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Ron Paul

  
  

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Claris Dancers
16:46 / 20.06.07
Excellent, I have not mis-represented myself then:

Black people are the authors of their own misfortune? Check!
In recent times, yes. Listen to recent Bill Cosby for an easy example.

White people are being made ashamed to be white? Check!
Look up "white guilt" if you have the stomach.

Angry feminists encourage women to pretend to have been raped to gain power over men? Check!
I don't remember saying this exactly, but consider how often it is in the news. Another easy example, the Duke case.

It is no more legally disadvantageous to be black in America than it is to have a Grateful Dead sticker on one's bumper? Check!
Legally disadvantageous? where did i say that. I said things get fuzzy around unwarranted police stops.

even when you are revealed to be wrong,...

have I been revealed to be wrong? I must have missed it

...your response is to slope off in the hope that eventually everyone will forget about it, if not so quickly as you have driven it from your own memory, since the alternative might be to consider that you might be wrong about other fondly-held bigotries as well.

I have no idea what this is about. Your frothing at the mouth has confused your thoughts i think.


Lets see if i can sum you up as well:
You are a small human being who finds pleasure in belitting others for your own amusement. You have no concept of open-mindedness or fairness of thought. You entirely consist of putting words in people's mouths, unchecked hostility, spewing extreme arrogance, ad hominems, and vitriol. Check!


Can we get back to talking about Ron Paul now? Please?
 
 
Claris Dancers
16:50 / 20.06.07
That's exactly why I like him grant, he just makes sense in the vast majority of his positions.
gold standard
small government
anti-current republicans & neocons
 
 
Spatula Clarke
17:31 / 20.06.07
Can we get back to talking about Ron Paul now? Please?

That's exactly what the two posts immediately before your own were doing. I'm afraid you don't get the right to make that request when the post in which you make it is itself off-topic. Well, you do, obviously, but nobody much will be likely to pay attention to it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:42 / 20.06.07

have I been revealed to be wrong? I must have missed it

Yes, you did, because you ran away with a pillow over your head and smashed yourself in the face until you forgot it. You can now tell yourself that I am making this up to try to get power over you.

Legally disadvantageous? where did i say that. I said things get fuzzy around unwarranted police stops.

I would ask you to lie more ably, but you can't. You said:

The only place I can think of where people are genuinely discriminated against are with cops. There's even a term for it - "driving while black." But that context gets fuzzy again since the same holds true for people with grateful dead and phish stickers on their cars.

So, the only situation in which black people suffer discrimination is with law officers. However, they suffer no more discrimination than people with Grateful Dead bumper stickers. Obviously, you will not be able to support that with anything other than anecdotal citations, any more than you can your claims about black people, about white people "in the ghetto" - and let's face it, the closest you have gotten to "in the ghetto" is owning a Best of Elvis CD, and about rape victims - sorry, women pretending to have ben raped to gain power over men.

Policy for this, I think.
 
 
Char Aina
17:45 / 20.06.07
I'm afraid you don't get the right to make that request when the post in which you make is itself off-topic.

Was haus incorrect when he said making an assertion about your fellow members of Barbelith that requires a response?

I thought his point was valid, and would suggest that if his apology:

Guilty as charged, Anna. I found myself overcome with compassion for poor Qwik, surrounded as he was by ignorant and stupid people - perhaps the same ignorant and stupid people who gave him such misleading information that made his imaginings about marital rape so cretinously wrong in the Feminism thread, leading him to make statements so mortifyingly dumb that he could not even bear to return to the thread to admit what awful poison he had unknowingly spouted, choosing instead to seek the emptiness of wild places and the companionship of birds until such time as his gnawing shame no longer burned within him. I apologise humbly, and will attempt to keep this thread ontopic from now on.

Had not contained the line poor Qwik, surrounded as he was by ignorant and stupid people, he might have got a better response. Same goes for his other choices of expression, for example if you whine like a tiny, tiny child, a phrase I think was either calculated to upset or naively imagined not to.

I don't see haus as naive, but perhaps I misjudge him.

Apologies for my own threadrot.
It was, of course, a response to your own, randy; as has been noted, threadrot is often a tango for two. I recognise that doesn't entirely excuse it, however, and will now leave it alone. If you wish to discuss this further, PMs or a new thread would seem the sensible options. I believe you also have my email address if you prefer.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:48 / 20.06.07
Back on Ron Paul, because we shouldn't dismiss him out of hand just because one very stupid man likes him.

This is the danger of a wholly consistent ideology, isn't it? Ron Paul may be opposed to racism, but ideologically he has to support people's right to, say, exclude black people from their schools or places of business, because the school or place of business is private property - and if it isn't, it damn well should be, since Federal monies should not be used for education. As such, to maintain a wholly consistent ideology he has to support segregation, or more precisely support the right of businesses to segregate. jbsays had just the same attitude - if somebody wants to have a no-blacks country club, they should be free to, as long as they don't mind not being allowed into the no-whites country club. Obviously, this makes some assumptions about land usage that may not be borne out by reality, but this is not about reality but ideology.

Conversely, Ron Paul may not like the gays, but he has to maintain, in order to hold a consistent ideology, that what they do is not something that should be legislated for or against, and therefore that if people are to be allowed to marry, so should they. In those terms, in fact, his description of "don't ask, don't tell" is hypocritical, since he should be happy for gay men and lesbians to be able to disclose their homosexuality just as straight men and women in the army disclose their heterosexuality, but presumably he feels either that this is a libertarian solution to an existing set of rules or that homosexuality if revealed in intrinsically disruptive. As one might if one did not like gays.

This means, pretty much inevitably, that _someone_ is going to agree with something he says or does, since most political ideologies are not wholly consistent, or are at least open to compromise. So, his opposition to the Iraq war, although it comes from a reluctance to involve America in any ongoing Federal activity or to swell the Federal budgets, will find favour with the same people who will join him in opposing the Patriot Act on one side, and the people who will join him in opposing gun control on the other. He will find himself supporting green causes where big oil, say, is receiving government subsidies, but not where government is subsidising green energy.

I'm not sure where the desire for increased funding of VA hospitals comes in here, but then I am not sure how VA hospitals are run or funded. Still, everyone can have these peccadilloes.

Is there something attractive about a consistent ideology? Yes, especially because it will at some point map onto some fondly-held belief of one's own, generally. Ultimately, however, an obstetrician who refers to partial-birth abortion is either a very poor obstetrician or a douche. So, that's a factor.
 
 
Claris Dancers
18:26 / 20.06.07
the only situation in which black people suffer discrimination is with law officers. However, they suffer no more discrimination than people with Grateful Dead bumper stickers.

Yes, you are right about that Small, Petty Haus (that's what i'll call you from now on, it's fitting i think). When I replied i was thinking court of law, and cops are rarely marshals of the law anymore. apologies for that.

and about rape victims - sorry, women pretending to have ben raped to gain power over men.
Policy for this, I think.

Are you stating that women dont cry rape? Im sure it's not the common occurrence, but we both know it happens and sticking fingers in your ears going, "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" like a small, petty child wont make it go away. Screw anecdotes, I gave you a current events example in the news and you ignore it Small, Petty Haus. Go you!



Honestly, that was a damn good summation about Ron Paul, Small, Petty Haus. The only thing i would add is that the other thing attractive about a consistent ideology is that you usually know where one stands on any given issue.
 
 
illmatic
18:36 / 20.06.07
I don't see why Haus is being particularly "small" or "petty" in actually pointing out what you said.

When I replied i was thinking court of law, and cops are rarely marshals of the law anymore.

I don't understand this. And I'm not quite sure that it squares with this:

Black people are the authors of their own misfortune? Check!
In recent times, yes. Listen to recent Bill Cosby for an easy example.

Perhaps you could provide a date for when this happened, Qwik? When roughly, did black people start becoming responsible for prejudice? This self-generated prejudice must presumably be quite different from your bog standard prejudice which black people stopped experiencing - when exactly?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:42 / 20.06.07
Im sure it's not the common occurrence

To quote:

There have been too many women seeking power over men claiming they were raped when they were not. They "believe they need an unfair advantage" as Dworkin would say. Rape is horrible and shouldn't exist, but some women do capitalize on the emotional impact of it for their own gain.

A statistically significant number, it seems. Worth mentioning, certainly.
 
 
*
18:45 / 20.06.07
I think a much bigger problem is men crying pickpocket. It's a conspiracy of capitalists who think that people have a right to go around flaunting their money and then keep it all to themselves. Are you saying this never happens? An easy example: A friend of a friend was in a crowded mall and doing nothing wrong when someone yelled "pickpocket!" and he was assaulted by mall security guards. The problem is clearly epidemic. We should never believe anyone who cries pickpocket unless they are first able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they had something in their pocket before that is not there now, and prove that they didn't dispose of it themselves of their own free will.

Why, when rape is a much more traumatic event than pickpocketing, and statistically less likely to be prosecuted, are you arguing that we should be LESS likely than we already (unfortunately) are to believe someone who says that they have been raped? could it be because you are a member of the subset of people likely to have your wallet stolen, but not a member of the subset of people most likely to be raped, so it is a problem that does not concern you?
 
 
Claris Dancers
18:49 / 20.06.07
I don't see why Haus is being particularly "small" or "petty" in actually pointing out what you said.

Not that specifically, just hows he has been acting throughout the whole thread. I think it's justified.


Perhaps you could provide a date for when this happened, Qwik? When roughly, did black people start becoming responsible for prejudice? This self-generated prejudice must presumably be quite different from your bog standard prejudice which black people stopped experiencing - when exactly?

I never said they were responsible for prejudice. After all, how could someone force someone else to pre-judge them? The example i gave was Bill Cosby:
"Cosby has been critical of what he sees as the African-American community's acceptance of fatherless single parent households, high crime rates, and high illiteracy rates. He encouraged a more proactive effort from African-Americans to reduce those problems. He expanded upon his remarks in San Jose, California during an event to promote the Read-2-Lead Classic."

Apologies for referencing wikipedia so much. I'm sure there's a vid of him speaking on youtube somewhere. The gist of it was take some personal accountability and stop blaming others for your own problems.
 
 
Claris Dancers
18:50 / 20.06.07
A statistically significant number, it seems. Worth mentioning, certainly.

Indeed.
 
 
Claris Dancers
18:59 / 20.06.07
I think a much bigger problem is men crying pickpocket.
Then you have problems that are only backed up by a foolish anecdote.

Why, when rape is a much more traumatic event than pickpocketing, and statistically less likely to be prosecuted, are you arguing that we should be LESS likely than we already (unfortunately) are to believe someone who says that they have been raped? could it be because you are a member of the subset of people likely to have your wallet stolen, but not a member of the subset of people most likely to be raped, so it is a problem that does not concern you?

I'm not particularly worried about pickpockets, now that you bring it up. But yes rape is a problem that concerns me. My wife was raped before I met her, and she did not come forward and press charges or even accuse. I think she was wrong not to do anything to bring it to light, but that's how it went.
And how likely are we exactly? What are the numbers? Could it be possible that we are less likely to believe because of women who falsely accuse? Keep in mind i'm not on the side of the rapists by any stretch of the imagination.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:00 / 20.06.07
Amazing how cosby is the only black person whose opinion is worth listening to, and also, coincidentally, agrees with you. One would almost think you were not listening to... oh.

So, on taking responsibility - so, were you lying when you claimed that women claiming to have been raped was not common, or are you lying now, when you agree that it is clearly common enough for you to feel the need to draw attention to it? I would ask if you can corroborate either position, but that is hardly a worthwhile use of my time, is it?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:45 / 20.06.07
P.S. Please, toksik, take this opportunity to break with the past. Look again at the phrase:

surrounded as he was by ignorant and stupid people

Have a think about where it has been drawn from.
 
 
Claris Dancers
19:59 / 20.06.07
Amazing how cosby is the only black person whose opinion is worth listening to
huh?

but that is hardly a worthwhile use of my time
Well since your time is repeatedly spent on strawmen, assumptions, and ad hominems Small, Petty Haus, I think it comes pretty cheap.

Both positions are true. One is too many in my opinion. Yet it is heard about all the time. Yet my easy example, that has already been covered in the Switchboard to death, falls on deaf ears.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:10 / 20.06.07
It's already been covered in the Switchboard. Alas just wrote something very interesting about it.

So, it is heard about "all the time", is it? So you were in fact telling lies when you claimed to believe that it was not common? That's a good start.
 
 
Claris Dancers
20:16 / 20.06.07
Not at all, but considering the amount of rapists in jail, it's a hell of a lot more common than that. But you keep on keepin on you assuming dingbat.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:18 / 20.06.07
That sentence doesn't make any sense, Claris Dancers. What do you mean by "it" in it's a hell of a lot more common than that?
 
 
Char Aina
20:22 / 20.06.07
Please, toksik, take this opportunity to break with the past.

Further thread rot. Please, talk to me in PM if you have a personal issue you wish to rinse out, and please, call me by my chosen name. The latter would seem appropriate especially if you wish for a break from your perception of my past.
I was not acting from a motive other than an urge to explain to randy why I felt his criticism of threadrot was unfairly one sided.

Have a think about where it has been drawn from.

I am aware of where it came from. I still think it was either naive, etc to think using the phrase (and a couple of others) as you did would be helpful to any cause but sending the poster into a defensive, and likely aggressive, stance. Perhaps this was your intention?

So… PMs? New thread? Or is there a moderator-related reason you feel this should be addressed here and now? You too have my email address, and my PM inbox is open to all members of barbelith. Please, let’s not make this into an exercise in educating me in public. It isn’t gratifying or beneficial to me, and I doubt it is beneficial to the board as a whole.
 
 
Claris Dancers
20:24 / 20.06.07
That sentence doesn't make any sense, Claris Dancers. What do you mean by "it" in it's a hell of a lot more common than that?

yeah sorry, i have an edit waiting to go in. I meant to say less common. mistype.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
20:25 / 20.06.07
Thank you Fly, I had to go over the thread twice to spot your post.

I am not positive that is what I was thinking of, but it ties in to my feelings on libertarianism pretty well.
 
 
Claris Dancers
20:29 / 20.06.07
So… PMs? New thread? Or is there a moderator-related reason you feel this should be addressed here and now? You too have my email address, and my PM inbox is open to all members of barbelith. Please, let’s not make this into an exercise in educating me in public. It isn’t gratifying or beneficial to me, and I doubt it is beneficial to the board as a whole.

Im done defending myself from aggressive posters in this thread, thanks. No new thread necessary. Totally derailed from Ron Paul anyway. Sucks.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:29 / 20.06.07
It isn’t gratifying or beneficial to me

Having had this confirmed, I think I'll just accept your comments as part of the job, then, d'mandem.
 
 
sleazenation
20:31 / 20.06.07
In the interests of transparency - I disagreed Claris Dancers's moderation request on the grounds that although it was probably a typo (something confirmed by his subsequent post) it changed the meaning of the post and would have effected the reading of subsequent posts.

As it is, Claris Dancers's subsequent post makes clear his position and previous typo...
 
 
Char Aina
20:36 / 20.06.07
Having had this confirmed, I think I'll just accept your comments as part of the job, then, d'mandem.

To be clear, I was referring to your educating me (your advice to take this opportunity to break with the past) in public and in the way of this discussion. I welcome any and all comments about my behaviour or conduct you wish to make, via PM or email or in a relevant thread.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:52 / 20.06.07
It still doesn't make sense to me, sleaze. Does he mean that, although we hear about women pretending to have been raped all the time, the number of men in jail for rape suggests that many more women are actually raped than claim to have been raped? Is he saying, therefore, that these attempts to claim rape never work, and therefore that anyone in prison for rape is in fact guilty, and that these people vastly outnumber the people who were falsely accused of rape by women seeking to gain power over them? It's gibberish - the ink-squirting stage, followed by the off-in-a-huff stage, which we see here.

So, we could talk about Ron Paul, but we seem to have comvered most of the ground - claims to be a Libertarian, sacrifices libertarianism for personal conviction in certain areas, such as abortion. Is anti-taxation, anti big government, pro gun control. Generally stands on principle, thus voting against anything involving federal oversight or taxation. Opposed war in Iraq and Patriot Act, thus superficially attractive to counterculture type, but in other ways not attractive at all. Arguably palaeolibertarian. Not going to be President.
 
 
Tom Paine's Bones
21:11 / 20.06.07
He also voted to ban gay adoption in Washington DC.
 
 
petunia
21:20 / 20.06.07
But gay kids need guardians too!
 
 
alas
03:32 / 21.06.07
Salon.com has a pretty gushy article on Paul...and then you get to page 2--

Paul describes the federal airline security system as an extra-constitutional affront to civil liberties, and thinks security should be handled by the private sector. Then he takes a rather un-presidential jab at the appearance of many TSA screeners, a workforce heavily populated by minorities and immigrants. "We quadrupled the TSA, you know, and hired more people who look more suspicious to me than most Americans who are getting checked," he says. "Most of them are, well, you know, they just don't look very American to me. If I'd have been looking, they look suspicious ... I mean, a lot of them can't even speak English, hardly. Not that I'm accusing them of anything, but it's sort of ironic."

This is not the first time Paul has veered into potentially insensitive territory. In 1992, a copy of his newsletter, the Ron Paul Survival Report, criticized the judicial system in Washington, D.C., before adding, "I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Under a section headlined "Terrorist Update," the following sentence ran, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

I'll just leave it at that...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:04 / 21.06.07
It has to be said in this thread's favour that the thread summary is entirely correct. It seems Ron Paul really is a candidate who we should all be taking a closer look at - certainly anyone who thought he was a wacky funster, who was kind of one of the good guys because of his stance on US interventionism, needed to do so.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
09:05 / 21.06.07
I'm sorry but I have to.

My wife was raped before I met her, and she did not come forward and press charges or even accuse. I think she was wrong not to do anything to bring it to light, but that's how it went.

Perhaps she didn't come forward because people like you believe that women lie about things like this. Because people in privilege believe that they can emphasise the lies without damaging all of the women who actually are raped, because you focus on the least important aspect of any of this. When someone is violated they are hurt and scared and how do they find the strength to turn round in the face of these types of comments and realise that people will believe them? Well a shitload of them don't find that strength because it doesn't come from nowhere, it comes from love and support and people actively choosing to support the violated over the violator.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:17 / 21.06.07
What Anna just said. Do you realise that your ignorant crap is what prevents women like your wife from daring to come forward and report rape when it happens to them?

I feel a terrible ache of sadness for a rape survivour who has to listen to her own husband promulgating rape myths at the expense of survivours like her.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
09:58 / 21.06.07
Seeing as we have a thread to decide whether Claris Dancer has been enough of an arse to warrant being kicked off and a thread to try and discuss libertarianism and Ron Paul's hateful views seem to be easy to find I'm thinking this thread should either be locked or kicked to the Conversation for a continuation of the ad hominems, I'll try for the first but if anyone disagrees if they PM me or bring it up in the moderation requests thread I'm happy to change my mind.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:07 / 21.06.07
Could we possibly have a global embargo on the use of the term "ad hominem" to mean "personal insult", while we're at it? The argumentum ad hominem is a rhetorical approach in which the validity or otherwise of a position is connected to the qualities of the person advancing it. "You are an idiot" is not an ad hominem, but an insult. "Your position is invalid" is not an ad hominem. "Your position is invalid because you are an idiot" is an ad hominem.
 
  

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