What has America become?

[1 CAT FAN]

Read here:https://questioningwithboldness.wordpre ... ken-huber/

[cavaliereagle]

Good, for the most part valid points!

[DeCav]

Hmmm.

That letter to the editor looks like a big juicy dbl qtr pounder with cheese to me. A lot of false equivalencies. Too late to respond to it tonight. I’m gonna let it marinate for a bit.

[DeCav]

So as I read the link, certain things just jumped right out at me. I've been reading a lot about debate tactics, straw-man arguments, steel man arguments, truth vs. alternative facts, and false equivalencies. The good thing about this letter is that there is no overt bias or partisanship. I mean, my mama didn't raise a fool. My daddy raised me. But still, I can read between the lines.

Having said that I believe I can compare and contrast certain ideas presented in this letter without myself being guilty of bias or partisanship, but simply speaking what I believe to be a legitimate and worth response to the ideas presented in the letter.

"What has America become?
Editor,

Has America become the land of special interest and home of the double standard?

Lets see: if we lie to the Congress, it’s a felony and if the Congress lies to us its just politics."

False equivalency. Our Constitution guarantees that the lowliest of us has the same individual sovereignty as the most lofty. You can lie all day to a member of congress or even to the entire bicameral legislative body. Even the ex-President says this when he makes his claim of FAKE NEWS and that the free press is the enemy of the people and of democracy. News anchors on Fox, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, ....etc have House and Senate Representatives on their programs all the time and say untruths to them probably many times a day and they are not charged with any felonies. Furthermore, any one of us could approach a member of congress and tell them all sorts of lies and we would be protected by the 1st Amendment.

What you cannot do is lie under penalty of perjury and it doesn't matter whether you're giving sworn testimony in a congressional hearing, to a grand jury, in a federal court, a state court, traffic court, or on certain official documents (think tax returns). You can even perjure yourself at the DMV.

You cannot do this whether you are a homeless man, a police officer, a rich man, a member of congress, or the POTUS (think impeachment of Bill Clinton.) Also lying to defame people, organiziations, businesses....etc puts anyone in peril of a civil suit.

Congress lies to us all the time in the name of politics but they can't lie to us under oath. That is why no one in Congress will agree to give sworn testimony and repeat charges of voter fraud, either in court or in a Congressional hearing. It is also why five dozen court cases charging voter fraud were lost. Lawyers had no evidence to bring to court to prove their case or if they claimed they had evidence, they elected not to submit it under threat of perjury.

So basically, both statements are both true and false but lack proper context. We can lie to Congress and Congress can lie to us. But it's a felonly if either we or Congress lie under oath. You'd think when members of Congress take the oath to the Consitution that that'd keep them from being able to lie to our face. You'd think.

[DeCav]

"if we dislike a black person, we’re racist and if a black person dislikes whites, its their 1st Amendment right"


Kind of an incoherent thought. First of all, I'm not sure disliking anyone even falls under the 1st Amendment. It strikes me in the strictest sense as something Orwell described as a "thought crime". I might dislike my neighbor and at the same time never tell anyone, including him, about my dislike. But that's getting a bit down in the weeds. Just thinking out loud here, btw.

Probably the most disturbing aspect of this sentence just jumped out at me only now. I've read this statement 3 or more times and given it some thought but it wasn't until I pasted it into this post did one of the more subtle notes of the statement occur to me. Read it one more time with an emphasis on certain words...

"If we dislike a black person, we're racist and if a black person dislikes whites it's their 1st Amendment right."

Interesting that the second part of the statement is worded, "dislikes whites" and not "dislikes us".

I mean, who is "we" in this statement? Is it "we" as in...



I don't think that's who the author meant when he said "we".

I think it's not that much of a stretch to reach the conclusion that the whole tone of this statement is basically a veiled complaint of an "us vs. them/black vs. white" perceived grievance. I'm super uncomfortable identifying with this remark (no pun intended). What's really deep here is that I don't think the wording was a clever dog whistle or coded message. It seems completely hypothalamic to me and not even worded that way on a conscious level. There's a lot of baggage that could have been detached from this statement by more carefully re-wording it thus...

"if a white person dislikes a black person, it's racism but if a black person dislikes a white person, it's their 1st Amendment."

For the record, let me reiterate....I completely missed that the first several times I read that statement and I point the finger at myself for that. It seems logical for me to deduce that there might be some latent privilege or form of unconscious group identity deeply embedded within me that just substituted "white people" for the word "we". Very interesting to me. In my estimation, it signals that we (all of us, not just white people as the statement originally implies) have a long way to go before we're free of group and racial identity.

I say group and racial because this "we" pronoun is a tricky little word. Even in the Constitution, it only implies "Americans" and that's only if you're willing to be very generous to the founding fathers. "We" all know what I'm referring to.

In any online group or forum, "we" can literally mean anything. Here it might refer to high school football fans, or Dorman fans, or Gaffney fans depending on what thread the word is used in. In other forums "we" might mean people who voted for Trump or people who voted for Biden, or Libertarians, men, women, trans, BLM members, Proud Boys, people afflicted with cancer, victims of sexual abuse....etc.

Anyway, having pointed that last bit out and offered a correction, I'll share my other thoughts on the statement.

Expressing a dislike for a black person isn't being a racist. If that were the case then anyone who posted negative comments about Victory6 is a racist including some black people who I know for a fact posted negative comments about Victory6. I disliked Ray Carruth, the wideout for the Panthers who was convicted of conspiring to have his pregnant girlfriend murdered. I mention him because when Chuck and I were younger and playing Madden 64 weekly in franchise mode, I insisted on trading Carruth off our fantasy roster on a moral and ethical basis. Chuck resisted because his stats were through the roof on the video game and argued reasonably that it was just only a game but eventually caved and got rid of the dude.

If a white person doesn't like a black person and is vocal about it, guess what? That's their first amendment right. If a black person doesn't a white person and is vocal about it, that's also their 1st Amendment right. If a white person calls a black person the N word, it's protected under the 1st Amendment. If a black person calls a white person a cracker or redneck, or more to the point a racist, that's their 1st Amendment right also. Look it up. Hate speech is protected under freedom of speech. You can dislike anyone you want for any reason that you want and call them just about anything you want. Here's the trick though....the second part of the statement is much more accurate than the first part of the statement. It's everyone's right under free speech to call anyone else a racist. For that reason, I try not to invite reasons for people to call me such a word. The person who wrote this editorial probably understands all this. Heard a good way to look at "rights". Everyone is always talking about their rights. George Carlin has a good piece on this. I try not to think of my rights as rights but as responsibilities. I don't have the right to own a gun. I have the responsibility to own a guy. People can dislike whoever they want. But why complain if people don't like you back?

[DeCav]

"the government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims; in public schools, you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process"

Just asked my 18 year old son if he remembers homosexuality ever being brought up in any class at Dorman. He said, "Not specifically."
Six states in the union actually have laws against it. We're one of them.

"...six states – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas – still have laws prohibiting the "promotion of homosexuality." These laws, also known as "no pro homo" laws, prohibit schools from teaching lesbian, gay or bisexual people or topics in a positive light in health or sexual education classes.

Some states even require teachers to speak about LGBT people in a negative light, according to GLSEN, an education organization fighting for LGBT cultural inclusion and awareness in K-12 schools.

Alabama law, for example, states that when discussing sexual health education, "classes must emphasize, in a factual manner and from a health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state."

The editorial was published in 2010. California became the first state to pass legislation requiring public schools to integrate an LGTB history into their curriculum. Personally, I think laws either pro or anti-gay in schools is a bad idea. I personally think it's crazy to prohibit the discussion of God or religion in schools but yeah, it's probably pretty accurate to say that you better not mention God if you're a teacher in a public school. Actually you can probably mention God but someone is going to bitch about it.

[DeCav]

"you can kill an unborn child, but it is wrong to execute a mass murderer"

You can indeed kill an unborn child. We need to find a solution to abortion that doesn't involve just showing up to a polling station once every 4 years and pulling a lever. People who vote straight-ticket red once every four years are not warriors for the unborn any more than people who vote straight-ticket blue are baby killers.

The death penalty is legal in 28 states. I never thought it made any sense that anyone would support abortion but be against the death penalty.
It is outlawed in the state where the person lives who wrote the letter but any state can take a case to the federal level to seek a death penalty.

In South Carolina the death penalty is legal. 46 people have been executed in South Carolina since 1976.

I'll get blowback for this one but I figure I'll float it anyway....

[DeCav]

"we don’t burn books in America, we now rewrite them"

I have no idea what this comment means. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a book being rewritten in America.

[DeCav]

"we got rid of communist and socialist threats by renaming them progressive"

Kind of a coup on labels if you ask me. I never understood why conservatives just caved and let the left have the word "progressive" especially considering what the antonym of that word is.

I think America got rid of communist and socialist threats by taking down the Soviet Union and instituting a successful campaign against communistic thinking and dogma. Also the Korean war, though seen as a draw by some and even a loss by others kept South Korea from becoming a communist state. Now from space at night you can literally see the border between North and South Korea because there are no city lights in North Korea.

I've met a few people recently that see no threat to America from communism or socialist doctrine. I think as a world power and beacon of light we should be wary of the fringe on either side of the political spectrum.

Had a chat with a pretty far left liberal. He thought Jordan Peterson was a complete whack job and that there was no such thing as the radical left in America. He has a podcast that he does. Pretty liberal content. Me and him struck a few disagreements over politics except that we're both happy Trump is out. He says however that he won't speak to a Trump voter any more.

[cavaliereagle]

So as I read the link, certain things just jumped right out at me. I've been reading a lot about debate tactics, straw-man arguments, steel man arguments, truth vs. alternative facts, and false equivalencies. The good thing about this letter is that there is no overt bias or partisanship. I mean, my mama didn't raise a fool. My daddy raised me. But still, I can read between the lines.

Having said that I believe I can compare and contrast certain ideas presented in this letter without myself being guilty of bias or partisanship, but simply speaking what I believe to be a legitimate and worth response to the ideas presented in the letter.

"What has America become?
Editor,

Has America become the land of special interest and home of the double standard?

Lets see: if we lie to the Congress, it’s a felony and if the Congress lies to us its just politics."

False equivalency. Our Constitution guarantees that the lowliest of us has the same individual sovereignty as the most lofty. You can lie all day to a member of congress or even to the entire bicameral legislative body. Even the ex-President says this when he makes his claim of FAKE NEWS and that the free press is the enemy of the people and of democracy. News anchors on Fox, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, ....etc have House and Senate Representatives on their programs all the time and say untruths to them probably many times a day and they are not charged with any felonies. Furthermore, any one of us could approach a member of congress and tell them all sorts of lies and we would be protected by the 1st Amendment.

What you cannot do is lie under penalty of perjury and it doesn't matter whether you're giving sworn testimony in a congressional hearing, to a grand jury, in a federal court, a state court, traffic court, or on certain official documents (think tax returns). You can even perjure yourself at the DMV.

You cannot do this whether you are a homeless man, a police officer, a rich man, a member of congress, or the POTUS (think impeachment of Bill Clinton.) Also lying to defame people, organiziations, businesses....etc puts anyone in peril of a civil suit.

Congress lies to us all the time in the name of politics but they can't lie to us under oath. That is why no one in Congress will agree to give sworn testimony and repeat charges of voter fraud, either in court or in a Congressional hearing. It is also why five dozen court cases charging voter fraud were lost. Lawyers had no evidence to bring to court to prove their case or if they claimed they had evidence, they elected not to submit it under threat of perjury.

So basically, both statements are both true and false but lack proper context. We can lie to Congress and Congress can lie to us. But it's a felonly if either we or Congress lie under oath. You'd think when members of Congress take the oath to the Consitution that that'd keep them from being able to lie to our face. You'd think.

If you go before Congress and lie, you will be charged. They will lie like a rug while you're there. Remember Schiff saying he had proof of Russian collusion? Prime example. I agree with the commentary.