Can democracy last?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Crcata, May 1, 2016.

  1. Retribution Banned Banned

    Messages:
    200
    One might argue that the USA has always had lackluster corporate governance, though. It's just a little more obvious these days.
    I'm getting the impression a part of the reason for his large supporter base is that he's more "honest" about that than others are?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    No, it has more to do with his politics of exclusion and his feeble grasp of current events.

    For example, he wants to build a wall that covers our entire southern border, in order to keep Mexicans from coming here. But he carefully avoids telling his flock that Mexico has rebuilt itself as a middle-class country in one generation, and more Mexicans are going home than are coming here.

    The Latin Americans who are coming to to the USA today are from Central America, not Mexico. Both their governments and their economies collapsed three decades ago, thanks to President Reagan's Iran-Contra fiasco--another failed Republican presidency.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Retribution Banned Banned

    Messages:
    200
    Yes, I've heard all that.

    I have to ask a question, though. Regardless of whether or not Trump is elected, do you think that wall will ever be built?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    Individuals did that, not white men.

    I have absolutely considered why the group was created. You assume i havent. You are tge one pretending they dont serve good, and practical uses, you are the one preaching they are a bad thing.

    But what was and what is are 2 different things. You cant seem to differentiate the two.

    You are part of the problem and dont even realize it.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Individuals you refuse to describe let alone name, acting at times you refuse to specify, in a region you have never described.

    Individuals I have specified, at times I have specified, in the region I specified. The five million or so individual self-described white men, living the US between 1650 and 1850. Nobody else had any say.

    If you have other individuals in mind, who are they? When did they act? Where?
    No, you have repeatedly insisted that these groups existed long before they were created by the white men in the US. You have even denied the role of white men in the US in creating these groups, including their own racial category.
    I have stipulated the existence of several good uses for racial labeling in the US now - every one of them, of course, involvement in the repair of or resistance to the very great and continuing harms of the original racial grouping and labeling, which had no good purpose, and was instead an entirely bad thing.

    The bad uses outnumber and outweigh the good by a lot, of course. But we're stuck with them. The question is whether democracy can survive them.
     
  9. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    You simply refuse to accept the objective truth that saying "white men" did something when it was done by individuals that does not at all represent that entire group is inaccurate and extremely biased way of portraying it. That is exactly what you are doing, and is very showing of an agenda.

    Looking back at your original posts this is all to obvious.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    And you repeatedly refuse to deal with the obvious and repeated response: "representation" is not involved, nobody "represented" anyone in this labeling, there are no specific individuals to blame,

    there was no hierarchy or division of labor or central group of nameable people in charge of this kind of stuff, involved. You can't name of describe a single person, or small number of people, or any dominantly significant members of any group of people, responsible for the creation, identification, and labeling, of the races in the US.

    The group that labeled itself "white men" was comprised of about 5 million individual men who did this collectively, by mutual agreement among themselves, all together, over a period of two hundred years, primarily on the North American continent. That is why you are unable to name, describe, locate, or even provide a time frame, for the deeds of these "individuals" you keep referring to

    as if you knew who they were, which you don't, and as if you were contradicting me by saying the word "individual", which you are not

    - if you did, you would end up repeating my posts.

    The central source of your confusion is that you have not come to grip with the fact that the current races of the US are entirely social and artificial creations, with no other coherent reality, and to think otherwise is to join in the mutual agreement mentioned above. Five hundred years ago, before the establishment of plantation slavery in the Americas, they did not exist.

    And the jury is still out on whether a society so structured can establish and maintain itself as a democracy. We are in the early years yet, of that development - the enfranchisement of some of the races involved is new and still incomplete, with as yet uncertain consequences.
     
  11. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    What you fail to realize is there are specific individuals to blame, they just arent alive anymore and cant be held accountable. And even if they were alive and we just didnt know EXACTLY who, still does not justify lumping those individuals short comings on "white men".

    Again, you are objectively wrong. Own up to it.

    And tge names given to race are manmade, but they absolutely exist even without names. Another thing you are blatantly wrong about.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2016
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Nonsense.
    Who, where, when, - you have no idea how to begin to answer that. I did answer it.
    Nonsense. Before 1800 the white race did not include the Irish, or several other ethnic groups now included, for example. That was after it was labeled, not before.
     
  13. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    Just because one cannot directly identify the individuals does not at all mean there isnt individuals responsible. Because in fact, there are. And portraying the race of "white men" as the culprit is inaccurate. Again, no matter how much you wish to deny, this is objective truth slapping you in the face.

    Races are names given to something that already exists. The same way we gave a name to fish. Before they were given names the different kinds of fish still existed. The same goes for humans. This is such a simple concept.

    Own up man.
     
  14. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    Oh, and where is the evidence for that one?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    You can't even identify the continent, or the century, in which these people lived - let alone how they got all the millions of people in the US to adopt their personally invented vocabulary and classification scheme without leaving a trace in the historical record.

    I, on the other hand, had no trouble identifying the individuals involved: the self-identified white men who lived in the US between 1650 and 1850, acting collectively and by mutual agreement. Nobody else had any say.
    Nonsense.
    Are you trying to claim that your silly US "races" would pass muster as biologically valid breeding populations equivalent to different species of fish? Get a grip. This is a science forum. You do realize that Obama is in the same single US race as his wife Michelle, Serena Williams, OJ Simpson, and all of these people:
    http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49286000/jpg/_49286232_nigeriancjiefsinbakassi.jpg
    http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Australian-Aboriginal-Genocide.jpg
    http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/MSNBC...people/ss-100703-forestpeople-01.grid-8x2.jpg
    http://www.molon.de/galleries/Micronesia/Kosrae/People/img.php?pic=3,

    right? And that this classification scheme has absolutely no biological reality behind it?
    Same places it was last time, and the time before, and all the other times you ran your mouth about racial matters without bothering to check your presumptions.

    Here, with plenty of hyperlinks to keep you busy and even - if you try really, really, hard to read carefully - inform your future posting in this matter.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States
    And a couple of books:
    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/305686.How_the_Irish_Became_White
    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1080943.Are_Italians_White_
    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...olks_and_What_That_Says_About_Race_in_America
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2016
  16. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210

    No you didnt, you completely generalized individuals and lumped them all into one group, which I have already pointed out is objectively inaccurate way of describing them. Individuals did that, not white men.

    You are flat wrong.

    And what I said was that we gave a name to something that already existed, which is what we always do. It makes sense. Races existed even before names/labels were given to them. This is an objective truth. Your denial of that is flat denying reality that stares you in the face. It shows directly your agenda and is rivaling of MR when it comes to denial of reason and logic. You can put words in my mouth all you want and try to misrepresent what I am saying but the fact remains you are wrong.

    Own up.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    To repeat: I didn't do that. They did that. They - the white men in the US at the time - are the only ones who had any say in the matter, and they lumped themselves into one group and labeled themselves as they lumped and labeled everyone else. I wasn't alive at the time.
    Every one of those five million individuals was a white man, according to their very own labeling. Nobody else had any say in the matter.
    1) Who is this "we"? Think about it. Nobody in that "we" is or was US black, red, yellow, brown, or female. The entire population of "we" you are talking about is white men. Millions of them.
    2) Except they didn't exist, and outside of that classification scheme and labeling do not and never have existed, and if that particular classification and labeling scheme is forgotten will cease to exist.

    The sociological human races, such as we have in the US, have no other reality. Biologically, historically, geographically, genetically, they do not exist.
    That's a completely false claim. Seriously - you are merely posting ignorance and nonsense, and refusing to do even basic research. I have handed you a few links, they are easy to find, this is not a hidden or even reasonably controversial matter - just look at the wide variety of quite different human beings lumped together as "black" in the US, for example, or the long history of the expansion of the "white" race to include Italians, Finns, Celts, Jews, and the like - maybe even Siberian Russians, in the not too distant future.

    The question is whether a democratic US can survive this racial division of its citizenry, as the formerly oppressed gain political power .
     
  18. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    Again, it wasn't white men who did it, it was individuals. It is not the fault of white men. You are objectively wrong. You portraying it as the fault white men has already been shown to be completely inaccurate way of portraying it. See posts above.

    We as in humans. We give names to things. We find a new type of fish...we give it a name. There are different color humans, we just gave them a name. Therefore, the "races" existed before having the names. This is objectively true. You can deny it all you want but the truth is all around you. You are flat wrong.

    Just own up man.
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It was five million white men, living in the US, between 1650 and 1850. You can look it up.
    The human beings who created and labeled the US races were all white men. That's your "we".
    Christ almighty you really are comparing the US human races to different species of fish. Unbelievable.
    Now you are being silly.

    In the first place, nobody with any sense classifies organisms by color - weasels change names from winter to summer? http://www.britannica.com/list/7-animals-that-turn-white-in-winter ; all the brown black bears with one name, all the black black bears with another? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_black_bear

    If you tried that with fish, you'd have a hundred different "races" of guppy in every fish store, and dozens of catfish species would have the same name. You'd have a mess on your hands - color is a lousy taxonomic criterion. And it doesn't work with humans either.

    Blonde humans are not in a different race than brunettes or redheads. Freckled humans are not in a different race than tan humans, or albino humans. And "US black" humans are not the same color as each other. Neither are the reds, yellows, or whites. Also, humans do not usually change races when they tan in the summer ( I once knew a girl who did change races in the summer when she tanned - all winter she was white, and around June she became black. She had a lot of interesting things to say about racial bigotry in the US - kind of a unique perspective).

    Color varieties of organisms are called things like "phases" or "morphs". Color varieties within a species are not called races - that would be a crude and amateurish taxonomic error, kind of a dumb thing to do - but "morphs" or the like. http://bugguide.net/node/view/565492 http://bugguide.net/node/view/32145
     
  20. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    It was individuals, and not in any way shape or form justified in portraying it as the fault of white men. For the same previously stated reasons. You are flat wrong. Also, it was not "all" white men, if you actually knew a thing about history, there were black slavers as well. Also, every race has taken part in slavery in some form or another in history. Some still do. Its factual...you are wrong.

    Humans give names to things, not white men. Individuals developed the labels. The labels are a good thing. You are stll objectively wrong by portraying it as white men.

    I was comparing a concept of name giving, if you lack the critical thinking skills to understand what I was saying, that is a fault of your own. I am still correct.

    I am being silly by pointing out the obvious truth? That seeing as we are all different it is inevitable that names/labels will be given? And SHOULD be given? Sorry but you are just ignorant and objectively wrong. It does work with humans, it has been. The issues we see have nothing to do w/ the fact we have labels. This is a complete non issue brought about by a agenda fueled ego.

    Just because there are different shades of white,black, etc...does not mean we have to make a label for each shade. That would simply be to much. But yet we can still have labels which assist in administration purposes and identification purposes. You really lack critical thinking skills dont you? Actually Ill give you the benefit of the doubt, you just have an agenda.

    I think you know you are wrong, but refuse to admit it because of an agenda.

    Just own up
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2016
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    So you object to my using "white men" to refer to a collective group of five million men who described themselves as "white men" and were responsible for creating that category and naming it.

    Why?

    And why are you using words like "fault" to talk about what you otherwise describe as both inevitable and innocent, simply a recognition of what you say is an "objective fact"?

    On the one hand, you want me to blame some "individuals" you cannot locate or describe, and not even use their own race labels to describe them, because it unfairly tars the rest of their race; on the other hand you claim nothing blameworthy was done by anyone.
    I haven't posted anything here about who did and did not own slaves even in the US let alone throughout history everywhere, and certainly the white men in the US between 1650 and 1850 did not invent slavery and were not unique in adopting it - although the industrialization of it, in the plantations, was innovative and significant.

    The brand new and relevant thing they did was invent and establish the current US "racial" classification system - instead of castes, as in India, or tribes, as in the Middle East, we see "races". It took two hundred years to get the system completely straightened out, and even into the 1900s the "white" race was being adjusted to include formerly non"white" groups of people (see my links above), but the basic lumping of all the biologically and culturally varied and diverse people from all over the planet that the "white" men wanted to call "black" was quickly completed - for obvious reasons.
    They aren't shades of "white" or "black" - they are different colors of human skin, and the people who have these different colors of skin are different from each other. That's what you were claiming was important, remember? Skin colors in humans are as important as the differences between species of fish, you said. And they have had names, in the past (high yellow, octoroon, dark tan, swarthy, etc). There's nothing so very complicated about a few names. There should be at least as many names for human skin color as for human hair and eye color, don't you think?
    Yes. I have been emphasizing that for pages now. That's why the self-labeled "white" men in the US invented these "races" and labeled other people in the first place - to assist in certain administrative and identification purposes. Horrible ugly ones, unfortunately. And we have been living with the consequences ever since - we may be stuck with them for centuries to come.

    The question for the thread was whether American democracy - burdened with the consequences of this racial division as it is and will be - can last. It has survived so far in part via oppressing the non-white "races" - sequestering almost all economic and political power in the "white" race. That is unlikely to remain a viable approach much longer.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2016
  22. wellwisher Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,160
    I never did any of those things, so why do I get lumped into a stereo-type?

    I was around during the love generation; very young, when the racial walls had fallen and the young people did not see color. It was found better to laugh together instead of promote self consciousness with PC. The irony is, that same group of young people, is now old and in power. Hillary came from that time. The ones who found a way to unite are now the ones who have regressed culture, with this led by the Democratic party and their divide and conquer philosophy.

    The democrats are like the gossip that goes up to party and makes up a gossip about how Mary, said you look stupid, thereby making enemies of two friends. Then the gossip moves in and act like they are you new best friend. The blacks are now under the Democrats, who were the party of slavery, with the blacks thinking the party of Lincoln is their enemy, based on gossip.

    The blacks are are back on the plantation. Look at how the blacks are doing in Democrat party control cities? Compare this to blacks who are Republicans. Look at results and not gossip. Compare objective measures like education level, stable family, drug addiction, crime, health, integration into racially balanced neighborhoods, etc. Don't go by the gossip.

    The main problems liberal have is, they think with their hearts. This can be useful, but hearts can't analyze data. Heart work better with gossip and stories.
     
  23. Crcata Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    210
    Although I completely believe you understand what I am saying but have an agenda to pretend otherwise...I will reiterate what I have already mentioned multiple times.

    Individuals created the labels, just because you cant directly identify which ones does not in any way shape or form mean it wasn't individuals nor does it make it ok to lump all white people into that, which is exactly what you are doing. Also, 5 million people did not create the labels, you are objectively wrong about this. 5 milllion people may have accepted the labels but does not mean they created them.

    Different shades of white and black...IS different colors of skins. Like it or not, no matter who makes the labels, there would always be labels. We give names to things/animals/items/and humans whom are different. This is not wrong. I have already stated why "to many labels" would be an issue, seeing as what we have is fine for ID and admin purposes. But please continue ignoring and misrepresenting my position. It solidifies to those watching the idea that you have an agenda. Which is most likely the case.

    Racial division is an issue in america that we need to deal with, but these labels are not part of the issue. It is a complete non issue.

    You actually believe america surpresses non white races whom are legal citizens because of the color of their skin? Another thing you are wrong about. A black has equal if not more of a chance than myself, a white man, of getting a job if he acquires the proper knowledge/experience/training. Ive literally been turned down from jobs because they needed more hispanics, despite me being just as if not more qualified.

    However, in the black community they, more so than other races (Lets see if you ignore this key wording), embrace a very anti authoritative and otherwise selfish thug life style which keeps them down more than anything. This is seen in many different statistics,including FBI, and by my own observations as well as of any objectively minded person I have run into. This is an issue with their culture, not us evil white folks keeping them oppressed.

    However, YOU and people like you making issues of non issues...is a bigger issue that we need to deal with. I suppose the agenda mindset altogether needs to be dealt with. People just cant seem to look past their agenda these days and see right and wrong, good and bad. They would rather fight endlessly, spread hate, etc for an agenda than to just preach/act on what is right.

    Own up and admit you are wrong. Come on, you can do it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2016

Share This Page