gdp's Comments

Race Relations Project : What about health care?

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 07:36:19 +0000

I think every American and every illegal immigrant from anywhere in the world has an equal right to free health care in the USSA. It doesn’t matter if you are half way around the world, or you are from right here in the USSA. I don’t even care if you are a terrorist. You are human after all. Further, I don’t think you even need to work for health insurance. If you don’t feel like working, it should be provided for you for free on the sweat of those who do work. Those that are the most wealthy must surrender more of their earnings than any other, and the incentive to prosper must be eliminated. In fact, we need to chase the wealthy and the remainder of the manufacturing industry clean out of the country by imposing more taxes and stricter regulations on production which don’t exist in third world countries. Now that we have nationalized health care, we can finally look forward to permanently high unemployment rates as enjoyed in the other modern nations who have adopted nationalized health care plans. Please, everyone, everywhere come get the best healthcare on the planet at no charge. My kid needs a surgery, but just because he is citizen and I pay taxes does not give me any more right to the benefit of the surgery than that of an illegal immigrant who has never paid an American tax in his life. Fair is fair and human is human. All types of insurance are privileges. The liberals love to compare not having health insurance to not having car insurance. Driving is a Privilege! Protection purchased for the privilege of security. Every time the government turns a privilege into a right we lose freedoms. We once had the freedom to plan our retirement as we saw fit. Then there was social security, confiscating our money against our will for the benefit of others and for our own retirement which we are too irresponsible to plan for ourselves. Now this shit. The fucking IRS will actually be authorized to penalize you for not having health insurance that is to the spec of the Obamacare. We need to wake up! Health care isn’t a right for anyone! I don’t want to live in a country in which drivers insurance, food insurance, health insurance, fill in another fear here, are all assured in exchange for 89% of my paycheck. Karl Marx predicted that socialism is an inevitable stage following capitalism, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be stopped if people remember what it takes to remain a free country. The courage to tell your government you don’t need it to coddle you from the cradle to the grave. If people don’t start getting their shit in gear in the voting booths, they’d better start getting used to the United Socialist States of America.

Race Relations Project : What about health care?

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 03:36:19 +0000

Race Relations Project : What might be the second step?

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 02:35:31 +0000

Karl Marx believes that slavery is an inevitable stage all cultures pass through. I won’t dive into thoroughly, but check it out here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_Historical_... All of the stages can be traced through the history of the majority of modern European nations and our own. The United States is currently in the Capitalism stage but is falling into the Socialism stage that is currently crushing Europe. My point is that slavery may very well be inevitable for a period of time within each society as it grows. Societies begin very basically with few members who all work together just to survive. As soon as the society grows, and the means of production of goods grow slavery almost ALWAYS occurs. Human greed causes the members of these growing societies to no longer be satisfied with a few personal possessions. They begin to desire a larger stock of private property and the means of acquiring private property. Slavery is by far the easiest and fastest way to accumulate private property and wealth. A few generations later the society takes a giant leap of morality and bans slavery. After slavery there is feudalism, in which the former slaves remain at the bottom of the class hierarchy. They work for little to nothing and often do not have much better lives than they had before, but they are free. Eventually feudalism gives way to capitalism as feudalistic systems have the tendency to limit production. Capitalism allows for uncontrolled growth. Workers are the farthest from slaves yet to exist, and receive wages in a competitive, open market. In the free market economy, monopolies tend to emerge as single corporations become the most successful manipulators of their trade. These monopolies cause the corporation to become ever greedier, as their immense size allows them to control every aspect of the economic niche they exist in. They eventually get so big (Walmart) that they can order their suppliers around like employees, and pay their employees next to nothing. This is approximately where we are currently in the United States. The lower and middle class are the largest in number and have been beaten down by monopolistic corporations for so long that left wing economic terrorist Obama has been permitted to take the throne and wreak havoc. I say wreak havoc because this where the systems cease to progress. Socialism fails because it does not permit an outlet for human greed to flourish. My point is Slavery is an inevitable step in the progress of a society. By eating the chocolate you are promoting progress, not the other way around. Every society goes through this stage. There will be a revolt, followed by feudalism, followed by capitalism, followed by fools who think socialism will actually work.

Race Relations Project : What if we got rid of welfare?

Sun, 4 Apr 2010 06:28:16 +0000

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” -Karl Marx. Don't water down your Marxist message. You agree with taking from the rich and giving to the poor. The American dream is one of independence. Personal reliance. Hard work. There was a time when you had to ditch the floaties and either sink or swim. Now there are enough people like you that are in love with "redistributing wealth" that the floaties may stay on until one develops diabetes. As children we are supported by our parents and they have near complete control over our lives. Growing up is a struggle to gain independence and shrug off that control. Only a welfare program that controls every aspect of the lives of its recipients would be appropriate. Every penny accounted for. Every hour logged in a journal. I know I would struggle every day to escape that system. People would once again realize that freedom is the American Dream, not being a permanent blood sucking leech (aside from those whom are physically and mentally handicapped, they have a leech pass). Socialism is NOT a healthy substitute for FREEDOM

Race Relations Project : What if we got rid of welfare?

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 19:00:16 +0000

The current welfare system is poorly maintained. No pun intended. It is setup in such a way that those who use it are not motivated to get off of it. Qualifications vary from state to state, but a general requirement is that you may not make more than ‘X’ amount of money before you no longer qualify for welfare. Instead of fighting for the opportunity to fend for themselves, many opt to use fraud to leech excess funds from actual hard working citizens. There are cases in which welfare is necessary, but the following are common disgraceful abuses of the system that pull my vote for scrapping the current system: Unreported Income; This is the most common form of fraud in which con artists merely hide income to avoid breaking the independence barrier. Absent Parent actually living in the home; Reporting that you are single parent “entitles” you to more welfare funds. Abusers will simply offer this lie even though the other parent is living in the home. Ineligible or nonexistent children; Abusers will lie about the status of the children living with them or the reported children will not live with them at all. In some cases the children don’t exist! False aliases; This is possibly the most extreme and corrupt form of welfare abuse. Some abusers will actually make up false identities to file for welfare multiple times. http://www.bustathief.com/welfare-fraud-social-se... The current system needs to be scrapped and reworked. I agree with Sam that we can’t trip over bums every day when we leave our houses. We would eventually stub a toe. But a system that can be so EASILY scammed is too weak. Those on welfare should volunteer to have less rights than an ordinary citizen because they are living off the sweat of ordinary citizens. Every taxpaying citizen who is not on welfare should have an authority over the lives of those who do use welfare. Those who have been on welfare for decades should have to wear a badge in public so that they may boast of their dependence on everyone. Is this harsh? Should citizens be allowed to stay on welfare as long as they damn well please, or should they be pushed aggressively to get their shit in gear? Again, I recognize that there are those who are disabled and the humanitarian side of me gladly sees welfare funds go to them to provide an acceptable standard of living, but there must be bold new filters put in place to deter the scum who don’t need it but want it and don’t care how they get it. Welfare is not a right. It is not an entitlement. The fact that flat screen tvs and other luxuries are purchased with welfare funds is an absolute shame. Now, thanks to Obama, our very health will be subject to the same cheats and snakes.

Race Relations Project : Those Dolls Say Alot About Who We Are

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:54:46 +0000

Does it bother anyone else that the video cuts away at 4:37? This happens immediately after the last girl is asked the question, “why is that one bad?” There is a cut away before the girl responds. As a skeptic I find that shady. All of the reactions of that particular participant were suspicious. Watch how quickly she responds to the first question. The experimenter does not finish the question, “ which do you like best or which would you like to play with” before the participant has eyed and picked up the white doll. Did the video show all participants or was this a biased sample extracted to force a point? Another important issue is the order in which the questions were asked. From what I can see, the first question is, “which doll would you like to play with?” The next question is, “which doll is bad?” The issue of cognitive dissonance is a factor after asking the second question. If the child watches a lot of TV on which white children and white dolls are prevalent, the child will naturally be more attracted to the white doll. The second question puts the participants in the position to call one of the dolls bad. Why would they call the doll that they wanted to play with, “bad”? See the problem? It puts them into a position to either contradict themselves or not, as opposed to choosing between the dolls based on a naturally-occurring merit. Some of the participants were asked “which is the nice doll?” while others were asked “which is the bad doll?” These statements are not equivalent. One provokes cognitive dissonance, while the other does not. The “nice” doll could still leaves the easy choice of either doll. At the end of the experiment the researcher announces that 15 of 21 participants preferred the white doll. In what way do they prefer it? Is that the doll they wanted to play with? Is that the nice doll? Is the word “nice” a better antonym for bad than “good”? The majority of this phenomenon absolutely must come from the media. We are attracted to what we are exposed to most. We are attracted to what the majority is telling us is attractive. The media represents the majority, or it is at least perceived that way. Another point is the cognitive development of these children. A part of cognitive development is the process of learning to distinguish more and more characteristics from the things in our environment as we grow up. When a child first learns that a dog is a dog, they will also refer to a horse as a dog because the horse has four legs as well. The terms bad, good, nice, etc. are highly generalized at the age of the participants. I argue that we can’t derive very much information from this experiment beyond the initial question asked of the participants, which is mass-media driven.

Race Relations Project : Does this rudeness thing cut both ways?

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:08:09 +0000

Citizen : Celebrity. Little brother : big brother. Minority : Majority. Those in the less fortunate situation have the benefit of being able to bark upwards without being declared out of line. My argument is not exclusive to race. Look at today’s Congress. The Republican party is the minority and is barking very loudly at the Democrat majority party concerning the massive health care overhaul. Everything that the Democrat majority party tries to do is labeled “manipulative” and abusive of power. The truth is that the Republican party executes the same maneuvers whenever they have a majority seat in Congress. The difference between the power allocation situation in Congress and the power allocation of race in this country is that the former is temporary while the latter has remained, up to this point, steadfast. Some power differentials are temporary while others have stronger roots, leading to different sociological interpretations of political correctness. Power in Congress is in constant limbo, resulting in little pity for the current minority. The power of the white race has been prominent for a very, very long time. Humans love competition and dichotomy of opinion. Nothing can really be known, it may only be opined. By gathering others who agree to an opinion, one can manifest the necessary components of a declared knowledge. Knowledge is merely the success awarded the most popular opinion, justified by majority agreement, ignorant of reality. Reality being the fact that contrary opinion exists, with not enough people to care. So is the fact that an impermeable power segregation exists, knowledge or opinion? Before taking this class I thought it was just an opinion. A silly opinion. I had not been taught anything of this nature in grade school. Now I realize that it Is just an opinion, but the reason it is not knowledge is that the opinion is held by the minority. The joke is a means of artificially feeling superior to the victim of the joke. When you hear a joke, and you laugh, the laugh occurs at the expense of the victim of the joke. What does that mean? Why is there no sympathy for the victim? Why are celebrity roasts so popular? It is because the victim holds some degree of power over you. They are more wealthy, more famous, more fortunate, more secure. It does not matter what specifically they have “more” of than you as it does the degree to which you Covet it. When we laugh at a joke in which the victim has something which we covet we don’t feel guilty. When we laugh at a joke in which the victim has little to nothing we covet we feel guilty. White people don’t mind when derogatory jokes are made toward them because they overwhelmingly have more. They may feel it unfair that the derogatory jokes are not as acceptable when they make them towards colored people, but this behavior is disreputable because the taunt is in an overall downward direction as opposed to an overall upward direction when colored people make them toward whites. Whites have more wealth, power, security. White people are the majority and have majority privileges. Its not fair, but it is what currently is. White people are the majority, the celebrity, the big brother. When you have an overwhelming amount of properties that are coveted, you keep quiet. Partly out of guilt, partly out of sympathy, partly out of not caring enough to change anything to adversely affect one’s dominance whether deserved or not.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:43:46 +0000

I do agree. An industry that sells "sex" should be permitted to sell "sex". It is unfortunate Hani was fired in hindsight. Abercrombie needs to get their house in order either permitting or prohibiting the head scarf. However, as they are hiring "models", as they are selling "sex" they should be able to reserve the right to declaring precisely what that image is.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:49:21 +0000

Christianity, Islam, and all other religious fallacies were made up out of the blue. Perpetuation out of fear for centuries and millenia does not add credibility to an idea proven through faith because faith is not proof. My stuffed duck hat religion requires an equal amount of faith as Christianity and Islam in order to adhere to it, and therefore is equal in credibility. If a company has to employ me out of fear of lawsuit something is wrong. This country provides the freedom to exercise any religion you wish, as long as it does not impose negatively on anyone. Abercrombie decided they didn't approve and now they're going to burn because their own freedoms have been put second to a disgruntled third party. If you are too old, too dumb, too dark, too light, too religious, too short, too blind, too deaf, you now have permission to sue anyone who doesn't wish to bow to you. Welcome to America, the land of Me-first.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:11:05 +0000

Not all brand name clothing reaches out to everybody. Especially not this one. They target niches. My grandmother does not shop at Hot Topic.

Race Relations Project : Fired for a Scarf

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:47:29 +0000

Employers reserve the right to terminate employment at any time. A woman wearing a head scarf represents Abercrombie just about as well as John McCain represents the NAACP. Is no one willing to look at this from the other side? A clothing company's image is its lifeblood. Is it discriminatory to demand this woman preserve the image of the company to fullest extent physically possible? I'm going to start a religion which requires me to wear a stuffed duck as a hat. Then I'm going to demand employment and protection of my religious freedom.

Race Relations Project : This Is Getting to Be Too Much

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:24:19 +0000

Typical mob mentality. A lot of emotion, a lot of demands, and no sincere meditation on possible solutions. The guy in the interview wore a disgruntled expression throughout the interview, articulated well, spoke a lot of words, and said nothing. He ignored the fact that the acts were committed by minorities. The party was hosted by minorities. I don’t believe that minorities hate their own, but hate is how everyone has chosen to interpret these events. He said the chancellor needed to do more while dismissing the “Teach In” as “not enough”. Instead of recognizing and commending the effort to try and create some awareness, he prefers to be angry that the acts have been committed and the powers that be aren’t doing anything about it. I was eager to hear just ONE idea from him about a possible solution, but the only thing he could come up with is increase the number of African American faculty, as if that were the source of the problem. I struggle to believe that if the faculty were 50% African American racism would up and vanish. The lady in the interview spoke with even more clarity than the man, and still managed to say nothing. She begins by explaining racism, and moves on to label the discovered noose as “an act of racial terrorism”. I ask why it must be labeled this way. The noose has been used to hang people of all races all through history and was the preferred method of capital punishment prior to the electric chair and lethal injection. I understand that within our culture and history the noose has evolved into a powerful symbol of hate due to its illegal use targeting African Americans. But what PRESERVES a symbol? Ritual attention and indoctrination. The noose in the library was turned into a spectacle, and this lady labeled it racial terrorism. It was wrong to create the noose and leave it in the library. It was meant to send a message of hate. But it could have been ignored. The feeble minds that created it did not have to be acknowledged. It is a very, very small percentage of people at this campus committing these acts, yet it is being deemed a campus-wide perspective deficiency. The interview took nearly ten minutes, yet everything that came out of their mouths can be summed up as follows: The man is angry, the lady thinks the students need to be more informed about racism. We don’t need more or less of any skin color. We need more classes like Sam’s that get us to heat up, then lighten up and really begin to see each other for our humanity and not the consequences of our phenotypic ancestry.

Race Relations Project : Question on Discrimination

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:25:45 +0000

If the last class had been the first class of Sam’s I had ever taken, the absence of the following would be a surprise. But it is not. Examples of “people of color” preferring “white people” have largely been ignored in favor of smothering the idea of “white” responsibility in our faces. The implicit association test (IAT) was designed to assess a person’s precognitive feelings about race, gender, and other categories. The tests are conducted on a computer. In one such test, “African American or Good” is displayed at the left of the screen and “Caucasian or Bad” is displayed at the right. Alternately “African American or Bad” is displayed on one side and “Caucasian or Good” is displayed on the other. During the test, an image of either a black or white person pops up in the middle of the screen, and the test taker is instructed to strike a key corresponding to either the left or right choice, as quickly as they can. Incorrect key strokes and long response time were indicative of cognitive controversy. The results of white test takers are more obvious than that of black test takers. White participants more often have a preference for whites, but so do, more often than not, black participants. Google it. I don’t agree with the preference, I believe it demonstrates the cognitive roots of discrimination, but I would like it recognized that it is not just Whitey enabling the discrimination. Hip hop categories are Violence, Drugs, Sex, and Fuck the Police. By association, the majority of media exposure for people of color paints them as basic, aggressive, and dangerous. African Americans have really dug themselves a hole with that one. I understand that this sort of music is the most popular for an African American to make, and trying to step out of the boundaries of what is most popular can greatly increase the chances of failure. But it remains a hole. A hole from which only discrimination can spring. Hiring someone is not just about their credentials. It is about the image brought to the company. If the image of black people is one of violence, it will hurt their credibility. I feel I have to clarify here again, I personally do not think black people are violent, but I may not be representative of my customers. I have a landscaping business and I would be hesitant to hire a hardworking, honest black person. Why? The majority of my customers are elderly white people. While I have Zero personal contention with black people(I have several black friends), what if the presence of black workers on the property of these people from an intensely different generation caused me to lose business? If they are racist, do I have to sacrifice that business in the name of equality? Am I racist for wanting to get as much business as possible and ignore this problem? Am I COMPLETELY wrong about the possibility of the negative judgment of my company? I think it comes down to what Sam said, “what are You going to do about it?” Honestly, I don’t know yet.

Race Relations Project : Another Reason Why Gay Marriage Matters

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:35:42 +0000

I strongly agree with you. Laws are put in place to provide structure and protect society. Immigrants are given a golden gift by being permitted citizenship through marriage to an existing citizen. These people had kids (adopted?) without first obtaining citizenship for the illegal immigrant of the pair. Choosing to adopt children given their legal circumstances is tantamount to choosing to grow marijuana in your backyard. You hold a belief and you decide that you don’t give a fuck what the law says. When people fully understand the risk before they strike out on the endeavor, why do we always find them crying after they get caught? If I were an illegal immigrant I would hope that I would have the decency to put obtaining citizenship before having children! The couple in the video are absolutely correct when describing how heartbreaking it is to have their family broken up, but not ONCE do they confess that they didn’t give a shit what the law said before creating that family. I find it much more frustrating that these people want the law to bend to them to support their lifestyle and even brought children into their battle, than the fact that the law is being upheld and the illegal is being deported. According to the statistics in the video, there are some 18,000 families facing a situation similar to the one depicted in the video. How do that many people get the idea that this is ok? If they are adopting, how do they get approved? Don’t get me wrong, I agree with changing the law to allow this family to stay together. However, I believe taking personal responsibility for your own actions is much more important. This family could be permanently torn apart. NOT because of evil lawmakers, but because of a complete disregard for personal responsibility. The issue of gay marriage must be resolved first. The fact that this couple has children is irrelevant. Nowhere in the constitution does it actually say “separation of church and state”. An online source states, “The First Amendment to the Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This prevents the government from establishing a national church. However, it does not prevent God from being acknowledged in schools and government buildings.” (http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/other/conservativ... Therefore the church’s position of not allowing gay marriage must be respected. Another type of union may be more appropriate and more widely accepted. This video disgusts me more than saddens me. If immigrants come here to seek opportunity and a better life, they need to do so legally. If the life they wish to live is not supported by law, they need to fight to get the law changed, just like everyone else.

Race Relations Project : Why Is the Conversation Always About Black and White People?

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:00:51 +0000

The game is resource control. The Freedom versus Determinism lecture can be applied here. Just because white people ended up with the resources first doesn’t mean that any other race would have taken a different course of action. Like Sam said after watching the video comparing the rich school to the poor school, would you give up resources so that someone else’s kid could have a better opportunity? Racial discrimination has been the easiest way to maximally allocate resources to team white. African Americans just happen to be the largest and longest discriminated-against tribe in the U.S. I agree with Laurie that recent images of the black’s struggle for equality have intensified the issue between blacks and whites in particular, but to say that that had a bigger impact than slavery is kind of silly. The majority of students in the class were not around to see the core civil rights movement, but we all still feel a similar tension our parents would when the subject gets brought up. It originates in grade school. We are taught about slavery, how Abe freed ‘em, and Martin Luther King fought for and gained equality. The dirty details are spared which is racist in and of itself. We graduate high school clueless, seeing first hand only that black people have been freed and given equality and still can’t get their act together. Why didn’t ANY of my history professors mention the discriminatory GI Bill after WWII? There seems to be an agenda to preserve a sense that it is freedom and not determinism that allows white people to remain on top. Affirmative action serves to keep racism alive. It is discrimination against white people. Everyone has heard of a more qualified white person being denied a position because a black quota has not yet been met. We need to find answers to making the workforce more equal, but forcing employers to hire, against their will, under qualified individuals isn’t the solution. Nothing will facilitate more the tendency for both the employer and the current employees to see the black person using their skin color as a crutch. This must cause a degree of resentment that wouldn’t exist if the black person had obtained the job by their own merit. It will always be “black and white” as long as we continue to be undereducated in school, and white people continue to lose positions to black people who didn’t earn them. It may simply take a matter of time, whole generations. My generation is less racist than the one before me is less racist than the one before them. As we get further from slavery and the civil rights struggles, we inherit less and less resentment toward each other (blacks and whites).

Race Relations Project : Voters and Their "Senseless" Stories

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 09:32:11 +0000

I had the opportunity to see Ben Stein speak on Wednesday, and one of the points he raised was that the idea of healthcare reform has been around for a long time. In fact, he personally helped write a proposal while working for President Nixon. The difference was, that under Stein’s proposal, if you were too poor to get health care, the government would pick up the tab. What a GEM. Obama’s plan was to run health care completely, removing the plans that the majority of Americans are satisfied with. Americans who know that health care is expensive but gladly pay it to avoid rationed health care and long lines to see a doctor. The most recent health care proposal was disgusting. Why take my healthcare from me when I am not complaining about it? Obama tried to strongarm the bill through, and got his ass kicked, and thank God. Liberals didn’t want to fix healthcare, they wanted a massive expansion of government control over our lives. No thanks. Individual freedoms are fading fast enough as it is. My point is that I agree with the Sam on this one, the People will revolt against anything pushed on them. It was terrifying to watch the opposition to most powerful reform proposition possibly of our lifetime be silenced and helpless. Obama promised open debate, and instead we got a two thousand page document brewed behind doors and three days to read it. More people need to realize the direct connection between socialized medicine and socialism. Not supporting health care reform makes you sound like a bad guy, but it was this WAY that people were opposed to. Standardizing doctor pay and appropriation of care is not the American way and the voters voted to preserve that way of life. Period. Voters are not stupid. They vote for what sounds like would be in their best interest. It is up to the politician to compose the method of conveying that idea. I don’t like the example used in the article saying that Gore lost the debate because of his use of numbers. His numbers weren’t CLEAR! If no one know what the fuck you are talking about expect to be picked on. Gore’s statement about healthcare premiums increasing used the numbers 18-47 percent. Instead of using vague data like that he could have threatened that premiums could increase by nearly fifty percent. People can visualize fifty percent much more easily than 18-47. I believe that the majority of voters do vote on gut instinct and secondhand information from family and friends. However, I also believe that this is enough kick bills like the atrocious health care bill the fuck out of DC

Race Relations Project : Voters and Their "Senseless" Stories

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 04:32:11 +0000

Race Relations Project : I Guess It Pays to Learn a Bit About Other People

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:24:41 +0000

Osama and Pals have promised more terror attacks in the future and one of their favorite mediums appears to be planes. The flight attendant and pilot were overly cautious and it is that kind of thinking and action that will save lives in the future. It appeared frivolous this time because the outcome was peaceful but I hope the event in no way deters future apprehension. Perhaps the FAA should set strict rules about what activities are and are not permitted in flight. Passengers should be able to occupy themselves for a few hours with books, magazines, and movies without getting cabin fever. Strap yourself up and appear to be giving yourself last rights and you get tackled. Furthermore, racial profiling should be a priority. More aging white grandmothers than young Islamic men are given extra screening at airports because of the risk of being accused of profiling. Security guards fear profiling lawsuits and losing their jobs. Similar to a situation one might find reading “Freakonomics”, one issue promotes both racial segregation (mentally), heightened risk of terrorism. Political Correctness. Not having the perceived freedom to speak freely has led to not being able act freely. Not even to save lives. The Christmas day underwear bomber was read his Miranda rights before being interrogated. Because of political correctness, we learned Nothing from this terrorist. It is likely that we never will. Terrorists should be boxed and shipped to Guantánamo Bay to be treated like the dirt they are, but instead this administration treats them No differently than they would a citizen of the country they swore to protect. By far the most disgusting implementation of political correctness to date has been the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/ll terror attacks on the World Trade Center. This man, if he can be called such, will be tried in CIVILIAN COURT. After ADMITTING to plotting the World Trade Center bombings, taxpayer dollars will pay for HIS lawyer. Political Correctness. Once intended to prevent offense, the term has grown into a life threatening monster. Events like what happened to this jewish boy should be common and accepted, although I fear there will be some left wing backlash. Osama bin laden has promised further attacks in the “future” for quite some time now. Unfortunately, I have never been so motivated to believe him. Everything is in lined up in his favor. Existing terrorists are treated like common criminals. Terrorists attempting to blow planes out of the sky are NOT interrogated. If we, the enemy, pose NO significant threat, why hesitate? If his bombing missions are successful, then he has achieved his goal. If his cronies get captured, at least he can now promise them that in the event of capture, they won’t even get tortured for information. Harmless religious tradition or not, thank God for overly cautious flight crews.

Race Relations Project : Last Name Begins with "F"

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:18:56 +0000

three word post

Race Relations Project : Clubbing the "Bejesus" Out of Rationality

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:50:26 +0000

The news clips are selective. Through careful editing we see Pat Robertson coldly asserting that Haiti had it coming to them. Longer portions of the same interview show a fundamental Christian attempting to explain the disaster through the lens of his religion. Through this lens, all natural disasters are viewed as acts of God. If the wrath of God occurs, it makes most sense to a Christian if the recipients deserved it in some way. Although the selected portion of the interview makes him appear awful, he has other, more positive things to say about the situation. He states that he sees this could be an opportunity for rebuilding in the future, and that he will be praying for Haiti. In a statement released by CBN regarding Pat Robertson’s statements, CBN states that Pat Robertson personally had a hand in the collection and sending of millions to Haiti. It is a narrow view that the Haitians sided with the devil to achieve freedom. It is a folktale without documentation. However, all Christian viewpoints are narrow. Narrow is not necessarily negative, but it is absolute. Black and white. Right and wrong. Watching the whole interview puts Pat Robertson in a better light. Although it can’t be ignored that he clearly believes Haiti “earned” this earthquake, he has contributed to relief efforts. He is optimistic about their future. By classifying what he has said as “wrong”, the classifier joins him. The classifier uses their own moral code to judge another, damning the judged. Jiddu Krishnamurti said one of the roots of fear is comparison. The aspiration to become wealthier is paired with the fear that we will not be successful in becoming wealthier. However, the aspiration is only possible through the comparison of our wealth to someone whose wealth is greater. The act of comparison always breeds fear. Feeling offended is an act of comparison. The action of the offender is compared against the preconceived notions of the offended. Offense occurs when the action violates a preconceived notion, even though no one has the right to claim that their personal preconceived notions are supreme. Narrow thinking is the root of all social problems and the backbone of Christianity. The Christian religion has a set criteria for what is right and what is wrong. The problem lies not with having a moral code but having no pliability. No room for correction. No right to challenge. When the code is established by an infallible authority, humanity is threatened and often sacrificed to protect it. Genuine consideration and consciousness are necessarily shelved, discipline and ignorance are elevated. Love is preached, defiance damned. The hypocrisy is stifling. Unfortunately, post-mortem insurance doesn’t come without strict regulations.