Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Hey,
The matter of personal accountability is a given. This is a necessary part of a civil, free society; however, such accountability SHOULD apply to both citizens and the keepers of society's institutions. Unfortunately, sometimes, we place more of the onus on the citizens than on those in positions of power. I think the balance of responsibility should be higher among those who hold power and authority. This is why doctors, military personnel, police officers, political officials, and priests, for example, take oaths. Even care professionals have ethical guidelines and citizenship requirements that they must follow to gain licensure. So, I don't endorse absolving police personnel, judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, therapists, priests, politicians, etc. of their ethical and moral responsibilities to the people they serve. "To whom much is given, much is required."
The matter of personal accountability is a given. This is a necessary part of a civil, free society; however, such accountability SHOULD apply to both citizens and the keepers of society's institutions. Unfortunately, sometimes, we place more of the onus on the citizens than on those in positions of power. I think the balance of responsibility should be higher among those who hold power and authority. This is why doctors, military personnel, police officers, political officials, and priests, for example, take oaths. Even care professionals have ethical guidelines and citizenship requirements that they must follow to gain licensure. So, I don't endorse absolving police personnel, judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, therapists, priests, politicians, etc. of their ethical and moral responsibilities to the people they serve. "To whom much is given, much is required."
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Stacks,
My post was not aimed at the Brown shooting but at the overall "playing field" issue. Personal accountability in living your life and raising children is definitely different than accountability of a profession. One is desired, one is mandatory. I apologize for the confusion.
Rich
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Rockadelic said:
Big_Stacks said:
Hey,
The matter of personal accountability is a given. This is a necessary part of a civil, free society; however, such accountability SHOULD apply to both citizens and the keepers of society's institutions. Unfortunately, sometimes, we place more of the onus on the citizens than on those in positions of power. I think the balance of responsibility should be higher among those who hold power and authority. This is why doctors, military personnel, police officers, political officials, and priests, for example, take oaths. Even care professionals have ethical guidelines and citizenship requirements that they must follow to gain licensure. So, I don't endorse absolving police personnel, judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, therapists, priests, politicians, etc. of their ethical and moral responsibilities to the people they serve. "To whom much is given, much is required."
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Stacks,
My post was not aimed at the Brown shooting but at the overall "playing field" issue. Personal accountability in living your life and raising children is definitely different than accountability of a profession. One is desired, one is mandatory. I apologize for the confusion.
Rich
Hey Rock,
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Still, I feel resources are a big part of the 'playing field' equation. A lot of poor folks just weren't provided the resources you described in your earlier post. Sadly, far too many teen and/or single parents predominate in poor communities. So, that's like the blind leading the blind, and the cycle of poverty continues to spin.
Beyond a doubt poverty is generational.
The statistics are overwhelming people born in poverty are most likely to stay improvised.
Those born to (relative) wealth are more likely to remain above poverty.
Bad parenting is a major problem in many impoverished households.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
It amuses me that you think you can discern relative intelligence by what someone writes here but that you also think I'm precluded from seeing you as a racist on that same basis. I think you're a racist because you quack like a racist duck. Do I really need to expand on that to explain what it means? Because obviously I could do that all day and you'd still think you're not a racist. Big whoop for you.
Even in the short passage I quoted you reveal the silliness of the racist mind. No, you could not have "been black or Asian." How would that have worked, exactly? And this bullshit about racism and intelligence being incompatible is equally ludicrous and ahistorical. I can't believe I'm bothering to type that out for a person like you. I don't know if you're as racist as Bobby Fischer and James Watson, but I'm close to certain you don't come close to them in terms of intelligence.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
It amuses me that you think you can discern relative intelligence by what someone writes here but that you also think I'm precluded from seeing you as a racist on that same basis. I think you're a racist because you quack like a racist duck. Do I really need to expand on that to explain what it means? Because obviously I could do that all day and you'd still think you're not a racist. Big whoop for you.
Even in the short passage I quoted you reveal the silliness of the racist mind. No, you could not have "been black or Asian." How would that have worked, exactly? And this bullshit about racism and intelligence being incompatible is equally ludicrous and ahistorical. I can't believe I'm bothering to type that out for a person like you. I don't know if you're as racist as Bobby Fischer and James Watson, but I'm close to certain you don't come close to them in terms of intelligence.
Oh it seems I have hit a nerve, go on please Lazarus, the best entertainment is free entertainment. Please insult me In the most base manner you can contrive. Don't challenge me on facts. I know you love yourself and your family, but here's your problem, I love you too, I want to help you in anyway possible but you must quit from the smear campaign and you must cease to resist rationality and insist on debating the merits of ideas.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but what you're advocating for is willfull denial. I'm sorry I know you're in a bad position and I empathize with your cause but all I'm saying is depart from this case, this is the worst case for many reasons to rest your racial hatred on. Wait it out. Place your emphasis on cases that have merit. That's all.
I know I hit you like a sledgehammer and you're scrambling to marry your online identity with your everyday talks. You want to be right. I want to too. We can agree that we can't be both right at the same time, right? So we must be persuaded in one direction, right? I try that with facts and rationality, you try that with insults and creative accountability. I will stand corrected when you present a persuasive case that I'm wrong. I hate to be wrong and I damn sure try to think of every tangential argument and every position one can take before I weigh in. But I am human and therefore infallible, so if you got it, I will redeem. What the fuck along these lines have you shown???
I've stated this here before but for the sake of this conversation I'll do it again. My Grandfather dropped out of school to pick tobacco and help support his family when he was 10 years old. My Mom did not get her first pair of shoes until she was 5. I have relatives in North Carolina today that are uneducated(by choice), live in squalor and blame everyone but themselves. I will always remember my Mother telling me that no matter how poor you were your house should be clean, clean is free. In my opinion my poverty stricken relatives have no one to blame but themselves. In my lifetime they have raised two more generations that lack the motivation to do anything but be a burden on society. They blame everyone but the person in their mirror.
It's no coincidence that your success can be directly tied to your family. It wasn't the quality or lack thereof of the education you received in Public School because there are plenty of people in EVERY school that don't take advantage of the education available to them...and there is not a High School in the U.S. that doesn't have great success stories from alumni. You and I both went to schools that provided us with a decent education but those who didn't make the effort or dropped out did not realize our success. I am certain we both have friends that are either dead or in jail that were given access to the same basic tools that we were but were lacking those key motivating values.
Maybe I'm naive and will be accused of preaching bootstraps but I think there is a good chance that both of us would not have been successful without the family support and values instilled upon us. It is impossible for a society to provide these things but it certainly is our burden when they are not provided.
I believe that in order to be intellectually honest about this issue we have to start with personal accountability. Helping people who are willing and motivated to help themselves. Every once in a while one of my white trash relatives will lift himself up out of the hole his family has been digging for 100 years and make it out....but no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix them all. Regardless of what society can accomplish there will always be people like this...of every sort. And as long as they exist we will be able to point a finger and say society is at fault......it's not imo.
So society is never at fault? That's an interesting theory. But my intellect informs me that if 100 poor kids of equal ability who were bestowed with super values grow up in a place where education is substandard and health care is rotten and sporadic that they will lag far behind 100 poor kids who grow up in a place where education is excellent and health care is splendid and easy to access. I know, I know, I'm just a crazy Eastern elitist libturd who is thankful as hell that I didn't grow up in one of the former locales.
You get accused of bootstrapping because no matter what anyone says you refuse to acknowledge the importance of growing up in a more enlightened locale. You yourself didn't grow up in North Carolina, and that probably mattered even if you won't admit it. I've also seen you play the "I went to the local community college" bit without mentioning that it was CCNY in the 70s, when it was still a great school where you could get an almost-completely subsidized education. Next you'll be calling Central Park "the local playground."
So when you're accused of bootstraps why deny it? If there's anything in your approach that adds up to anything else, what is it?
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
It amuses me that you think you can discern relative intelligence by what someone writes here but that you also think I'm precluded from seeing you as a racist on that same basis. I think you're a racist because you quack like a racist duck. Do I really need to expand on that to explain what it means? Because obviously I could do that all day and you'd still think you're not a racist. Big whoop for you.
Even in the short passage I quoted you reveal the silliness of the racist mind. No, you could not have "been black or Asian." How would that have worked, exactly? And this bullshit about racism and intelligence being incompatible is equally ludicrous and ahistorical. I can't believe I'm bothering to type that out for a person like you. I don't know if you're as racist as Bobby Fischer and James Watson, but I'm close to certain you don't come close to them in terms of intelligence.
Oh it seems I have hit a nerve, go on please Lazarus, the best entertainment is free entertainment. Please insult me In the most base manner you can contrive. Don't challenge me on facts. I know you love yourself and your family, but here's your problem, I love you too, I want to help you in anyway possible but you must quit from the smear campaign and you must cease to resist rationality and insist on debating the merits of ideas.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but what you're advocating for is willfull denial. I'm sorry I know you're in a bad position and I empathize with your cause but all I'm saying is depart from this case, this is the worst case for many reasons to rest your racial hatred on. Wait it out. Place your emphasis on cases that have merit. That's all.
I know I hit you like a sledgehammer and you're scrambling to marry your online identity with your everyday talks. You want to be right. I want to too. We can agree that we can't be both right at the same time, right? So we must be persuaded in one direction, right? I try that with facts and rationality, you try that with insults and creative accountability. I will stand corrected when you present a persuasive case that I'm wrong. I hate to be wrong and I damn sure try to think of every tangential argument and every position one can take before I weigh in. But I am human and therefore infallible, so if you got it, I will redeem. What the fuck along these lines have you shown???
Oh, yeah, you "hit a nerve." As though I haven't seen the exact same shit from any number of witless glibertarian racist yahoos. What is this "racial hatred" I'm supposed to feel for you, exactly? And what's my "cause"? True, I have a deep disdain for people who use multiple punctuation marks for no apparent reason, but I don't think you knew that.
I love that your vague answer here doesn't explicitly state your actual position, which is racial superiority. Just come right out and say it, chuckles. You think your breed rules the planet based on merit, not by historical chance. You're funny.
Another problem presents itself here, one cannot talk frankly and honestly about race relations without being called a racist. Unless you're black. Lazarus and Rockwell couldn't wait to hurl that pejorative at me. Cove questions my knowledge. Stacks, the most intelligent poster here, wisely says he can't call me a racist because he doesn't know me. All I want to contribute to the discussion is rationality and honesty. One cannot, it seems to me, possibly be both racist and intelligent. The two cannot cohabit the same mind. They are fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive. For the very simple reason that no human chooses their parents. And therefore their race and upbringing. Through a lottery of birth I'm a white guy, I could've been black or Asian,etc. So it makes no sense to be discriminatory or hateful or prejudice against others who also had no choice or say in their parents. This seems so obvious to myself and others that I can't believe I had to type it out for people like Lazarus and Rockwell.
It amuses me that you think you can discern relative intelligence by what someone writes here but that you also think I'm precluded from seeing you as a racist on that same basis. I think you're a racist because you quack like a racist duck. Do I really need to expand on that to explain what it means? Because obviously I could do that all day and you'd still think you're not a racist. Big whoop for you.
Even in the short passage I quoted you reveal the silliness of the racist mind. No, you could not have "been black or Asian." How would that have worked, exactly? And this bullshit about racism and intelligence being incompatible is equally ludicrous and ahistorical. I can't believe I'm bothering to type that out for a person like you. I don't know if you're as racist as Bobby Fischer and James Watson, but I'm close to certain you don't come close to them in terms of intelligence.
Oh it seems I have hit a nerve, go on please Lazarus, the best entertainment is free entertainment. Please insult me In the most base manner you can contrive. Don't challenge me on facts. I know you love yourself and your family, but here's your problem, I love you too, I want to help you in anyway possible but you must quit from the smear campaign and you must cease to resist rationality and insist on debating the merits of ideas.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but what you're advocating for is willfull denial. I'm sorry I know you're in a bad position and I empathize with your cause but all I'm saying is depart from this case, this is the worst case for many reasons to rest your racial hatred on. Wait it out. Place your emphasis on cases that have merit. That's all.
I know I hit you like a sledgehammer and you're scrambling to marry your online identity with your everyday talks. You want to be right. I want to too. We can agree that we can't be both right at the same time, right? So we must be persuaded in one direction, right? I try that with facts and rationality, you try that with insults and creative accountability. I will stand corrected when you present a persuasive case that I'm wrong. I hate to be wrong and I damn sure try to think of every tangential argument and every position one can take before I weigh in. But I am human and therefore infallible, so if you got it, I will redeem. What the fuck along these lines have you shown???
Oh, yeah, you "hit a nerve." As though I haven't seen the exact same shit from any number of witless glibertarian racist yahoos. What is this "racial hatred" I'm supposed to feel for you, exactly? And what's my "cause"? True, I have a deep disdain for people who use multiple punctuation marks for no apparent reason, but I don't think you knew that.
I love that your vague answer here doesn't explicitly state your actual position, which is racial superiority. Just come right out and say it, chuckles. You think your breed rules the planet based on merit, not by historical chance. You're funny.
Oh I stand corrected. Sorry for my outburst. Please go on Lazarus, you're making sense, I'm due for a purge. Not being facetious, please tell me how I'm wrong, I want to cleanse myself and head towards the light. As a white man with the customary white privilege, where is my mansion? I barely made rent this month. Where can I apply to, and in a, double move, get a job, and prevent someone else from gaining employment?
Lazarus says I'm white and racist and therefore privileged. So where are all my benefits? I'm waiting .....
Please come on, I'm liberal and progressive, and open-minded, I'm ashamed of my white heritage. Still waiting.....
Well if I'm being accused of being a racist, can't I at least enjoy the fruits of my condition? Still waiting......
Oh I get it, because I'm white, I'm carte Blanche, do whatever.
Though, seriously I barely made rent this month. I'm white. Though wrong, fuck it, where is my privilege???? Where do I collect it? How do I qualify for section 8 housing? SERIOUSLY, I live paycheck to paycheck, I know it's wrong, but if you guys are right, where the hell is my check???
As a white man with the customary white privilege, where is my mansion? I barely made rent this month. Where can I apply to, and in a, double move, get a job, and prevent someone else from gaining employment?
Lazarus says I'm white and racist and therefore privileged. So where are all my benefits? I'm waiting .....
Please come on, I'm liberal and progressive, and open-minded, I'm ashamed of my white heritage. Still waiting.....
Well if I'm being accused of being a racist, can't I at least enjoy the fruits of my condition? Still waiting......
Oh I get it, because I'm white, I'm carte Blanche, do whatever.
Though, seriously I barely made rent this month. I'm white. Though wrong, fuck it, where is my privilege???? Where do I collect it? How do I qualify for section 8 housing? SERIOUSLY, I live paycheck to paycheck, I know it's wrong, but if you guys are right, where the hell is my check???
Oh, gawd, I'm sorry. I thought you were another Ayn Rand-worshiping glibertarian with an overweaning sense of entitlement. I didn't know you were actually ah loser who blames his lack of accomplishment on affirmative action. Hell, the Nazi Party was built with people like you blaming their inability to make it on the dreaded Juden.
The most progressive thing about you is your historical amnesia. It's getting worse. Know what I'm saying there, Heinrich?
And I never said you were privileged. There is no shortage of broke ass racist morons.
As a white man with the customary white privilege, where is my mansion? I barely made rent this month. Where can I apply to, and in a, double move, get a job, and prevent someone else from gaining employment?
Lazarus says I'm white and racist and therefore privileged. So where are all my benefits? I'm waiting .....
Please come on, I'm liberal and progressive, and open-minded, I'm ashamed of my white heritage. Still waiting.....
Well if I'm being accused of being a racist, can't I at least enjoy the fruits of my condition? Still waiting......
Oh I get it, because I'm white, I'm carte Blanche, do whatever.
Though, seriously I barely made rent this month. I'm white. Though wrong, fuck it, where is my privilege???? Where do I collect it? How do I qualify for section 8 housing? SERIOUSLY, I live paycheck to paycheck, I know it's wrong, but if you guys are right, where the hell is my check???
Oh, gawd, I'm sorry. I thought you were another Ayn Rand-worshiping glibertarian with an overweaning sense of entitlement. I didn't know you were actually ah loser who blames his lack of accomplishment on affirmative action. Hell, the Nazi Party was built with people like you blaming their inability to make it on the dreaded Juden.
The most progressive thing about you is your historical amnesia. It's getting worse. Know what I'm saying there, Heinrich?
Soul Zilla said:
Wow, impressive. The depths to which you sink are boundless. I am really impressed by your shameless and super-glib handle on history. So the party begins - to assign some thought to you right now will rob the people that I'm trying to entertain.
And I'm actually short on how to rebut someone who has no discernible and defensible position. This is the problem. Few people worth having dialogue, many extras who can't keep their mouth shut.
But I like you Lazarus, you're firmly entrenched in your own bigotry, and unwilling to move past it. I strangely and nonsensically admire people who cling to their individual values despite evidence. It's as you would say, amusing. And rightfully comedy.
But you're my pet project. If I could enlighten you somehow, I'll try. Thought experiments, etc. but you're hardcore, I can tell by your writing. So rational arguments won't suffice. I got to go deeper and hit you with contradictions. I have to painstakingly walk you through history and hold your hand for you to glimpse the truth. But I've decided I won't. It's too much work. And you're not open minded. You're an enemy of reason. And I really INTENSELY regret the pull to engage in dialogue with you. I will address that in another
To the soulstrut community, I'm sorry, in a moment of disregard, I let my guard down and engaged with an obvious imbecile, I let him try to get the better of me, I willfully challenged and refuted him. I did not however choose to delete the post. I'm for full disclosure. I was off and drinking heavily and you got the above exchange. Though I said nothing I didn't mean, I did have to stoop to a lower level to address Lazarus. I regret falling into this trap. I party like we all do, occasionally, and I guess it shows.
Apologies if I offended anyone, and I hope that the people that actively think we can come together and right this ship are not discouraged. The turmoil that Lazarus upholds is in many ways the sole impediment to progress that stands in the way; and the irony is his complete ignorance of this fact.
zilla - i don't think of privilege working by automatically bettering the lives of the privileged. nothing in life is that deterministic. while privilege can shift the the bell curve of outcomes like socioeconomic position for certain groups relative to others, there are still other factors like your own agency, your various social identities (e.g., Rockadelic, this is why you as a persecuted biker makes sense alongside the privilege you have as a white guy), and who your parents were/what your social community was/is like.
this is really long. i apologize. i've been wanting to contribute something in depth for a while to this but been too busy. and dickwidth was flaming waaaaay too much. i get embarrassed for people like that... it's like watching Paul in the Wonder Years - eeeeeee! stacks is just dropping knowledge though, and i think we should all become more transparent about what we think and why we think it if we're going to have a discussion that is not troll worthy.
but totally: tl; dr. you don't need to read it - i just needed to say it.
resources are very important for all of our lives but we're not all equally blessed at birth, so to speak. and neither were our parents and neighbours.
this paper is a headtrip to get your head around, but it's a very interesting way to account for the complexity of our "resource environment". the abstract is a bit pretentious, but pm me if you want a copy of this to read as it's not open access.
a simple example is that if a new health club opened up in the neighbourhood, it doesn't automatically promote more physical activity for everyone in the hood. people who can't afford to pay for a gym membership can't meet the rule of "price", so unless there's a public subsidy for that sort of thing (the rule of "rights"), that particular type of resource will only benefit richer people.
there are other (free) ways of getting access to a "physical activity friendly environment, but many of them require safe and unpolluted outdoor environments and commerically dense land use. and inner city neighbourhoods have a lot of traffic density and factories (pollution, noise, accidents) and crime/social disorder (stress, exposure to violence) and disinvestment. so in low income inner city areas (many of which are racialized) there are many reasons why children don't have the same opportunities to be as physically active and unstressed as other children.
and you could apply this framework to consider resources (and hazards IMO) relevant to any social or health outcome.
poverty is absolutely inter-generational, and it's not just because of "bad" parenting. the field of epigenetics has radically changed our understanding of how our social environments "get under our skin" to change genetic expression across our lives. the first five years of life are particularly sensitive for how we develop through childhood and adulthood/death, and that includes the time in your mother's tum-tum. what she experiences in terms of pollution and stress alone and can change whether or not you're at higher risk for asthma and a host of other chronic diseases and early death/disability. here's just one of so many examples of why our social environments affects our ability to thrive unequally, in spite of our agency to work those bootstraps.
none of this should be interpreted as being overly deterministic. you can still have American-Brand Freedom and we don't need to regulate whether large soft drinks are available or not. and we can still expect people to ackrite by having a truly fair-in-principle and currently just criminal justice system.
besides, what is bad parenting? certainly there is the expectation of responsible decision making - or, acking rite. but it also reflects not having equal time to attend to your family when you're working harder and longer to make ends meet (that shit is real for anyone living in poverty, not just racialized communities).
so yeah, personal responsibility is important to expect out of people/parents, but if certain communities get shafted in terms of the their socio-economic status and related social and physical environments, try not to blame the children of those communities when you make policies that profess to be "fair" and "just". likewise, if your economic policies concerning social entitlements are mimimal, then you're not helping parents either.
AND those family policies had better be inclusive of different types of families. you need to have policies that both support economic growth, but also strong policies that support employability for everyone. arguably, the best investments we can make are in focusing on early childhood development.
in terms of those differences we see between racial and other marginalized communities (e.g., poor people, people of different gender identities and sexual orientations in many parts of the world, belle and sebastian fans) in health and social outcomes, they are not because people of these communities are inherently unhealthier/more violent/less responsible and need to pull themselves up from the bootstraps goddamit. they need justice and social support to empower them to become healthier and well-er communities of people over a period of generations.
if we're going to compare plights, then nowhere is this injustice currently more prevalent around the globe than in the situation of indigenous people and their colonizers. but i think part of the reason that african americans bear a special burden of social disadvantage is because of the history of the U.S. as being built on the treatment of black people as slaves and then disenfranchisement until very recent generations. passage of civil rights laws do not alone ensure equal outcomes after centuries of salvery and apartheid. and so they absolutely experience much more violence and discrimination than others (including in terms of policing). and as an apparatus of the state, the police have to be warriors of justice (U-S-A, U-S-A) or else they're just plain warriors (yikes!).
sorry if this sounds like liberal hippie bullshit. i'm not a liberal hippie. hate is a strong word, and i reserve it for hippies and motherfuckers. and most social democratic/liberal political parties these days are largely uninterested in advocating for what's just and fair (unless it benefits them in a policy window) - they seem to mostly care about promoting economic growth before spending on health promotion and social development ("economic justice") on many important issues. like, in the case of Bloomberg's soda ban, it wasn't going to apply to Big Gulp because, well, 7-11 must have lobbied his ass hard like a sybian.
also recently, after the last recession, most of our governments went for austerity rather than welfare provision to cope with the economic downturn and joblessness. and it has sucked the bag for the working class and for societies overall.
it's my belief that the less we judge people in terms of personal responsibility in our social and economic policies, the fairer the system is and the better our societies will be. if you're willing to absolve poor kids of the responsibility for being poor and spend generously on raising healthy and well children across the board, then you would likely save money in means-tested welfare spending and have a more productive economy. and even if it's not a total cost savings, it's a fair/just investment of tax dollars.
Uh, really? I'm sorry to hear about your drinking problem, chuckles, but I can't say I'm surprised. Lots of intelligent racists are drunks. It's a good way for them to mute the sad fact that they are what they are. Darren Wilson blamed a demon for making him commit murder. You blame the demon rum for making you say stupid things on a message board. I suppose your impotent sort of stupidity is easier on our society than his.
Uh, really?'m sorry to hear about your drinking problem, chuckles, but I can't say I'm surprised. Lots of intelligent racists are drunks. It's a good way for them to mute the sad fact that they are what they are. Darren Wilson blamed a demon for making him commit murder. You blame the demon rum for making you say stupid things on a message board. I suppose your impotent sort of stupidity is easier on our society than his.
Uh, really?'m sorry to hear about your drinking problem, chuckles, but I can't say I'm surprised. Lots of intelligent racists are drunks. It's a good way for them to mute the sad fact that they are what they are. Darren Wilson blamed a demon for making him commit murder. You blame the demon rum for making you say stupid things on a message board. I suppose your impotent sort of stupidity is easier on our society than his.
But there are so many of you. So I'm not sure.
I
You're right! Please carry on, I need this!
You wouldn't know what to do with it. Please continue to feel sorry for yourself. It's what you do best.
Lazarus_Oblong is a man who should be on your short list of go-to intellectuals. He states positions. He ridicules antagonists. He provides dogma! He's a wish- thinker! Dum-dum-dummmmm ( dramatic music). When in doubt, Lazarus is your man to dictate. Trust in him, he's right because he's not
zilla - i don't think of privilege working by automatically bettering the lives of the privileged. nothing in life is that deterministic. while privilege can shift the the bell curve of outcomes like socioeconomic position for certain groups relative to others, there are still other factors like your own agency, your various social identities (e.g., Rockadelic, this is why you as a persecuted biker makes sense alongside the privilege you have as a white guy), and who your parents were/what your social community was/is like.
this is really long. i apologize. i've been wanting to contribute something in depth for a while to this but been too busy. and dickwidth was flaming waaaaay too much. i get embarrassed for people like that... it's like watching Paul in the Wonder Years - eeeeeee! stacks is just dropping knowledge though, and i think we should all become more transparent about what we think and why we think it if we're going to have a discussion that is not troll worthy.
but totally: tl; dr. you don't need to read it - i just needed to say it.
resources are very important for all of our lives but we're not all equally blessed at birth, so to speak. and neither were our parents and neighbours.
this paper is a headtrip to get your head around, but it's a very interesting way to account for the complexity of our "resource environment". the abstract is a bit pretentious, but pm me if you want a copy of this to read as it's not open access.
a simple example is that if a new health club opened up in the neighbourhood, it doesn't automatically promote more physical activity for everyone in the hood. people who can't afford to pay for a gym membership can't meet the rule of "price", so unless there's a public subsidy for that sort of thing (the rule of "rights"), that particular type of resource will only benefit richer people.
there are other (free) ways of getting access to a "physical activity friendly environment, but many of them require safe and unpolluted outdoor environments and commerically dense land use. and inner city neighbourhoods have a lot of traffic density and factories (pollution, noise, accidents) and crime/social disorder (stress, exposure to violence) and disinvestment. so in low income inner city areas (many of which are racialized) there are many reasons why children don't have the same opportunities to be as physically active and unstressed as other children.
and you could apply this framework to consider resources (and hazards IMO) relevant to any social or health outcome.
poverty is absolutely inter-generational, and it's not just because of "bad" parenting. the field of epigenetics has radically changed our understanding of how our social environments "get under our skin" to change genetic expression across our lives. the first five years of life are particularly sensitive for how we develop through childhood and adulthood/death, and that includes the time in your mother's tum-tum. what she experiences in terms of pollution and stress alone and can change whether or not you're at higher risk for asthma and a host of other chronic diseases and early death/disability. here's just one of so many examples of why our social environments affects our ability to thrive unequally, in spite of our agency to work those bootstraps.
none of this should be interpreted as being overly deterministic. you can still have American-Brand Freedom and we don't need to regulate whether large soft drinks are available or not. and we can still expect people to ackrite by having a truly fair-in-principle and currently just criminal justice system.
besides, what is bad parenting? certainly there is the expectation of responsible decision making - or, acking rite. but it also reflects not having equal time to attend to your family when you're working harder and longer to make ends meet (that shit is real for anyone living in poverty, not just racialized communities).
so yeah, personal responsibility is important to expect out of people/parents, but if certain communities get shafted in terms of the their socio-economic status and related social and physical environments, try not to blame the children of those communities when you make policies that profess to be "fair" and "just". likewise, if your economic policies concerning social entitlements are mimimal, then you're not helping parents either.
AND those family policies had better be inclusive of different types of families. you need to have policies that both support economic growth, but also strong policies that support employability for everyone. arguably, the best investments we can make are in focusing on early childhood development.
in terms of those differences we see between racial and other marginalized communities (e.g., poor people, people of different gender identities and sexual orientations in many parts of the world, belle and sebastian fans) in health and social outcomes, they are not because people of these communities are inherently unhealthier/more violent/less responsible and need to pull themselves up from the bootstraps goddamit. they need justice and social support to empower them to become healthier and well-er communities of people over a period of generations.
if we're going to compare plights, then nowhere is this injustice currently more prevalent around the globe than in the situation of indigenous people and their colonizers. but i think part of the reason that african americans bear a special burden of social disadvantage is because of the history of the U.S. as being built on the treatment of black people as slaves and then disenfranchisement until very recent generations. passage of civil rights laws do not alone ensure equal outcomes after centuries of salvery and apartheid. and so they absolutely experience much more violence and discrimination than others (including in terms of policing). and as an apparatus of the state, the police have to be warriors of justice (U-S-A, U-S-A) or else they're just plain warriors (yikes!).
sorry if this sounds like liberal hippie bullshit. i'm not a liberal hippie. hate is a strong word, and i reserve it for hippies and motherfuckers. and most social democratic/liberal political parties these days are largely uninterested in advocating for what's just and fair (unless it benefits them in a policy window) - they seem to mostly care about promoting economic growth before spending on health promotion and social development ("economic justice") on many important issues. like, in the case of Bloomberg's soda ban, it wasn't going to apply to Big Gulp because, well, 7-11 must have lobbied his ass hard like a sybian.
also recently, after the last recession, most of our governments went for austerity rather than welfare provision to cope with the economic downturn and joblessness. and it has sucked the bag for the working class and for societies overall.
it's my belief that the less we judge people in terms of personal responsibility in our social and economic policies, the fairer the system is and the better our societies will be. if you're willing to absolve poor kids of the responsibility for being poor and spend generously on raising healthy and well children across the board, then you would likely save money in means-tested welfare spending and have a more productive economy. and even if it's not a total cost savings, it's a fair/just investment of tax dollars.
sorry for getting all preachy.
I think you have a point, I just can't find it. I like to smoke weed too. But don't do it before you post a long article.
Lazarus_Oblong is a man who should be on your short list of go-to intellectuals. He states positions. He ridicules antagonists. He provides dogma! He's a wish- thinker! Dum-dum-dummmmm ( dramatic music). When in doubt, Lazarus is your man to dictate. Trust in him, he's right because he's not
I ridicule stupid antagonists. I've never found a better use for them. My idea of "wish-thinker" would be people who think it is somehow possible to convince untold millions of people to behave exactly the same way the "wish-thinker" wants them to. I've never been that stupid. Zilla is, and he's proud of it.
Now keep on whining about your subsistence existence, Zilla, while beating that supremacist drum. It's kind of cute in a pathetic sort of way. Festivus is coming and you can get all of your grievances off of your hairless, neurasthenic chest.
Lazarus_oblong really schooled me guys. Steer clear of his rants, pure cold steel. I stand before you, reformed, ashamed. Where do I go from here? My opinions are wrong, I'm useless, I can barely form a sentence. How does one pick them selves up and move on in the face of intellectual supremacy? This man so thoroughly debunked and destroyed the intellect that I cultivated for a lifetime. I'm done. I'm sorry for my posts, please all that I ask is that you honor the memory of my posts-not their actual content, just the thought behind them. I hit a low today that I don't think can be equaled. Faced with the stringent and cold and true argument Lazarus counters with, I'm left shaking and without grounds. Please I beg (where's Cove?), please release me from this intellectual bondage. Lazarus made weak statements, but nonetheless symbolically powerful. He doesn't take shit, and the white man is clearly a burden to him. Why should I go on? Laz was my rock, but when I reached out he abadoned me. So here I sit, disenfranchised and angry. But hopeful.
Who will fight for my name? Who's got my back in this?
sorry if this sounds like liberal hippie bullshit. i'm not a liberal hippie. hate is a strong word, and i reserve it for hippies and motherfuckers. and most social democratic/liberal political parties these days are largely uninterested in advocating for what's just and fair (unless it benefits them in a policy window) - they seem to mostly care about promoting economic growth before spending on health promotion and social development ("economic justice") on many important issues. like, in the case of Bloomberg's soda ban, it wasn't going to apply to Big Gulp because, well, 7-11 must have lobbied his ass hard like a sybian.
also recently, after the last recession, most of our governments went for austerity rather than welfare provision to cope with the economic downturn and joblessness. and it has sucked the bag for the working class and for societies overall.
it's my belief that the less we judge people in terms of personal responsibility in our social and economic policies, the fairer the system is and the better our societies will be. if you're willing to absolve poor kids of the responsibility for being poor and spend generously on raising healthy and well children across the board, then you would likely save money in means-tested welfare spending and have a more productive economy. and even if it's not a total cost savings, it's a fair/just investment of tax dollars.
sorry for getting all preachy.
Never apologize for being right.
b/w
That image of Bloomberg and the sybian is a keeper.
Comments
The matter of personal accountability is a given. This is a necessary part of a civil, free society; however, such accountability SHOULD apply to both citizens and the keepers of society's institutions. Unfortunately, sometimes, we place more of the onus on the citizens than on those in positions of power. I think the balance of responsibility should be higher among those who hold power and authority. This is why doctors, military personnel, police officers, political officials, and priests, for example, take oaths. Even care professionals have ethical guidelines and citizenship requirements that they must follow to gain licensure. So, I don't endorse absolving police personnel, judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, therapists, priests, politicians, etc. of their ethical and moral responsibilities to the people they serve. "To whom much is given, much is required."
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Stacks,
My post was not aimed at the Brown shooting but at the overall "playing field" issue. Personal accountability in living your life and raising children is definitely different than accountability of a profession. One is desired, one is mandatory. I apologize for the confusion.
Rich
Hey Rock,
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Still, I feel resources are a big part of the 'playing field' equation. A lot of poor folks just weren't provided the resources you described in your earlier post. Sadly, far too many teen and/or single parents predominate in poor communities. So, that's like the blind leading the blind, and the cycle of poverty continues to spin.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
The statistics are overwhelming people born in poverty are most likely to stay improvised.
Those born to (relative) wealth are more likely to remain above poverty.
Bad parenting is a major problem in many impoverished households.
But parenting, bootstraps and personal responsibility are not enough to raise a person out of poverty.
Here is a good store about a good parent taking personal responsibility pulling on those bootstraps and getting nowhere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/business/in-fast-food-workers-fight-for-15-an-hour-a-strong-voice-in-terrance-wise.html?_r=0
It amuses me that you think you can discern relative intelligence by what someone writes here but that you also think I'm precluded from seeing you as a racist on that same basis. I think you're a racist because you quack like a racist duck. Do I really need to expand on that to explain what it means? Because obviously I could do that all day and you'd still think you're not a racist. Big whoop for you.
Even in the short passage I quoted you reveal the silliness of the racist mind. No, you could not have "been black or Asian." How would that have worked, exactly? And this bullshit about racism and intelligence being incompatible is equally ludicrous and ahistorical. I can't believe I'm bothering to type that out for a person like you. I don't know if you're as racist as Bobby Fischer and James Watson, but I'm close to certain you don't come close to them in terms of intelligence.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but what you're advocating for is willfull denial. I'm sorry I know you're in a bad position and I empathize with your cause but all I'm saying is depart from this case, this is the worst case for many reasons to rest your racial hatred on. Wait it out. Place your emphasis on cases that have merit. That's all.
I know I hit you like a sledgehammer and you're scrambling to marry your online identity with your everyday talks. You want to be right. I want to too. We can agree that we can't be both right at the same time, right? So we must be persuaded in one direction, right? I try that with facts and rationality, you try that with insults and creative accountability. I will stand corrected when you present a persuasive case that I'm wrong. I hate to be wrong and I damn sure try to think of every tangential argument and every position one can take before I weigh in. But I am human and therefore infallible, so if you got it, I will redeem. What the fuck along these lines have you shown???
So society is never at fault? That's an interesting theory. But my intellect informs me that if 100 poor kids of equal ability who were bestowed with super values grow up in a place where education is substandard and health care is rotten and sporadic that they will lag far behind 100 poor kids who grow up in a place where education is excellent and health care is splendid and easy to access. I know, I know, I'm just a crazy Eastern elitist libturd who is thankful as hell that I didn't grow up in one of the former locales.
You get accused of bootstrapping because no matter what anyone says you refuse to acknowledge the importance of growing up in a more enlightened locale. You yourself didn't grow up in North Carolina, and that probably mattered even if you won't admit it. I've also seen you play the "I went to the local community college" bit without mentioning that it was CCNY in the 70s, when it was still a great school where you could get an almost-completely subsidized education. Next you'll be calling Central Park "the local playground."
So when you're accused of bootstraps why deny it? If there's anything in your approach that adds up to anything else, what is it?
1. He authored it.
2.
OK check back later.
:comedy_gold:
Oh, yeah, you "hit a nerve." As though I haven't seen the exact same shit from any number of witless glibertarian racist yahoos. What is this "racial hatred" I'm supposed to feel for you, exactly? And what's my "cause"? True, I have a deep disdain for people who use multiple punctuation marks for no apparent reason, but I don't think you knew that.
I love that your vague answer here doesn't explicitly state your actual position, which is racial superiority. Just come right out and say it, chuckles. You think your breed rules the planet based on merit, not by historical chance. You're funny.
Your highest aspiration is bronze, Chinz. Don't quit your night job.
Oh I stand corrected. Sorry for my outburst. Please go on Lazarus, you're making sense, I'm due for a purge. Not being facetious, please tell me how I'm wrong, I want to cleanse myself and head towards the light. As a white man with the customary white privilege, where is my mansion? I barely made rent this month. Where can I apply to, and in a, double move, get a job, and prevent someone else from gaining employment?
Lazarus says I'm white and racist and therefore privileged. So where are all my benefits? I'm waiting .....
Please come on, I'm liberal and progressive, and open-minded, I'm ashamed of my white heritage. Still waiting.....
Well if I'm being accused of being a racist, can't I at least enjoy the fruits of my condition? Still waiting......
Oh I get it, because I'm white, I'm carte Blanche, do whatever.
Though, seriously I barely made rent this month. I'm white. Though wrong, fuck it, where is my privilege???? Where do I collect it? How do I qualify for section 8 housing? SERIOUSLY, I live paycheck to paycheck, I know it's wrong, but if you guys are right, where the hell is my check???
Oh, gawd, I'm sorry. I thought you were another Ayn Rand-worshiping glibertarian with an overweaning sense of entitlement. I didn't know you were actually ah loser who blames his lack of accomplishment on affirmative action. Hell, the Nazi Party was built with people like you blaming their inability to make it on the dreaded Juden.
The most progressive thing about you is your historical amnesia. It's getting worse. Know what I'm saying there, Heinrich?
And I never said you were privileged. There is no shortage of broke ass racist morons.
Apologies if I offended anyone, and I hope that the people that actively think we can come together and right this ship are not discouraged. The turmoil that Lazarus upholds is in many ways the sole impediment to progress that stands in the way; and the irony is his complete ignorance of this fact.
this is really long. i apologize. i've been wanting to contribute something in depth for a while to this but been too busy. and dickwidth was flaming waaaaay too much. i get embarrassed for people like that... it's like watching Paul in the Wonder Years - eeeeeee! stacks is just dropping knowledge though, and i think we should all become more transparent about what we think and why we think it if we're going to have a discussion that is not troll worthy.
but totally: tl; dr. you don't need to read it - i just needed to say it.
resources are very important for all of our lives but we're not all equally blessed at birth, so to speak. and neither were our parents and neighbours.
https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/dea150/files/2013 files/env of childhood poverty.pdf
this paper is a headtrip to get your head around, but it's a very interesting way to account for the complexity of our "resource environment". the abstract is a bit pretentious, but pm me if you want a copy of this to read as it's not open access.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953607003085
a simple example is that if a new health club opened up in the neighbourhood, it doesn't automatically promote more physical activity for everyone in the hood. people who can't afford to pay for a gym membership can't meet the rule of "price", so unless there's a public subsidy for that sort of thing (the rule of "rights"), that particular type of resource will only benefit richer people.
there are other (free) ways of getting access to a "physical activity friendly environment, but many of them require safe and unpolluted outdoor environments and commerically dense land use. and inner city neighbourhoods have a lot of traffic density and factories (pollution, noise, accidents) and crime/social disorder (stress, exposure to violence) and disinvestment. so in low income inner city areas (many of which are racialized) there are many reasons why children don't have the same opportunities to be as physically active and unstressed as other children.
and you could apply this framework to consider resources (and hazards IMO) relevant to any social or health outcome.
poverty is absolutely inter-generational, and it's not just because of "bad" parenting. the field of epigenetics has radically changed our understanding of how our social environments "get under our skin" to change genetic expression across our lives. the first five years of life are particularly sensitive for how we develop through childhood and adulthood/death, and that includes the time in your mother's tum-tum. what she experiences in terms of pollution and stress alone and can change whether or not you're at higher risk for asthma and a host of other chronic diseases and early death/disability. here's just one of so many examples of why our social environments affects our ability to thrive unequally, in spite of our agency to work those bootstraps.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23328528
and the impacts of our early childhood environment can cause epigenetic changes that affect not only health but also social development.
http://www.centrelearoback.org/inrich/assets/documents/INRICH-PUBCH-EvansKim_ChildhoodPoverty.pdf
none of this should be interpreted as being overly deterministic. you can still have American-Brand Freedom and we don't need to regulate whether large soft drinks are available or not. and we can still expect people to ackrite by having a truly fair-in-principle and currently just criminal justice system.
besides, what is bad parenting? certainly there is the expectation of responsible decision making - or, acking rite. but it also reflects not having equal time to attend to your family when you're working harder and longer to make ends meet (that shit is real for anyone living in poverty, not just racialized communities).
so yeah, personal responsibility is important to expect out of people/parents, but if certain communities get shafted in terms of the their socio-economic status and related social and physical environments, try not to blame the children of those communities when you make policies that profess to be "fair" and "just". likewise, if your economic policies concerning social entitlements are mimimal, then you're not helping parents either.
AND those family policies had better be inclusive of different types of families. you need to have policies that both support economic growth, but also strong policies that support employability for everyone. arguably, the best investments we can make are in focusing on early childhood development.
in terms of those differences we see between racial and other marginalized communities (e.g., poor people, people of different gender identities and sexual orientations in many parts of the world, belle and sebastian fans) in health and social outcomes, they are not because people of these communities are inherently unhealthier/more violent/less responsible and need to pull themselves up from the bootstraps goddamit. they need justice and social support to empower them to become healthier and well-er communities of people over a period of generations.
if we're going to compare plights, then nowhere is this injustice currently more prevalent around the globe than in the situation of indigenous people and their colonizers. but i think part of the reason that african americans bear a special burden of social disadvantage is because of the history of the U.S. as being built on the treatment of black people as slaves and then disenfranchisement until very recent generations. passage of civil rights laws do not alone ensure equal outcomes after centuries of salvery and apartheid. and so they absolutely experience much more violence and discrimination than others (including in terms of policing). and as an apparatus of the state, the police have to be warriors of justice (U-S-A, U-S-A) or else they're just plain warriors (yikes!).
sorry if this sounds like liberal hippie bullshit. i'm not a liberal hippie. hate is a strong word, and i reserve it for hippies and motherfuckers. and most social democratic/liberal political parties these days are largely uninterested in advocating for what's just and fair (unless it benefits them in a policy window) - they seem to mostly care about promoting economic growth before spending on health promotion and social development ("economic justice") on many important issues. like, in the case of Bloomberg's soda ban, it wasn't going to apply to Big Gulp because, well, 7-11 must have lobbied his ass hard like a sybian.
also recently, after the last recession, most of our governments went for austerity rather than welfare provision to cope with the economic downturn and joblessness. and it has sucked the bag for the working class and for societies overall.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2014/07/austerity-bites-when-cure-just-aggravates-disease
it's my belief that the less we judge people in terms of personal responsibility in our social and economic policies, the fairer the system is and the better our societies will be. if you're willing to absolve poor kids of the responsibility for being poor and spend generously on raising healthy and well children across the board, then you would likely save money in means-tested welfare spending and have a more productive economy. and even if it's not a total cost savings, it's a fair/just investment of tax dollars.
sorry for getting all preachy.
But there are so many of you. So I'm not sure.
You wouldn't know what to do with it. Please continue to feel sorry for yourself. It's what you do best.
I think you have a point, I just can't find it. I like to smoke weed too. But don't do it before you post a long article.
I ridicule stupid antagonists. I've never found a better use for them. My idea of "wish-thinker" would be people who think it is somehow possible to convince untold millions of people to behave exactly the same way the "wish-thinker" wants them to. I've never been that stupid. Zilla is, and he's proud of it.
Now keep on whining about your subsistence existence, Zilla, while beating that supremacist drum. It's kind of cute in a pathetic sort of way. Festivus is coming and you can get all of your grievances off of your hairless, neurasthenic chest.
Who will fight for my name? Who's got my back in this?
You should see me when I get wasted and post. I get really abusive and make everything super personal. It's awesome.
It's like watching the Patriots play a Pop Warner team in football.
Laz, still waiting for a #2...
raj, banhammer time!
Just have another crap sandwich and go back to bed, crappy. In this thread you're a bigger troll than Dicksplint.
Never apologize for being right.
b/w
That image of Bloomberg and the sybian is a keeper.
I'm as white as they get, Mr. Wizard. Keep those complaints coming.