Military Manuel Trains That White Males Have Unfair Advantage
this is what Thomas Sowell is talking about
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Really it's just looking at the issue of discrimination from a new perspective by putting the emphasis on the group who isn't persecuted rather than on the group who is.
To me, saying that we should have no legal measures in place to deal with discrimination is essentially like saying we should throw open the floodgates to allow all the ignorant and narrow-minded bigots the freedom to persecute and abuse whomever they please, which to me just doesn't seem it would be in keeping with the principle that all men are created equal, nor would it contribute towards the development of a fair and just society.
Of course we could debate the potential philosophical impacts of any decision forever, but in the end, public policy should based upon empirical evidence, and not ideological speculation.
Private citizens, and the businesses they may form, are and should be free to discriminate between people however they choose.
Please define "moral kidnapping" for contrast.
Whatever the guard was doing, Dagny murdered him. The government did not. Apparently Dagny did not believe the government should have a legal monopoly on retaliatory force.
I'm sure Dagny knew she was breaking the law when she made that decision. That point in the book breaks any contract between her and that government, and she essentially declares war on them. You could relate it to Dagny being from another nation, and acting on behalf of that nation to rescue an illegally abducted citizen of said nation. I forget what reasons the government gave for detaining Galt, but I'm positive they were at the very least immoral, if not outright illegal.
Ayn Rand had a lot of good insight on certain specific subjects, but like any human being, she had many blind spots as well, one of which is her misguided and incorrect belief that one individual cannot harm another except through the use of force. Force is certainly the most direct way to harm someone, but it is not the only way.
As for whether an individual should be punished for causing harm in these ways, it depends on the situation. In some circumstances I would say yes, in others, no.
In Arizon, for example, there is currently a law in place which forbids any and all restaurants from charging for a cup of water, since several people have passed out and died from dehydration due to the excessive heat of that state. This is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable law, because it helps to prevent harm. Other states where the weather is cooler do not have such laws, because they are not needed there.
As for your example of refusing to give food to a starving man who dies as a result, whether or not you should be punished would depend on whether you were a just some random person passing him on the street, or the owner of a homeless shelter turning him away at the door. In the first case, I would say no, because it isn't the responsibility of one man to provide for the needs of another. But in the second case, I would say yes, because the owner of a homeless shelter specifically and intentionally takes on the task of providing for other people's needs, and therefore he can and should be held morally accountable if he refuses to do so when he is able.
Then there's also the well known case of thirty-eight people who witnessed a murder, yet didn't call police, which allowed the killer plenty of time to finish off his victim when a single phone call to the police could have saved the victim's life. In this case, I would say yes, absolutely, the people who witnessed the murder but did not call the police absolutely should be punished in some way (a hefty fine seems most appropriate, in my opinion). You can read more about that case here:
http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/F...
I also once read about a case where there was a big party at someone's house with about fifty or sixty people in attendance, and two of the people attacked and killed a third person in full view of everyone else, and then proceeded to bury the body in the backyard while everyone else just stood by and watched. No one called the police, or made any attempt to intervene, and once the body was buried, they all continued on with the party as if nothing had happened. In this case, I would say the two people who committed the murder deserved to be charged with first degree homicide, and all those who watched deserved to be charged as accomplices for doing nothing to stop it and failing to alert the police.
So yes, there are circumstances in which a person can and should be punished for failing to act (the degree of punishment varying depending on the particular circumstances and nature of each individual case).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpRxZB0Op...
There are some actions for which it is not immoral if one chooses not to do them, but for which it would be regarded as highly virtuous if one does choose to do them.
For example, Mother Teresa's choice to devote her life to helping the poor. We do not consider it immoral if a person chooses not to spend their life in such a way, but it is highly moral if they do choose to do so.
When I try to think of some, I keep coming up with things like boycotts or protests, but to stop those you need to use force on the passive resistors.
Can you think of non-forceful ways someone can do harm that can be remedied without using force on the non-forceful person?
But there are other examples as well, such as someone dumping chemicals in their backyard, thus contaminating the soil in a large enough radius that the contamination seeps into their neighbor's yard and kills their lawn and garden.
Hopefully some future civilization will have a member write a treatise on how malleable the American mind actually turned out to be. Doesn't matter; no one will listen, then, either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIc...
I think you're talking about laws that force businesses not to discriminate. In today's world, I say let them discriminate. I'm actually happy for them if they feel like they can turn away customers on the basis of race. I wish my business were running that way at this moment.
The owner put a sign out front that said, "Iranians not welcome".
Now, this was the height of the hostage crisis, when the Iranians were holding Americans hostage for over a year.
Many of his customers were Iranian. They approved of the sign, for they were ex-patriot Iranians, going to school at Iowa State, and recognized that it was a statement against the current Iranian regime, and not people of Persian genetic makeup. They continued to be good customers, and he never refused service to anyone.
The ACLU took him to court.
He was forced to remove the sign.
He placed the sign in the front yard of his house, which was next door.
They made him take it down, again.
He replaced it with a sign that said, "In your heart, you know".
He was forced to remove that sign, as well.
I sometimes think I'd like to start a Gentleman's Club, like those in Victorian England, a place where men could get away from the women in their lives for a period , with strict rules of conduct. That would be discriminating. But, I don't see how or why the gov't should be allowed to compel me to admit women, thus destroying the atmosphere of the club.
It was used to describe the union workers that were trying to strike against the coal mine owners. They wore red bandannas around their necks, to avoid friendly fire. They were organized by communist labor agitators, much like the ACLU was founded by a card carrying Communist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B...
The men who won WWII weren't so delicate; they were a pack of bigots who weren't afraid to hate their enemies.
Before you look down your nose at men better than you, you should consider the course of history thus far. "Redneck losers" have built empires. Effete, insipid sophisticates have destroyed them. That's history.
In 1980, had I been President and Carter not emasculated our military, I'd have slaughtered every man, woman and child in Iran as an object lesson to the rest of the world.
Member of the ACLU? Well, American Civil Liberties Union... why the hell don't you take my case up against the State of Oklahoma for infringing upon my 2nd Amendment Civil Liberty, hmm?
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So you're a bloodthirsty warmonger who would be a genocidal tyrant if he ever gained political power. Good to know.
That's what it would have solved.
For example, I hoped Syria wouldn't turn over the chemical weapons, President Obama would want missile or air strikes, and Congress would say no. I'm happy the situation resolved, but I would like to see some crisis that forces us to define what it means that the president is commander-in-chief but doesn't have the power to declare war.
I also have this weird chill that maybe a percentage of vendors, customers, contractors who I work with all the time might be mass murders if given the chance.
"murder" is a legal abstraction. As the Iranians are not protected by the Constitution, it's not really murder to kill them all for kidnapping Americans.
"War criminal" is an oxymoron.
And I'd love for Congress to try screwing with me while I'm trying to fight the war with Islam. I'd declare martial law, and we've already seen that high ranking officers rate obedience to command higher than obedience to their oaths.
Imagine my finger pointing accusingly at you, CircuitGuy and this thread. The idea that we can't hate whomever we want for whatever reason we want is... political correctness.
It's just as oppressive to tell people they can't hate someone or some group as to tell people they must love someone, or some group.
We both are making a mistaken assumption here... while I hated and still hate citizens of the nation of Iran, there's no reason to assume he hated *anybody*. That statement had NOTHING to do with hate.
example: I do not hate Alec Baldwin. He is not welcome in my home. Nor is any member of his family. The same goes for... oh... Arnold Swartzenegger.
Clearly, "The Ayatollah of Iran is not welcome" has no impact, emotional or otherwise. And the sign was meant to express an *emotion*, not a thousand page long diatribe about an abstract idea.
They directed the DoI at the King, but check history; rebel and loyalist hated one another with passion.
In WWII, again, we hated the effing Japs. We hated the effing Germans. Hitler and Tojo couldn't have done a thing without the cooperation of their populations.
Good Lord, the hypocrisy is palpable. This is a website devoted to Atlas Shrugged, where one prick condemns millions to suffering and death because he didn't approve of a communist plan at motor company where he worked, boo freakin hoo.
And you people are perfectly fine with the concept of making millions of *Americans* suffer for no better reason than they're parasitic to the glorious demi-gods of business. Ah, but they were Americans, screw them.
First, it was students who captured the Americans they held hostage. Second, it wasn't the entire country of Iran who went about its business milking goats while the Ayatollah all by himself captured and held the Americans. There was no civil war against the Ayatollah; the civil war was against the pro-American Shah.
Second, it was the ACLU that forced him to take his sign down... even the one that said "in your heart, you know". Not the Ayatollah, the ACLU.
The idea that we're not supposed to express hatred for our enemies sickens me.
we didn't exactly have a good rep in Iran at the time. but my point was simply to be logical about the sign. He clearly welcomed some Iranians into his restaurant.
I am not "you people."
It all comes down to the fact that people are individuals not "you people."
This is so true. The political parties act as if there have stable and cohesive ideologies and most people predominately follow one or the other. Their claim is not absurd. It logically could happen, but it is not what's actually happening.
On a broader level, I think the very concept of the nation state is in decline. It worked when people started producing more than they needed but found it hard to travel and communicate long distances. In the early 19th century the fastest communication method were horseback and networks of semaphore flags on high towers. The first official long-distance (Baltimore to DC) telegraph msg was "What hath God wrought?" Indeed. Electrical engineers had taken the first baby step toward ending the nation state. We're still adapted to fear outsiders, which served us as bands of hunter gatherers. Now that people can become hyper-specialized and trade across vast distances at almost no cost, Seth Godin tribes based on cool things individuals do replace the old groups based on clan, geography, nation state.
Ability to cram bits on a wire is bigger than the printing press.
Everyone is "you people". Everyone, in fact, is several "you people". You are female "you people" for example. You are also Iowa "you people" and American "you people" and middle-aged "you people" and objectivist "you people".
I mentioned before the hypocrisy of John Galt, and by extension his creator, Ayn Rand.
I give you 3 words in demonstration of that, including your own hypocisy:
Producers. Looters. Moochers.
The contempt Rand expresses in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged for those who do not behave as she feels people should, through her straw man antagonists, is anything but subtle. People, in the real world, she has never known.
Her antagonists have to be stereotypical fools; otherwise Galt would lose.
And yet you sit here criticizing an AMERICAN for expressing contempt no differently than did Rand's protagonists.
Atlas Shrugged is a novel. It is perfectly reasonable to have some stereotypical characters in a book to illustrate broader points. While I may occasionally say "moochers" or "producers" I am well aware I am referring to a behavior. The group has to have some meaning. But "you people" tells me NOTHING about to whom you are referring.and since you threw in a couple of straw men 1. pc behavior regarding discrimination and 2. that I am critical of the restaurant owner-neither argument applies to me. maybe you meant something else by "you people." Objectivist? that might apply to me.
Wow!
"This is a website devoted to Atlas Shrugged, where one prick condemns millions to suffering and death because he didn't approve of a communist plan at motor company where he worked, boo freakin hoo." Hiraghm
Really?
I have never seen it that way. John Galt decided he would no longer be a slave, that society did not own him; he did not owe society whatever sum they demanded. He would not submit to servitude, to communism, and found others of like mind. It was not about just one motor company where he worked. It was pervasive. He did not condemn millions to anything that would not have happened anyway. He may have moved it further forward in time, lacking the power to do otherwise. He took no action against them; his “action” and those of like mind, was withdrawal, inaction. He was merciful in shortening the time-span of suffering and preparing to rebuild the future. He wished to stop the motor of the world which was grinding people down like communism will. Thus he would be able to start anew. Like East Germany. Like the Phoenix.
Hatred is a passion that must be tempered if reason is to prevail. It exists. The first amendment protects unpopular speech, for it would have no use otherwise.
Respectfully,
O.A.
You can't turn people away because of their race, but you can turn them away because of their ideology/philosophy.
The opposite of "privilege" however would be "obligation".
If you have one group that is identified for what they are, say, businessmen, then one is discriminating between businessmen and non-businessmen. No privilege or obligation is attributed to either.
If you have a group that is persecuted for what they are, say, businessmen, that doesn't mean that everyone else who is not a businessman is being granted any kind of privilege or being exalted.
Let's use a fairy tale metaphor. Suppose you're an evil wizard, and you have two prisoners.
You go down to your dungeon, look at your bullwhip and your cat o'nine tails, and weigh the differences between the two whips. That's discriminating between the two whips.
You choose the cat o'nine tails, and beat the prisoner on the left. While he might be considered discriminated against, the one not-whipped is not also privileged, since not-being-whipped is the default state for both prisoners.
In other words, having my rights protected is the default state. If your rights are not protected, you may be discriminated against, but I certainly am NOT being privileged, since the default state is to have rights protected.
Merriam-Webster online - "the state of being kept distinct <in her mind there did not exist a discrimination between the imaginary and the real>"
What has happened to us??????????
I do believe that I KNOW the path our nations founding father would have followed if they were confronted by this mess. He has, single handedly set out nation back decades. So far back that there is legitimately offered question as to the survival of the republic past his current term. We shall see.
I agree the time is here for organized civil disobedience or ....wait for it-GALTING
So yes, we could certainly say that creating a beneficial and useful product is a noble thing to do, but it would be a grave mistake to say that it is the only way to be noble. There are perhaps as many different ways to be morally noble and virtuous as there people.
So, yes, you should be permitted to discriminate in any way you see fit, based upon whatever criteria you see fit. Because you should be the sole arbiter of what benefits you and what benefits you seek.
Karl Marx
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What did Thomas Sowell say about white privilege?
Though I was really asking what Thomas Sowell said about the issue.
"This is the Obama administration’s outreach of social justice into the United States military,” he told me. “Equal Opportunity in the Army that I grew up in did not have anything to do with white privilege.”
https://www.facebook.com/manuel.t.mas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5U...
(and I still want HTML tags for italics, bold and underlining plz)
In Korea, the military was forcibly desegregated. We had our butts handed to us until Matt Ridgeway stepped in.
In Viet Nam, still desegregated, we won every major engagement, but lost the war to a communist Congress.
What's this tell us?
What it tells me is that Napoleon was right. The moral IS to the physical as three to one.
In WWII, each of us wanted to win; knew we *had* to win. We didn't (yet) waste time worrying about racial justice and its varied, idiotic permutations.
By Korea, the first real onslaught of the attack on America by the collectivists had begun. One thing they attacked was our military. Our training was messed up, our supply was messed up, and our morale was messed up. The push to desegregate the military was part of this. We were getting our butts handed to us in Korea because we had lousy morale; we didn't know why we were there, we weren't prepared to undergo the hardships involved, and we had already instill in the ranks a convenient source of tension to destabilize cohesion. When Matt Ridgeway stepped in, he taught the troops why they were there. He taught the troops that the enemy was *out there*, and could be beaten if our forces worked together. They learned, and we drove the Chinese back.
In Viet Nam, God what a mess. But, the troops learned quickly what mattered in that hell; the guy next to you. They didn't have the *luxury* at that point of worrying whether the guys you were fighting with were black, white, yellow or brown on the outside. It's amazing how the immediate desire to live can focus your attention on what matters and away from what doesn't.
Granted, the actual integration of the troops gave them all a chance to get to know other races (if they didn't already) and learn their common humanity, but at one gawdawful price to those boys in Korea (my father sometimes expressed pity for the Korean War soldiers, because he felt they were forgotten, and overshadowed by the WWII and Vietnam troops).
But, the real fact is that race doesn't, didn't, and shouldn't matter in the military. Everyone wears a green uniform (I guess they all wear camo nowadays.... but you get the point).
Everyone undergoes the same training for the same jobs.
And the one thing that truly doesn't give a crap what race you are is the bullet the enemy fires at you.
Having pages devoted to the problem in a manual is a normal action for a large organization. The article carries on like this is something outrageous, but it's really just another example of why I can't work a real job at a large org.
Thank God.
I couldn't get elected if I got the nomination. I'd be impeached if I tried cleaning house from top to bottom of any ideological remolding of our infrastructure, with people from the gulch handing out the pitchforks and torches.
When a virus genetically molds itself to otherwise healthy tissue, it cannot be extracted. The ideological remolding represented by political correctness is now embedded in the psyche of 3 generations of Americans.
It's simply too late to cure the patient. Not a one of them will swallow the bitter pill necessary to cure the country.