Sarah and the Red Hen
nohero said:
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Because there was no racial discrimination in the north. Right.
nohero said:
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
It's one of the most glaring flaws in a favorite conservative trope. It ignores the fact that many marginalized classes don't have the financial wherewithal to do anything other than survive. It take money to move. Saying impoverished blacks had a choice to just up and leave is either disingenuous or genuinely ignorant.
Most Americans can't just up and leave- marginalized or not.
For those of you interested in a beautiful explanation of what terp attempts to reference, here's a great book on the Great Migration written by a schoolmate. She's a genius.
"The Warmth of Other Suns" - Isabel Wilkerson
Six million plus Americans left the south and traveled to the north and the west in search of citizenship in their own country. They knew Jim Crow didn't stop at the Mason Dixon line but life in the south was simply too dangerous.
flimbro said:
Most Americans can't just up and leave- marginalized or not.
Fair statement. Mobility is a privilege that a lot of us take for granted.
ridski said:
ctrzaska said:I'll wait for you know who to ml1splain about whether it's still funny.
ridski said:It was kinda funny in an uncomfortable sort of way when Sam Kinison railed on the topic, however.
nohero said:It's kind of like "why don't Ethiopians just move to where the food is?"
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Still funny. The absurdity is timeless
ridski said:
I'll wait for you know who to ml1splain about whether it's still funny.
And I'd just like to add that I was the one who noted how pretentious and tiresome it is when people explain comedy.
ml1 said:
ridski said:Still funny. The absurdity is timeless
ctrzaska said:I'll wait for you know who to ml1splain about whether it's still funny.
ridski said:It was kinda funny in an uncomfortable sort of way when Sam Kinison railed on the topic, however.
nohero said:It's kind of like "why don't Ethiopians just move to where the food is?"
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Tell me that: The camera man can't give the kid a sandwich? isn't funny. Sam Kinison was a genius.
drummerboy said:
ridski said:And why don't poor people just decide to make more money?
nohero said:It's kind of like "why don't Ethiopians just move to where the food is?"
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Libertarian solutions are so simple!
It wasn't proposed as any type of solution. It was a point. Government tyranny is regrettable. But if you had to choose between a more local or a distant large central government imposing tyranny you'd take the local government. That is my point.
In the hypothetical that the south won the Civil war, it would have been better to maintain a loose federation than have a large/powerful central government with laws preferred by the confederate states.
mrincredible said:
nohero said:It's one of the most glaring flaws in a favorite conservative trope. It ignores the fact that many marginalized classes don't have the financial wherewithal to do anything other than survive. It take money to move. Saying impoverished blacks had a choice to just up and leave is either disingenuous or genuinely ignorant.
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Yet, millions did move.
terp said:Yet, millions did move.
And millions more didn't. The notion that they all "had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north" but didn't--by choice--is a bit simplistic, to put it nicely.
Terp,
Out of curiosity, are you planning to 'vote with your feet' and move to New Hampshire?
terp said:
Government tyranny is regrettable. But if you had to choose between a more local or a distant large central government imposing tyranny you'd take the local government. That is my point.
Maybe.
In Manchild in the Promised Land Claude Brown talks about cousin Willie having come back South from visiting the North and telling the people how wonderful it is up North.
terp said:
First, I'm sorry. I'm not sure why reacted so viscerally to your post. I think it came across as playing the race card to make a point. That clearly isn't what you were doing. You did not deserve that reaction.
And while I think decentralization is the path to most people being happy, it's probably a more nuanced discussion than my first impression. I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration. However, it is a fair point that the Federal Government ultimately needed to step in to overturn laws that were clearly meant to disenfranchise.
Thanks for the apology -- sincerely.
If you'll pardon a long digression, I think "the race card" merits some discussion.
The Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most eloquent expression of national identity I know of. ""We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." If "America" has a thesis, surely this is it.
Note that the Declaration predates the Constitution. It's before the Federalist Papers, before the Articles of Confederation, before independence itself could be chartiably described as much more than a long shot. Here at the beginning, though, eloquent as it is, there's already tension -- who are "all men?" The "men" part is a literal as the "all" is figurative.
To my mind, this is the central question, and central conflict, in the American idea -- liberty for whom? And if you take this as the central question, then "the race card" is pretty unavoidable, because the American arguments over race are just arguments over who gets to be part of "all men." Whiteness and blackness are created categories, after all (though this post is already annoying long for those reading on phones, so I'm not going into their creation here). Questions of government centralization I don't think really come into it.
Take your example of the Great Migration (I'm impressed you referenced this, btw, and I second @flimbro's rec of The Warmth of Other Suns). While there was not Jim Crow in the north, there was still plenty of discrimination. Some of it courtesy of the central government (eg FHA redlining). A lot was courtesy of private groups and individuals (eg restrictive covenants). The problem wasn't how "centralized" the government was, it was that many Americans were very insistent that "America" was for whites, and used any and every tool at their disposal to advance that vision.
To get a bit more on topic, this is where I see the greatest danger from Trump. You look at the way he talks, who he targets, what kinds of people he surrounds himself with, and I think it's pretty clear that he's doesn't see African Americans, or Hispanics, or immigrants from non-European countries, or, to use the general shortcut term here, anyone who's not "white," as being real Americans. He's basically Sarah Palin, except he's a man so was actually able to be elected. I think those who make comparisons to Hitler and invoke fascism are using the wrong frame of reference -- we're not goose stepping toward fascism, we're whistling on our way to Dixie. I look to the future and I don't see mass extermination camps, but I do see a government shirking its duty to defend the equal rights of all Americans, a Supreme Court supporting discrimination under the guise of deferring to "freedom of association," and a general narrowing of the criteria of who gets to be fully American.
So that's where I'm coming from. I can't say you'll never find reason to accuse me of "playing the race card," but at least when you do you'll know what I'm basing it on.
Thanks for the well thought out and earnest post PVW. The thing about America is that those founding documents and the ideas they represent are great. They were really a step forward for man IMO.
That is the ideal of America. We've never really lived up to that ideal. Certainly not for all people at all times. Given all the problems, historically speaking, people are relatively free here. We do have it pretty good.
In terms of migration, we have been a place that people have come to to escape tyranny. That being said we my never reach that ideal, but I'm not sure any country ever has.
You may be right regarding Trump. These are confusing times for me. My take is that I think it matters too much who the president is. It seems that every 4 years 150 Million people think they're disenfranchised because they don't like the individual or the policies from this office. I think the volume only gets turned up to 11 in the 2020 election. My prediction is that we get a pretty far left candidate on the Democratic side.
sprout said:
Terp,
Out of curiosity, are you planning to 'vote with your feet' and move to New Hampshire?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project
My wife(who is waaay more to the left than I) has been talking about moving out of NJ for a while now. It has to work for the family. I think somewhere like Austin Texas is a much more likely destination than NH. Though I like what the free state project is trying to do.
terp said:
drummerboy said:It wasn't proposed as any type of solution. It was a point. Government tyranny is regrettable. But if you had to choose between a more local or a distant large central government imposing tyranny you'd take the local government. That is my point.
ridski said:And why don't poor people just decide to make more money?
nohero said:It's kind of like "why don't Ethiopians just move to where the food is?"
terp said:I will point out though that even in horrors of Jim Crow that you rightly reference, people had the opportunity to vote with their feet and move north as part of the Great Migration.That is one of the most feeble defenses I've seen here. And "feeble" is the mild term.
Libertarian solutions are so simple!
In the hypothetical that the south won the Civil war, it would have been better to maintain a loose federation than have a large/powerful central government with laws preferred by the confederate states.
You have outdone yourself with that hypothetical.
From @PVW
"I think those who make comparisons to Hitler and invoke fascism are using the wrong frame of reference -- we're not goose stepping toward fascism, we're whistling on our way to Dixie. I look to the future and I don't see mass extermination camps, but I do see a government shirking its duty to defend the equal rights of all Americans, a Supreme Court supporting discrimination under the guise of deferring to "freedom of association," and a general narrowing of the criteria of who gets to be fully American."
RIGHT. ON. THE. NOSE. Nicely done. (But, I see plenty of camps coming.)
We're not becoming fascists, we're returning to our default- raw, unvarnished white supremacy.
We're simply correcting course, moving back to what has always been the goal of the 'founding fathers' and the white supremacists that followed them. For brief moments we've moved away from the original design with landmark rulings designed to level the playing field and create a country where we were all Americans. But, inevitably each and every one of those advancements was followed by a neutering or a dismantling.
There was plenty of Jim Crow in the north. It wasn't always codified by law but the effect was the same. Restricted neighborhoods, segregated stores, schools, hotels, churches, parks. No access to loans, mortgages and redlined neighborhoods. Officially, there's no Jim Crow now, not in the North or the South but there are segregated school systems, whites only establishments, discriminatory lending, municipal plunder of Black and brown citizens, substandard public services, food deserts, racial profiling, disenfranchisement of the formerly imprisoned, for profit prisons, unequal sentencing, school to prison pipelines, extrajudicial murder by law enforcement, voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering of voting districts by race etc.
You know, "extermination camps" are not inextricably tied to Fascism - and the fact that people use that argument to deny we may be moving towards a form of fascism is very damaging and undermining.
lanky said:
Can this be re-categorized as "All Politics" ?
Better yet - Paranoid Venting
That would require a whole new Category, which takes a while to set up. All Politics already exists, and lanky’s request to OP/moderator is therefore suitable, not requiring a snide response.
Maxine Waters responds to death threats: 'You better shoot straight
I am willing to acknowledge that, perhaps, it is Nancy Pelosi's place to maintain civility in the face of outrageous provocation within the halls of Congress but I sure am glad there are folks like Waters who are willing to put it on the line to face down a regime of bone spur bullies.
"Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you".
Joseph Heller.
Fox News headline:
"The Red Hen fully booked at reopening after Sanders controversy, despite protesters"
flimbro said:
Nah
If you open a restaurant to feed people- then feed people. If you build houses to house people then house people. If you say you're a baker and you sell what you bake- then sell what you bake. If you're going to turn anybody away from your establishment then put a chalkboard up outside with a constantly updated list of who can and who can't come in - and then take your licks.
I don't have nearly enough faith in Americans to let them off the hook regarding who is allowed and who isn't.
Been there done that- still doing it.
I see your point, but setting prejudice and racism aside for a moment, doesn't there come a time when it is reasonable to shun certain individuals who are engaged in poor behavior or the rationalization of the same.
tjohn said:
flimbro said:I see your point, but setting prejudice and racism aside for a moment, doesn't there come a time when it is reasonable to shun certain individuals who are engaged in poor behavior or the rationalization of the same.
Nah
If you open a restaurant to feed people- then feed people. If you build houses to house people then house people. If you say you're a baker and you sell what you bake- then sell what you bake. If you're going to turn anybody away from your establishment then put a chalkboard up outside with a constantly updated list of who can and who can't come in - and then take your licks.
I don't have nearly enough faith in Americans to let them off the hook regarding who is allowed and who isn't.
Been there done that- still doing it.
That's tricky though isn't it?
It probably depends on who is doing the shunning and who decides what constitutes 'poor behavior'? Is taking a knee 'poor behavior' and will that put you on the un-American list at Papa Johns Pizza? Does scaling the Statue of Liberty get you banned from Waffle House or Chik Fil A? Does yelling at the Homeland Security Chief get your driver's license pulled?
Historically, we don't do a good job at determining what's 'reasonable' or how much 'shunning' is too much 'shunning'.
I think the whole scream-at-functionaries-in-the-restaurant bit is a 'first world' solution that ends up being a waste of time. She's just an employee. She got up, left and ate fried chicken somewhere else that night and then went back to work to talk more siht the next day. When she quits/gets fired the next guy will come in and do exactly the same thing. That's the job. If you're going to scream at somebody in a restaurant- scream at the congressmen who enable 45 and then more importantly, when election day comes- don't vote for them.
I'll wait for you know who to ml1splain about whether it's still funny.