipping this wall down
also he will probably need the cookie because he's about to spend a year or so finding out how completely bugnut his online audience is by blaspheming the narrative, essentially.
that deserves to be dulled with sweets.
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Yeah, as the editor of a solidly right wing, conservative newspaper (where OSC counts as their token "Democrat"), I genuinely don't think John Hammer has any motives other than honesty and integrity to write that, especially considering the fallout he's going to experience for it. I also think he might get through to his readers and even change minds in a way that few others could.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: honestly, yes, give him a cookie. there is an entire tidal wave of numbskullery you have to dig out of in terms of this whole issue and if he's willing to come out and say, as a conservative, to conservatives, that there is a big ****ing issue
previous to that, his attitude on civil control was the all too common conservative kind that denies any significant racist hardship imposed on blacks by the police. while he's sure to differ in a lot of ways on the subject of coming to a solution to the problem, he's willing to stand up in front of other conservatives and say 'you can't honestly ****ing deny this is happening anymore people, come on'
bit by bit, person by person, why not celebrate chipping this wall down
also he will probably need the cookie because he's about to spend a year or so finding out how completely bugnut his online audience is by blaspheming the narrative, essentially.
that deserves to be dulled with sweets.
^^ Yeah pretty much this.
I don't usually read Rhino Times articles aside from OSC's as I've never done anything beyond pass through NC on the way to somewhere else. My understanding is that this paper leans conservative.
I see a lot of sentiment about how we shouldn't congratulate people in the majority for bragging about their "oh, wait, they weren't lying about being mistreated" moments. Or that intent doesn't matter when people do hurtful things.
The reality is that all of this is a big PR campaign. While the system benefits the majority, it's not like these people are out there committing hate crimes, they're just indifferent and unaffected (until the freeway gets blocked). They are complicit in the sense that only they have the power to change government and haven't yet (if the minority did, this would have been fixed already).
To paraphrase someone who has a really bad handle on these current events, but says smart things from time to time, to get someone to stop doing something, you have to get them to stop wanting to do it.
If we want white people to act better, they need to admit they were wrong, and they (we) don't want to hear it. Some decent people do listen, but most don't because they are human. But if humans in general were good at admitting they were wrong, if they were good at listening to people who were really upset about something, and focusing on what the hurtful thing was and the fact that the person got mad, there would be a lot more people who would still be married.
People listen to their peers. They listen to people they respect, and sadly those voices are the majority. This guy speaks to the people who are likely to be a larger part of the problem, and he's doing it in a way that will get them to listen more than someone blathering on about "systematic injustices".
To present him with a proverbial cookie is to egg him on. To make him want to listen more, to keep telling people who will listen they are wrong, possibly in ways that will get them to sympathize with the victims.
To condescendingly state that he should have figured this out before only serves to show how superior you think are to him.
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redstate, a classic mainstay in the realm of these obnoxiously distorted issues, has an author step up and be like "GUYS SERIOUSLY"
with the expected results, apparently
There's a world of difference between these two pieces. Wolf very clearly demonstrates the ways in which du jour political imperatives have pushed the conservative movement so far off-balance that it has required them to essentially ignore cold, hard facts, or refuse to present them (in the case of conservative media). That's a lot more meaningful to me than for Hammer to simply admit these facts exist. It's a different level of bravery for Wolf to suggest that the conservative movement is ignoring reality because of an ideological problem, and not merely because reality is somehow difficult to comprehend.
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the two pieces are very different, the point of bringing it up as well is that it is another break case where I think cookies are warranted. productive. instructive. mutually beneficial. good policy even in the encouragements of bitter realpolitik or whatever. there's good benefit to just being able to say 'ok, thank you for taking the first few steps on breaking a partisan block in the reason of your ideology' — and that's ok even if it's a bold first few steps, or in the case of the redstate article, a serious quantity of numbered and elucidated steps
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: the two pieces are very different, the point of bringing it up as well is that it is another break case where I think cookies are warranted. productive. instructive. mutually beneficial. good policy even in the encouragements of bitter realpolitik or whatever. there's good benefit to just being able to say 'ok, thank you for taking the first few steps on breaking a partisan block in the reason of your ideology' — and that's ok even if it's a bold first few steps, or in the case of the redstate article, a serious quantity of numbered and elucidated steps
Perhaps. For me though, Hammer's "first few steps," reads as a sort of "non culpa mea culpa." It's *hard* to understand that black people are being oppressed, so it's *understandable* that we don't notice, and so it's not our fault. Now that we noticed, everything is going to be ok, because it isn't our ideology that caused us to be blind to these facts (much less our ideology and actions that has created these circumstances to begin with)- simply that these facts are difficult for us to see and comprehend.
The fact that conservative ideology and social norms require increasingly that people be actively unaware of and hostile to the truth is absent from this revelation. It is a lesson without anything truly being learned. In contrast, Wolf is very aware that he is still applying ridiculously high standards of proof and suspicion upon official sources, subtly mocking the degree to which his readers require him to do so, and *even then* finding ample evidence of a real, serious problem. He not only names the culprit correctly, which is not the difficulty of these facts, or their lack of availability, but in the ideology that refuses to even consider them, and yet fails, even when applied to rigorous degree, to dismiss them outright without violating a degree of 2+2 logic that any sane person would find it impossible to object.
Even Wolf refuses to go so far as to suggest that conservative political ideology has helped create the circumstances ideal for police oppression in small town America, but his implication in pointing out how deeply invested conservatives are in ignoring those circumstances makes his message quite clear. That conservative ideology has become so deeply perverted, that it demands that people *ignore* core principles of conservatism when it comes to small town police forces and whole populations of black people is damning enough.
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quote:The more I read of the struggles of conscience in the hearts of characters who are loyal subjects of the king but who can’t bring themselves to lie about what they believe about religion, the more I couldn’t help making a comparison that Sansom himself never makes (or even implies).
Sansom is too good a novelist to pollute his historical fiction with anachronism, but you would have to be singularly unaware of contemporary politics not to understand that our situation today is directly analogous to the religious situation in Tudor England.
Today, those who fail to bow to the will of the Politically Correct Inquisition are not burned (that’s ISIS’s gig), but you are subjected to the pillory – and forbidden to speak in public, teach at a university (or, really, anywhere) or hold any appointed or elective office. It is not really a matter of belief, but rather of obedience, just as in Tudor times; as long as you obey and do not dispute the right of the Inquisition to rule our national thoughts, you will be left alone.
But heaven help you if you are accused of heresy, for even the accusation is enough to cost you friends, money, job and freedom. I can assure you from personal experience, that this is as true today as in the 1500s – and the accusers have no qualms about lying outrageously in their accusations, while their followers quickly “believe” whatever lies they’re told.
Once they’ve decided to accuse you, you pay for your thought crimes as if you were guilty. End of discussion.
Without delving too deep into this, I'm genuinely interested in
- What outrageous lies have been circulated about OSC? I do remember one person writing an article calling him a Hitler apologist, but the handful of people who mention it at all do so to highlight what a ridiculous accusation it is and dismiss it out of hand.
-How has Mr. Card's freedom been impacted in any way by this "political correctness inquisition"?
-When has he been forbidden to speak in public or teach? Isn't he a part time professor? Didn't he just speak at a Tedx a few months ago?
-The loss of job or money is one I can sort of see considering the boycotting of the movie and the Superman thing. But people choosing not to buy his books is a far cry from an inquisition.
(Also, EG is still one of the best selling Sci-Fi books of all time, and he makes more money in a year off the royalties from book sales alone than I have made in my entire life. He's hardly destitute.)
Basically, is there any reasonable way in which his experience of essentially seeing an (imo understandable) negative reaction from fans to certain things he's said analogous to an inquisition?
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I could conceivably see his freedom having been curtailed, if he had received plausible threats of the sort that made some appearances and positions untenable for him. I don't know if that's happened, and would be reprehensible if it had, but that could be what he meant.
As for money, well he's certainly lost money on the basis of his publicly stated political convictions. How much is difficult to say, and he's probably gained some of it back by those same political statements too.
All of that said, though-aside from the freedom bit if that is accurate-it's just more of his self-victimization whining. As for the loss of money, he has supported boycotts against organizations for their political stances. So basically, shut up about that since he's done it himself is the takeaway there. As for friends, that will necessarily be a case by case basis sort of thing, but then it might be tough for some people to be friends with him if they're accused repeatedly of hating America and wishing to destroy it. As for jobs, see: boycotts.
The whining about political office is especially silly: yes, Mr. Card, if you make statements that are flagrantly at odds with popular thinking on important issues, that will serve as an impediment to elected office. Weird.
Anyway, two things are my takeaway on this newest installment of the OSC pity party: unless he has repudiated, in a persuasive way, his past association with boycotting people and organizations for their support of gay marriage, his complaints about risks to job and money are the pathetic hypocrisy. Two, it's not at the level of the Inquisition (or, well, Tudor England, gotta love that historical mashup), though there is plenty of troubling groupthink always going around.
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-The loss of job or money is one I can sort of see considering the boycotting of the movie and the Superman thing. But people choosing not to buy his books is a far cry from an inquisition.
(Also, EG is still one of the best selling Sci-Fi books of all time, and he makes more money in a year off the royalties from book sales alone than I have made in my entire life. He's hardly destitute.)
I've said this before, but no "boycott" the movie discussions ever have contained explicit details about what Mr. Card's contracts with the studios are. For all we know, he received a very large check for the movie rights and the frequently renewed option as the movie was a decade in the making, and his payment was entirely not dependent on box-office performance or tv movies.
I expect that Card makes money from the Ender's Game movie, simply because having a movie gets people to seek out book and other works of the author.
I do know that some actors do receive money based on movie showings, even after the theater phase.
quote: I am watching one of your movies! Should I take a picture of the screen or of a video with your face on it and send it to you?
You really don’t have to do that. They’re on cable a lot — which is great news for me, it will pay my ConEd bill that month — and I’m glad you like them, but pictures aren’t necessary.
So Wilson gets tens of dollars from her movies today
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There is a difference between being "forbidden *to speak in public, teach at a university (or, really, anywhere) or hold any appointed or elective office" and no one wanting to listen to you speak, hire you to teach, or vote for you.
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Dogbreath: Is it really so hard to believe that there are elements in the left who demand so much ideological purity that to fail to say exactly the right thing is to incur all sorts of awful invective?
Do you know about all the emails, letters, or comments made to Mr. Card? Do you believe he's lying when he says people have slandered him or lied about him?
Rakeesh:
quote:As for the loss of money, he has supported boycotts against organizations for their political stances.
I've yet to see any compelling evidence of this claim.
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My memory may be off, but he was on the board of NOM when it was publicly endorsing such boycotts for businesses that supported SSM, wasn't he?
For the record, that would be enough to say that he supported such a stance, BB, if the timeline fits. If he did not, the thing to do would be to either resign and say why, or remain and state disagreement. But did Card ever do either of those things? It's a serious question. If he did not, though-or if he only resigned without making a statement on the subject of boycotts-he gets tarred with that brush, period. If he wants to dissociate himself with a position an organization he leads (or accepts a nominal leadership role as a show of support), he has to, you know, actually repudiate it. He doesn't get to have it taken as a given.
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Rakeesh: He joined NOM many months after they had publicly instigate a boycott against Starbucks, yes. I've retained my citizenship in the United States even after they have admitted to torturing and murdering people without trial. I'm a member of the LDS church which has indicated its intent to try to halt the legalization of same-sex marriage. I would willingly serve in leadership capacities for both.
Requiring people to resign because they belong to organizations that do stupid things is a flimsy standard IMHO. Should everyone at the studio that made the film America resign because a racist idiot conceived it? If you can find somewhere where Mr. Card advocates for boycotting people for having stated certain beliefs, that's all I require. As it stands, I've only ever seen him ask people not to patron businesses because of things they are doing.
As it stands, Mr. Card joined NOM after the boycott, didn't get consulted about NOM board actions, and then quietly resigned later.
Requiring a vocal resignation is just as flimsy IMHO. Plenty of people feel a resignation is a loud statement in of itself, without waxing wordy about it.
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Ok, a few things. The comparison to citizenship in the United States is a specious argument for at least two reasons: one, its substantially more difficult to 'resign' if one wishes to than it would be to resign from NOM. Though it is exactly as easy to actually *say*, "I disapproved of these boycotts that NOM undertook." Has he done so? Two, though the principle is the same the proportional power is vastly different. Card is one among millions in one, and one board member among far fewer in the other.
Two, Card has gone significantly further than 'simply having a belief'. He has publicly and frequently advocated, politically, for a particular stance which actually impacts the lives of others. People whom support same sex marriage advocate for a stance that...well, look, Card and others will *say* that gay marriage impacts them somehow, but scratch those arguments with a dull fingernail and you start to find bullshit pretty quick.
That said, you're on a bit better ground here. If Card's only activity in this area were to publicly advocate against gay rights (I'm sorry, 'protect marriage'), and he were being boycotted against, that would be one thing, and potentially something I could get behind agreeing with you about.
Which brings us back to: NOM. As for resigning, you'll note I didn't even say that in order to credibly be a victim now, he would have had to make a big showy resignation speech at a press conference. Hell, he wouldn't even have had to resign. But is he on record, anywhere, we having said, "NOM was wrong to have supported boycotts on businesses who supported gay rights?" He may be, but it's news to me.
I'll also note as for showy resignations, the sorts of fawning, groveling displays you're suggesting I was insisting upon are exactly the sort of stances Card now demands from various enemies. The language of show trials is his political stock in trade, now.
A resignation is a significant statement, it's true. It's also ambiguous beyond 'I did not or could not or both work here any longer'. The part where you're insisting it be read as a rejection of the NOM stance on boycotts is simply wishful thinking, BB.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: when you are literally a director of an organization on the literal board of directors, yeah, you have put yourself on a different standard of culpability and considerations for how much you can be said to be in accord with the acts of the organization by default.
he would have to issue some sort of public disavowal of NOM's actions before anyone should seriously protest that point or the point about his boycott hypocrisy. strangely however i am kind of inclined to think he's not interested in disavowing any of that.
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Dogbreath: Is it really so hard to believe that there are elements in the left who demand so much ideological purity that to fail to say exactly the right thing is to incur all sorts of awful invective?
How does that relate to Card's claim of a "Politically Correct Inquisition" that, if you go against, you are "subjected to the pillory – and forbidden to speak in public, teach at a university (or, really, anywhere) or hold any appointed or elective office." He's not talking about "within elements of the far left." He's clearly stating that he believes this to be fact on the national level - his statements don't make sense otherwise.
quote:Do you know about all the emails, letters, or comments made to Mr. Card? Do you believe he's lying when he says people have slandered him or lied about him?
Again, you're warping what I actually asked, and what he actually said. He actually said:
"But heaven help you if you are accused of heresy, for even the accusation is enough to cost you friends, money, job and freedom. I can assure you from personal experience, that this is as true today as in the 1500s – and the accusers have no qualms about lying outrageously in their accusations, while their followers quickly “believe” whatever lies they’re told."
And I replied that I'm genuinely curious what sort of outrageous lies have been propagated about him by the "Politically Correct Inquisition." Specifically the sort that have cost him friends, money, job and freedom. I have no doubt people have told lies about him - I even mentioned one that I've encountered (the Hitler apologist one) - but from what I've seen almost all of the actual backlash he's encountered has been in reaction to actual things he has said about gay marriage and homosexuality. Thus my question, and I would actually be very happy if you could answer it, what lies exactly is he referring to here? Who are the accusers and who are the followers "quickly "believing" the lies they've been told"? Because he genuinely seems to think most of the negative reactions he's seen has been caused by people believing these "outrageous lies" rather than, you know, reading what he actually wrote and strongly disagreeing with it, and I really want to know what those outrageous lies are.
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Well, one need only look at the evidence in Card's own experience. After all, since he has advocated the violent overthrow of the government, along with the retention of laws against sodomy, and called the left the "leftaliban," and populated scenarios in which Obama will soon employ urban youth gangs as a modern incarnation of the Hitler's storm troopers... And rather a lot else of equally hilarious provenance, things have gone badly for him indeed.
His bestselling books has fallen off the shelves of major bookstores. Hollywood refused to produce a movie based on his work, and refused to offer him a cameo in said movie. He has been fired from his job teaching at a university, and his work has been banned from official reading lists, including those of the military and Tor has refused to continue publishing his books... Oh no, nothing of this has happened.
Apparently what has happened is that he's received some impolite mail, and been castigated for his medieval views on gay rights.
quote: " if you could answer it, what lies exactly is he referring to here? Who are the accusers and who are the followers "quickly "believing" the lies they've been told"? Because he genuinely seems to think most of the negative reactions he's seen has been caused by people believing these "outrageous lies" rather than, you know, reading what he actually wrote and strongly disagreeing with it, and I really want to know what those outrageous lies are.
Just a guess? A very old, very dead embarrassment regarding a paper that got written many years ago about Ender's game being an apologia for Hitler, and a related hit piece on Card's personal character for his handling of that situation. I think there may have actually been 2 papers- I haven't read both.
If you had to nail down Card's personal Waterloo, or maybe Stalingrad (forgive that analogy), that might well be the one.
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quote:As it stands, Mr. Card joined NOM after the boycott
I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but, that's incredibly obviously not true and you know (well, at least knew) that it is not true.
OSC joined NOM's board in 2009 and resigned in 2013. The Starbucks boycott was started in 2012. The idea that he joined after is just something you made up. It is easily checkable and actually addressed, specifically to you, on this very thread. In response, you said this:
quote:The boycott was instituted in March 2012, Mr. Card joined NOM in 2009. So you are correct, it was late last night so I didn't try looking this stuff up.
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MrSquicky: You'll have to accept my apologies. It's embarrassing but I misremembered something I very clearly researched in the past.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: His bestselling books has fallen off the shelves of major bookstores. Hollywood refused to produce a movie based on his work, and refused to offer him a cameo in said movie. He has been fired from his job teaching at a university, and his work has been banned from official reading lists, including those of the military and Tor has refused to continue publishing his books... Oh no, nothing of this has happened.
Totally unrelated: where was OSC's cameo?
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They snuck him in there as one Ender's soldiers in the Battleroom during the fight with Salamander.
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You think he could've been one of the I.F Admirals at the end.
e: Also rationalwiki has a thing where they just sorta speculate that the "Buggers" was meant to be a thinly veiled means of disparaging gays but I don't buy that as it's a British slur that mostly used as we use the word "damn" and very directly relates to the Formics being insectoids, so yeah.
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quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: You think he could've been one of the I.F Admirals at the end.
e: Also rationalwiki has a thing where they just sorta speculate that the "Buggers" was meant to be a thinly veiled means of disparaging gays but I don't buy that as it's a British slur that mostly used as we use the word "damn" and very directly relates to the Formics being insectoids, so yeah.
I don't buy it as means of disparaging the gays either. Buggers='cuz they look like bugs. I've yet to hear someone be genuinely offended by the name (Maybe I'm not listening to the right people? Or they have bigger things that bothered them). Politically speaking, it was changed long before people started sharpening the pitchforks against homophobes en masse and before gay marriage was legal. I got the impression that someone told OSC about the third meaning of the word, and he got really embarrassed and came up with the formic concept.
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'buggers' is probably just unfortunate coincidence. it's not like it's supposed to be pc in the story itself nor ultimately are they bad after all
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No, he voiced the pilot who takes Graff and Ender to ISL. he wrote a post about it in his blog to the cloud.
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Him and others like him think they can blame gays for ruining society, call them children playing dress up in their parent's clothes (which is actually in an essay of his) and deny them rights and that gay people should just nod in agreement and get back into the closet.
This isn't going to happen. People are going to fight back using some of the same tactics used by OSC and their ilk. Boycotts and such. General disagreeing. Going, uh, I'm not sure you have an accurate representation of what it means to be gay and here's why. Allow me to recommend several books.
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This last article still is .... Uh, awful. But I can't think of an interesting way to address or approach or explain it
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This last article still is .... Uh, awful. But I can't think of an interesting way to address or approach or explain it
Are you talking about the English period pieces & British/American acting philosophies?
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I think it's more likely that he's talking about how you don't see affirmative action policies on American Ninja Warrior, and as a consequence Republicans should be able to engage in voter suppression tactics.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This last article still is .... Uh, awful. But I can't think of an interesting way to address or approach or explain it
Are you talking about the English period pieces & British/American acting philosophies?
That might be interesting to read.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think it's more likely that he's talking about how you don't see affirmative action policies on American Ninja Warrior, and as a consequence Republicans should be able to engage in voter suppression tactics.
I read this one and it is heartless, privileged ranting combined with a deep misunderstanding of justice, democracy, and how affirmative action works.
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i just like how and why anyone at all pretends in any way shape or form that the goal of these voter ID laws is anything but that republicans are trying to keep people who don't generally vote republican from voting, or from having their votes count as much as republican votes, using any means they can get.
or as i said before, the purpose of these voter id laws has never ever ever been to prevent voter fraud, and i am sincerely impressed when people can't figure that out and make arguments predicated on essentially ignoring that the point of these laws is to try to prevent as many poor and minority populations from voting because they would vote against the people who institute these laws in order to keep election turnouts favorable to them
and it is extra special to just witness the extent of, say, orson scott card doubling down on a pretty transparent scheme to unrepresentationally bolster conservative candidates. we start to wonder 'so when would he hypothetically break on that one, where's the point at which he wises up and admits that he's wrong'
but in the same article he's still doubling down on the liberal global warming misinformation conspiracy so yeah
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quote: We all show positive ID to get on an airplane, rent a car, cash a check, buy alcohol or cigarets, visit a sick person in a hospital, or prove to the cop who stopped us that we're entitled to drive at all, and to drive this car in particular. It is not an unreasonable burden to level the playing field by requiring that voters meet the same standard.
It's horrifying in its own special way to see a person's soul being carved out and replaced by walnut maple ice cream bought at harris-teeters (or whatever high-end luxury OSC is flogging this week).
That there are American citizens who don't fly in airplanes, rent cars, cash checks, or drive must be unthinkable to this affluent white man. And of course, I haven't been carded since I was 25 (and OSC surely hasn't been carded in 30 years), and I have never had my ID checked at a hospital.
The basis of democracy is not to judge burdens and tests for voting according to what is reasonable (read: acceptable) for the average citizen, but that is absolutely necessary for all citizens. All available research shows that in-person voter fraud is simply not an issue. It does not, effectively, happen, and it has no effect on the outcome of any election in the United States, and hasn't for many, many years.
OSC simply doesn't believe in the universal franchise. He believes in the franchise for voters who pass the economic and social tests of his choosing.
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We know this man has an amazing imagination. He has written wonderful stories about what the universe looks like from other points of view. Even alien points of view. How is it possible that he can't stretch his mind far enough to imagine what it is like to be urban and poor?
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I don't think he realizes that the Unconstitutionality of Poll Taxes was settled a long time ago.
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No, he does, he just doesn't want poor people to vote. I don't even know that it's a racist thing. So much of OSC's identity has become entangled with consumerism and wealth, that I think he hates poor people. Doesn't want to understand them, and wishes that they could be easily disenfranchised. He is not alone.
You know kmboots, I am married to a Ukrainian. This is relevant, and I'll explain why.
My wife's sister sometimes visits us. She is 24, lives and works in Ukraine, and so by the standards of almost any western country, she is very poor, particularly when she leaves the country (their money doesn't go very far).
In Ukraine, and she lives in Kiev which is a richer part of the country, people are adapted to a different sort of life. In Prague, it's typical for somebody who works as a janitor or a server to be able to go out to pubs and such. So there are cafes and theaters, and restaurants, and everything else in quite a high density. People have money to spend on that stuff. In Kiev, one of the things that really shocked me when I visited was that there is *nothing to do* except for in very specific, very concentrated areas. Millions of people though live in areas where the activities that you can do in public involve going to a large grocery store, or sitting on a bench. No small shops. No cafes. No pubs. No ways to spend money people don't have to spend.
So the grocery store is HUGE and FULL of people (to a ridiculous degree), but there is no overflow to any other type of business. Nobody can afford anything that has too much value added. No premium services of any kind can be sustained.
So anyway, when my sister in law visits us, I find myself getting frustrated with her at times. She seems irresponsible to me.
For example, she will go to the other side of town with no ID, no credit cards (she doesn't have any), and no cash, and then get stuck because she can't afford to get home. She'll call my wife and my wife will figure out how to help her. Recently, she got stuck in Bratislava on her way back home, because she didn't have enough cash to pay for the bus once she'd taken a tram to get to the bus station.
She will show up in-country with an equivalent of $20 that has to last up to a week, and she will innevitably use it before she leaves, and need more- but she has no atm card, or bank account, and so her mother will have to wire her cash (which costs a lot) or I will have to sponsor her, which annoys me, but which I expect.
I recall similar frustrations with my wife when she had only been living here for a short time, and I was not supporting her financially. She would do these things that just seemed so irresponsible to me- like taking a train to another town with exactly enough money to pay for a train back. If she needed anything in the meantime, she was in trouble. She sometimes scared me with this behavior, and occasionally she still surprises me by doing things like that.
For example, I remember vividly walking with my wife to the transport office and paying for a yearly transport pass, because she had refused to pay the $200 or so that it costs, when a monthly pass costs "only" $30. She could not, would not listen to my logic when I explained that she would end up paying about 160% of the $200 if she bought a pass every month. My wife isn't stupid. But to her, saving $170 today is worth losing another $160 over the next year. What could I say to that?
But I realized that her sister, and her, years ago, are used to this. This is their normal. The normal is having exactly the amount you need in your pocket (or less), and just dealing with what happens as it happens.
If you don't have enough money to even consider making the right decisions, then logic is really not something you need to engage with in the same way as people who do. In fact, it would only be depressing if you had to think about it in terms of how hard you're being screwed by your own poverty. This is really why poor people vote in such low numbers in the first place. So adding another barrier to that- and assigning it the same importance as all the other rich-people activities that are involved with having an ID, like driving a car, flying in a plane, or renting something, is just icing. It's just one more reason not to bother.
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I think in a lot of cases it's not just a matter of not bothering, it's a matter of literally lacking the time, money or incentive to do so. Having seen my wife go through a similar process recently which ended up taking 8 months to complete, I can tell you getting a photo ID is hardly the trivial matter OSC makes it out to be - certainly less so if you're poor. (which goes towards explaining why 11% of American adults - and 25% of African American adults - don't have photo IDs)
Quite simply, it's prohibitively expensive and time consuming if you're living paycheck to paycheck. You need a certified birth certificate (and I live in a state which requires it to be certified within 30 days of the application, which is an additional $50 plus $30 shipping fee if you're out of state), a social security card (which requires you to have a birth certificate, and also have some form of photo identification which can be very difficult to have if you're trying to get it so you can get a photo ID in the first place), proof of residence, and then have to file an application for a photo ID. I know in a lot of states it's actually a more difficult and expensive process to get just a photo ID than it is to get a drivers license - IIRC ours requires a petition with the Lt. Governors office, which can take several months. And of course it costs more money too.
What it ends up being is several hundred dollars, plus a mountain of paperwork, plus several trips to offices that are only open Monday-Friday 8-3:30... and you're working an hourly job that doesn't let you take off in the middle of the day to "run errands", and the offices are 15 miles away, how are you going to get there? more money. Then several months of waiting to finally get an ID that you'll have to renew every 5 years, and is entirely useless to you in any practical way except to exercise your right to vote. (and I'm not getting into asinine payment issues, like some of those offices only accepting checks, which means you have to have a bank account... etc. etc.)
Whereas if you're born into privilege, this process is almost entirely transparent to you. Your parents have obtained and maintained the necessary documents since you were born. You get a passport as a kid (to go on an airplane), or get a drivers license at 16, and from that point on, it's just a matter of renewing that photo ID every 5 or 10 years using the photo IDs you already have. So when OSC says something as outrageously disingenuous like:
quote:You don't have to be smart to have government-issued ID. You just have to take the time to get that ID -- which means you have to have planned ahead just the tiniest bit.
Well yes, that's true. If you're rich and already have one.
But if you're poor, it's a labyrinthine process that's even worse than a poll tax - and arguably comparable to polling tests - at disenfranchising poor people. (and quite disproportionately, poor black people)
That - coupled with the fact that these voter ID laws are always designed to take effect right before major elections - makes this a pretty blatant attempt at widespread and systematic voter suppression on the part of the Republican party. And I don't really believe that Mr. Card is ignorant or unimaginative enough not to realize that that is what's happening, I just don't think he cares.
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Has anyone ever seen him reply to a comment on his article? I'd be interested in seeing Dogbreath post that on the article to see if he would reply.
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