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Post by aquaduct on Nov 15, 2012 16:17:47 GMT -5
Listen, I blew up and responded very poorly. Just a very touchy subject in my life and family. Sorry, Jeff. For the record, no, I don't think Jeff is racist. I do think he is wrong to thing we are too culturally diverse. I like being diverse in that way. If he comes back I'll tell him that to his face. or avatar... or cigar or whatever it is we have here. Thank you. That's the ST I'm proud to know.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 15, 2012 16:21:05 GMT -5
yeah, I mispelled "think" just so you would know it was from the heart....
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Post by billhammond on Nov 15, 2012 16:23:46 GMT -5
yeah, I mispelled "think" just so you would know it was from the heart.... < Or to drive ME crazy >
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Post by aquaduct on Nov 15, 2012 16:24:19 GMT -5
yeah, I mispelled "think" just so you would know it was from the heart.... There's even something we can all learn from Doug.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 15, 2012 16:29:49 GMT -5
yeah, I mispelled "think" just so you would know it was from the heart.... < Or to drive ME crazy >Theirs that.
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Post by Doug on Nov 15, 2012 16:32:11 GMT -5
I thought from Jeff's thing and I know from my view culture and only minor parts race or national origin and was more like urban vs rural. I think that is the biggest divide in the US not race. There is no cross cultural understanding at all. ![8-)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/cool.png) Rural areas even dislike their own tiny cities. ![8-)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/cool.png) Could not comprehend enjoying living in a city (would do it for economic reasons) but going to a big city to rural people is like going to China and the reverse is true. While race, national origin, etc. do figure into the balance between urban and rural those aren't that big a part of it.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Nov 15, 2012 16:49:34 GMT -5
That's silly, Jim. I think its perfectly reasonable to conclude that the US is too large geographically, too diverse culturally, and simply too big to sustain a consensus central government. There's nothing improper about having that discussion. Above is Jeff's post that sent us down this rat hole. I don't see it as racist, but I am white, always have been and am likely to stay that way. The phrase "too diverse culturally," was not, in my opinion, a statement that there is excess diversity and we should have less. It certainly carries no value judgment on which cultures are excess, or inferior, if any. It was more like "It is too warm to snow." That does not mean it is subjectively too warm, only that it is too warm for snow to follow as a weather condition. Jeff, again, in my opinion, is saying that with the amount of diversity there is in this country we can't sustain a consensus central government. Maybe that's true. To which I say Big Fucking Deal. We haven't had concensus for 230 years now. We get by without it. Instead we have heated exchanges of ideas, whether it is politics, or the best way to barbeque pork, or whether chili can have beans and still be called chili. I also don't get his logic that secession is a discussion that follows from this vaste diversity, since the diversity is within states, within cities, even within neighborhoods. Hell, it is within those who will gather at my Thanksgiving table. But I am going to say, I did not see anything racist in Jeff's post.I think he got slammed wrongly for that and dragging threads from the archives to support the accusation is improper.
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Post by jdd2 on Nov 15, 2012 16:50:23 GMT -5
After a couple busy days, I've been reviewing this.
Lonnie wrote: (top of page 3, when the talk was about how diverse the US was) There ought to be a Venn diagram for this.
My thought, too, at the same time. For the US, I'd offer that there'd be lots of overlap--maybe not as much as a place like Japan, but still, an awful lot.
(tho I've been gone a long time and don't have any experience of post-9/11 US--I was last back about five years ago, for a week)
Also, on the dropping-US-citizenship side, for those who, early on, posted things like Aqua/Sekh/VI to the effect that it would seem the reasonable thing to do, or would not really be anyone's business--thanks. Again, w/only a media-based feel of post-9/11 US to go on, I can only wonder how this would play in Peoria (my hometown, btw)
I'm still a US person for a couple reasons. One is economic. No, I'm (probably forever) ineligible for SS/medicare (tho there is supposed to be a cross-recognition agreement so that credits here could be recognized there). It's for investment. Tho this may change with tax reform, with the foreign earned income exclusion, I almost never pay US taxes. Whereas as for a Japanese/foreign investor, there's a big chunk off the top almost automatically. So, selfishness/greed. (I get taxed plenty on any of those gains here--dividends are an automatic 20% regardless of income, gains are ordinary income, and there's no loss carry-over from year to year.)
Another is the hassle of the process. For others. For starters, from my three sibs and father, I'd need birth certificates, marriage/divorce certificates, death certificates (my birth mother, and probably the step-mother that followed). This stuff is apparently online now, so courthouse visits are unnecessary, but still, a lot of paper-chasing for people who are not directly involved.
~~~~
Sorry this thread de-volved the way it did, but it was at least good to not hear any comment(s) to the effect that dropping US citizenship was somehow shameful.
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Post by sekhmet on Nov 15, 2012 21:12:34 GMT -5
Well Jeff, I shall miss you and your well-reasoned arguments.
This is a shitty day all around. Period.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 21:40:19 GMT -5
"you don't think cultures are racially based? really?"
Ask a German and a Frenchman that question. Ask a Suni and a Shia that question. Ask a Serb and and Croat.
Maybe some of you need to open your own minds a bit before you cast aspersions.
Sheesh.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 21:41:17 GMT -5
Bye Jeff. "What did you mean by that statement" might have been better than "let's get rid of all them darkies." Sheesh again.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 21:42:04 GMT -5
Poor assumptions and wanting to be right just so DAMN bad are killing this place for me. I know. I'm right. Just ask me.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 22:11:22 GMT -5
Listen, I blew up and responded very poorly. Just a very touchy subject in my life and family. Sorry, Jeff. For the record, no, I don't think Jeff is racist. I do think he is wrong to thing we are too culturally diverse. I like being diverse in that way. If he comes back I'll tell him that to his face. or avatar... or cigar or whatever it is we have here. I think that merits re-posting Discussion of the strengths , weaknesses, governability and permanence or otherwise of culturally diverse populations is a sensitive area. The words gained some additional relevance recently. It is not too long since Anders Breivik cited fear of declining cultural homogeneity as a reason for killing 77 people. Talk of the ifs, buts and maybes of 'cultural diversity' rings alarm bells for me a little. An example of unnecessary hyper-vigilance that may be, but there is a faint bell ringing for me nonetheless. There are fears that I cannot easily ignore. That may sound even worse than a 'Godwin's law' post. Don't beat me up for it too badly. It is an honest one but it is also one that I will go to bed thinking about further.
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Post by godotwaits on Nov 16, 2012 3:38:18 GMT -5
"Irish need not apply."
Sound familiar? Sometimes it seems like the more things change, the more they remain the same.
I'm gonna tell a story. Don't like me or my stories. Fine. (4Q and skip the post, I been pissed off lately too)
When I was 10 years old my family moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1956. Pretty much up until then we were "northerners." So it was going to be an interesting change. I soon learned that there was, indeed, a list. Which pretty much excluded anyone who was other than WASP and born and bred in the south. I don't have to litanize the list. You know what I mean. Suffice it to say, Catholics and Yankees were definitely on the list.
No one wanted to tell me. Not my father. Not my mother. Not my brother. I was the baby of the family and they wanted to spare me that. So I learned the old fashioned way. I was a little scientific bastard and employed the empirical approach.
So there I am on a shopping foray with my mother standing in a department store named "Lowensteins." A (hush hush jewish department store right there in the big assed plaza... of course this was lost on me as a tender youth at that time) The only way I can explain it was that "Lowensteins" was like a precursor of Bloomingdales and while the southern grand dames had to look the other way, they certainly liked the shining merchandise. And besides, they certainly seemed to have the hearts in somewhat of the right place.
I stood looking at the escalators. One went up one side and one went down the other. At each end was a drinking fountain. One said "White" and one said "Colored." I headed over to the "White" fountain. And I said, "this is either gonna be water or milk." It was water. So I headed over to the "Colored" fountain. And I said, "the really cool thing about the south is they're gonna serve up Kool-Aid in their fancy department stores." ..It was water... So now I was somewhat nonplussed. Two different names for the same damn thing. I had a sense of foreboding.
Then I saw the bathrooms. "White Men" "White Women" "Colored Men" & "Colored Women"
You could say it was the writing was on the walls.
My mother got down on her bended knees and begged me not to hang out with the Catholic kids. They were all a pack of juvenile delinquents. I was fast becoming like them. Although it was a technical foul, and I was never even accused of such, I already had a b&e on my consience. So I cut ties with them.
So then I hung out with the "public" school kids and started to get into a lot of fights. One of my better friends of this period was the son of a VP for Holiday Inn, which started out in Memphis, and on a rainy hot afternoon, while playing 'hide and seek'n in Jimmy's house, discovered the "peaked hat" of the KKK in his parents closet. I knew what it was. But I couldn't even fathom what it meant. I later in life began to appreciate it for the nobless oblige that it was for the lower levels of the list. So what if he's Catholic? So what if he's a Yankee? Probably better to let him hang around as some kind of barometer. If he gets uppity, we know just what to do.
My parents, wisely, got me a paper route to keep me constructively engaged. It also gave me spending money. I turned to books and lived like a monk. I'd had a lot of fights under my belt and almost everyone in the neighborhood gave me my space. Except one. Buddy Glankler, One of my former public school friends started stealing my papers. I think he had had my name rubbed into his face too many times. I was on time. I was industrious. I delivered that route rain or shine every week of the year. It was my little reality. And he had none.
We fought for at least two hours. Neither one of us won. I chased him home to his doorway and dared him to come out for more. He didn't.
I gave up on friendship. I did my route and read my books and played my cards tight to the vest. And somehow. I met Steve. Steve was in no way a 'presence' in the neighborhood. I almost didn't even know he existed. He was gangley, double jointed, nerdy, and that Jewish kid from the end of the block. He didn't have any friends. But we accidentally learned that we were both bunker mentality book worms. And I learned quickly that he was seriously on the 'list.'
Steve went to public school. And he explained how he had to be very careful about going to the boys room. His idea of a good day was he didn't need to. The proverbial "They" would grab him when he came into the boys room, turn him upside down, put his head in the toilet and flush it.
Steve was studying for his Bar Mitzvah and I was enrolled in a religious school. We tried to exchange our views theologically. I, now, appreciate that the Jews teach their kids to think, and the Catholics teach their kids to memorize. Steve asked me about the concept of the 'soul.' And I could really answer him. So I took my question to catechism class and asked the kindly nun what she thought.
Well. You see. Nuns. Or women to be more precise. Weren't considered competent enough to answer such questions. So I was advised to "Save your question for Father.."
So while after many a day watching neighborhood kids circle at the bus stop and throw stones at the maids waiting for the next bus out of the neighborhood. They wisely always carried parasols, rain of shine, to open and defend themselves.
Father Mariani strode into the classroom. A classroom of totally silent students and said.... "So.... someone has a question? Who amongst us could possibly have a question? " The class was utterly silent. I certainly didn't say anything. But, low and behold, he knew who I was. I'd never in a million years admitted to the misguidance of speaking to someone of another faith. But the fucker knew who I was.
"SO...Mr Donnelly has a question.."
So I stood humbly and inquired about the Catholic definition or concept of the 'soul.'
And here was his answer:
"Class, you know what an Irishman is? A black man turned inside out."
I never confessed this to Steve, or spoke to anyone. But I learned in that moment that the dichotomy of hate is so ornate and intricate that it is incalculable to almost any human mind. Us and them. The universal equation of anger and mistrust.
If anyone thinks this country is too diverse to be governable. I'll meet your bet. And I'll up the ante by saying that this planet may be entirely to diverse as well.
I sure as hell hope I'm wrong.
l
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2012 4:57:37 GMT -5
"I never confessed this to Steve, or spoke to anyone. But I learned in that moment that the dichotomy of hate is so ornate and intricate that it is incalculable to almost any human mind. Us and them. The universal equation of anger and mistrust."
It's not incalculable when you see it up close. I've said it before - humans are bastards, and only this notion of society keeps the lid on.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Nov 16, 2012 6:32:21 GMT -5
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Post by brucemacneill on Nov 16, 2012 6:52:13 GMT -5
The way I read all this, and I'm sorry Jeff left, Tramp went off and let his real feelings come out only to find that he hates white people more than they hate him. Should be a learning experience. His history has left him with a racial bigotry not unlike anyone else's experiences might leave them with a bias be it racial or cultural or religious. Welcome to the human race, Cheney.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Nov 16, 2012 7:15:40 GMT -5
It's easy to see where Tramp was coming from. And I sort of understand where Jeff was coming from.
You on the other hand, Bruce, are a complete mystery.
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Post by millring on Nov 16, 2012 7:24:02 GMT -5
Oh, for god's sake.
Bruce, fear isn't hate. Knock off the aggressive stuff, please. It isn't polite. You've been attacked -- even ganged up on. I get that. Your retaliation lacks accuracy as it lacks tact.
And, James and 'tramp (who has at least apologized) Jeff wasn't even HINTING at anything remotely related to racism, much less genocide, apartheid, or any other grand human horror. He was talking about trying to regain accurate representation in a representative form of government when people's interests are divided in too many and too polarized ways. And he was opening the topic for DISCUSSION. He wasn't declaring. He was inquiring.
No, there is no rationalization for the "Darkies" comment.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Nov 16, 2012 7:33:42 GMT -5
And, James and 'tramp (who has at least apologized) Jeff wasn't even HINTING at anything remotely related to racism, much less genocide, apartheid, or any other grand human horror. True. You can connect the dots between those things and Jeff's comment if you want to. You could also connect the dots between Jeff's comment and ice cream or just about anything else you have a mind to connect to.
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