Hitler Was Evil, or, Man Threatened with Discipline by University for Reading Historical Book About KKK
Did the title of this post offend you? I did say “Hitler” . . .
If you answered “yes,” you would make a fine Affirmative Action Officer at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. That’s the university where a janitor pursuing a communications degree received a threatening letter from the Affirmative Action office for the thoughtcrime of reading a historical book about the KKK during his breaks from work:
The book is about how for two days in May 1924, a group of Notre Dame students got into a street fight with members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was meeting in South Bend for the express purpose of sticking a collective thumb in the eye of the country’s most famous Catholic university. Notre Dame vs. the Klan was a Notre Dame Magazine “Pick of the Week” and garnered an average customer review of 4.5 stars on Amazon.com. In its review, The Indiana Magazine of History noted that Tucker “succeeds in placing the event in a broad framework that includes the origins and development of both the Klan and Notre Dame.”
[Janitor and Thought Criminal Keith John] Sampson recalls that his AFSCME shop steward told him that reading a book about the Klan was like bringing pornography to work. The shop steward wasn’t interested in hearing what the book was actually about. Another time, a coworker who was sitting across the table from Sampson in the break room commented that she found the Klan offensive. Sampson says he tried to tell her about the book, but she wasn’t interested in talking about it.
A few weeks passed. Then Sampson got a message ordering him to report to Marguerite Watkins at the IUPUI Affirmative Action Office. He was told a coworker had filed a racial harassment complaint against him for reading Notre Dame vs. the Klan in the break room. Sampson says he tried to explain to Watkins what the book was about. He says he tried to show her the book, but that Watkins showed no interest in seeing it.
This is, keep in mind, an alleged university, where books are supposedly held in high regard. Keep that in mind as you keep reading, and your jaw falls further and further open in amazement:
Then Sampson received a letter, dated Nov. 25, 2007, from Lillian Charleston, also of IUPUI’s Affirmative Action Office. The letter begins by saying that the AAO has completed its investigation of a coworker’s allegation that Sampson “racially harassed her by repeatedly reading the book Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan by Todd Tucker in the presence of Black employees.” It goes on to say, “You demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your coworkers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence … you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black coworkers.” Charleston went on to say that according to “the legal ‘reasonable person standard,’ a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KKK is to African-Americans …”
Next thing you know, some professor will be trying to teach students about slavery, right there in a room with black people.
Must be something in the water in Indianapolis. I seem to recall writing a post in 2003 about a local high school banning To Kill a Mockingbird from the school stage. Because that’s a famously racist book, you know. Uses the “N” word and everything. It’s right up there with Huckleberry Finn!
Thanks to Simon.
UPDATE: Weaselly non-retraction letter here.
I saw this the other day. There is a follow-up letter from the same office linked at the same site that you linked to — look for the February 7 letter link; read it then note how mealy-mouthed the February 7 “exoneration” letter is. The woman who runs the office, Ms. Watkins, obviously knows that she screwed up, but she is trying to maintain a brave face and pretend that everything is normal. By the way, another blog apparently looked up the public record, and it turns out Ms. Watkins makes something like $106,000 per year for her utter incompetency. As Fred Astaire might say, nice work if you can get it.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:04 amNote too that according to the link you provided there was allegedly a third letter sent to Mr. Sampson postmarked February 21. The contents of this letter have apparently not yet been divulged (by Mr. Sampson, one would have to assume). What do you want to bet that it reads something like this: “Dear Mr. Sampson, In order to avoid exposing us to further ridicule, we are going to shovel a pile of cash onto your lap in return for you not saying anything more about our heavy-handed treatment of you. . .”
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:36 amIf the circumstances were as follows, the university would have run her out of town.
Another time, a coworker who was sitting across the table from Sampson in the break room commented that she found the KORAN offensive.
…you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the KORAN a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Jewish and Christian coworkers.
Charleston went on to say that according to “the legal ‘reasonable person standard,’ a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KORAN is to Christian and Jewish Americans …”
Perfect Sense (cdb3d4) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:25 amThe employer is between a rock and a hard place in these kinds of situations. All he wants from his workers is that they do their job. That requires good morale, amity and cooperation between them. Not whining and moaning about each other over non work-related trivia.
The affirmative action officer was likely the wrong person to handle this. The foreman and the shop steward should have talked to the complainers and the janitor like Dutch uncles, reminding them that they are all there to earn their daily bread and to show consideration for each other’s felings and sensibilities.
Legalism was a poor device here. Maybe we are overlawyered, after all.
nk (7b0075) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:46 amIs that a state school? If so he has first amendment rights. A benefit, if you will, of state ownership.
stef (e870b9) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:30 amLiberals are so psychotic; they want to expose the ugliness about the past and then get angry when someone reads about the ugliness of the past.
I hope that, in my lifetime, I see a mass awakening to this madness.
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:43 amBeing from Indy, this was pretty remarkable. It got scant media attention here. Sad. This type of idiocy should have a very bright spotlight on it. Thanks.
Previously I requested a list of verboten subjects, words, etc … from the race-baiters, hyper sensitive PC police, and their ilk. Never got a good answer. I guess they just know offense when they see it.
JD (a61287) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:47 amThe benefits of granting power to the grievance industry — it all turns on his intent in reading the book. Notice that the University has both an Affirmative Action Officer and at least one Assistant Affirmative Action Officer. Must be a whole lot of reading going on.
Nevertheless, I’m glad the children were here to witness this letter. Not only does it demonstrate a total inability to state clearly any concise thought, but it’s an authentic example of genuine affirmative action gibberish. Rhetoric.
Remember the kerfuffle over the word niggardly?
capitano (03e5ec) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:12 amReally, how did this wind up in the hands of an AA officer? Does IUPUI have some new definition of AA that I’m not privy to? Or are they simply deferred to as the “experts” on racial privilege?
Pablo (99243e) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:19 amcapitano: having his intent be the determining factor would be a huge improvement over the status quo, where far too often it is the reaction of the co-worker which determines whether a hostile environment is present…. where “My feelings are hurt” is all that is necessary to pursue a claim and the intent of the ‘offending’ person is irrelevant.
steve sturm (40e5a6) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:19 amAnd we wonder why employers prefer to hire illegals. My restaurant owners would have taken them all aside and said: “I don’t need this. Do you need that paycheck every Friday?”
nk (7b0075) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:57 amMore details are here and here on the website of FIRE, the group that exposed the mandatory indoctrination program at the University of Delaware last October.
aunursa (499b81) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:12 amNK is so correct. It’s hard enough to get people to work together without infighting and petty sniping, but worse when they all start getting “offended” at each other. Especially when a place has a grievance policy. Then you have to have the kind of manager who is smart enough to let everyone have their SAY.
I heard the other day about a guy who gets paid $80.00 and hour as a quality control person in a automobile factory. His job isn’t to check the stitching in the seats…his job is to handle the non-stop complaints about the stitching in the seats and whether its really good enough or bad enough or if the stitch supervisor is just hating on the seat stitchers… We speculated that he was getting the 80$ an hour to be the most loathed person in the factory. Job title: Cat herder.
EdWood (c2268a) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:12 amI didn’t have to read past one sentence to conclude that the complainers were black, and that further they saw just another chance to “get whitey” thru the use of a biased affirmative action bureaucracy staffed either by blacks or a combination of agenda liberals and blacks who also saw a chance to “get whitey.” That this “helpless janitor” had the ability THRU THE INTERNET to get a light to shine on this is the only good thing I can see. Thank God for the Internet or these people would actually be running things. Now to the real world: you are wrong if you think the same thing isn’t happening in every large company where AA morons hold sway. We all have to watch our mouths these days, which naturally, builds racial tolerance.
Howard (cc8b85) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:19 amIs anyone else bothered that there even exists an “affirmative action officer”?
gabriel (6d7447) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:22 amHow Big Brother is it that the office charged with persecuting offenders is called the “Affirmative Action Office”?
Affirmative Action is special preferences for races or other groups lagging behind. It has nothing to do with cracking down on supposed hate speech.
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:00 amYes Gabriel, I am! Liberals are more than motivated to insert an “affirmative action officer” to run around like Hitlers SS, but God forbid a janitor attempt to further his education by reading anything that’s not on the left’s OK’ed reading list! Some one better call the “affirmative action officer”, I just inserted God’s name in my public opinion, and that’s a no-no to the lefties!
Ed O'Shea (56a0a8) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:05 amPerhaps it’s just that the “affirmative action officer” can not read and that was the part that was offensive too he, she, he-she, she-he or what ever they are!
Ed and Gabriel, here is the link I mentioned in my comment #1 above, which tells you how much these AA officers make. Scroll down to comment 17 at this link. Truly remarkable.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:36 amI had always been under the impression that we have freedom of speech to protect controversial ideas. Would we really need speech protected if nobody had a problem with it? What would need to be protected?
Nocomme1 (fcb275) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:41 amI’m not a Constitutional scholar so maybe someone can tell me where the Constitution established Freedom of Speech except in cases where someone is offended? Is there some Right to Freedom From Offense in the Bill Of Rights that I missed?
Proof once again that today’s universities are one of the last places to find freedom of thought.
VG
Voiceguy in L.A. (51a3f5) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:53 amUghh. People are so fucking stupid. These clowns see “Ku Klux Klan”, and some dim understanding of the phrase tells them they ought to kick their Faux-Sensitivity Procedures into high gear.
“Context”? What the fuck is “context”? Sorry, I’m simply too offended to worry about some word you made up to justify your heinous racist provocations.
Leviticus (35fbde) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:54 amIt gets better…from the NUVO article:
Also from the Indiana Barrister’s article comments:
capitano (03e5ec) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:09 amThis is an appalling situation to be sure, but I wonder what the rest of the story was. Why this ever came up.
To my stereotyping mind it’s unusual for a 50 year old union janitor to be pursuing a communications degree at the place where he works (more power to him though). I haven’t found any confirmation that he’s white, but assume he is. Also, there’s no mention anywhere that any co-workers went to bat for him (although this is arguing from a negative).
The initial objection was apparently to the cover of the book itself. The cover of “Notre Dame vs. The Klan” shows the Notre Dame dome with two burning crosses below amid a crowd of robed and hooded Klansmen (you can see it on Amazon), but then there’s a subtitle, “How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Klan.”
Apparently, he tried to meet the objection by explaining what the book was about, but was not listened to. Why not? I find it hard to believe that anyone could reasonably object to a book about a major historic defeat of the Klan, even if you find the Klan to be an abhorrent subject. Would a Jew object to a book on the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps simply because it discussed the existence of the Holocaust?
So, my working assumption is that this guy was an odd man out in his workplace to begin with, had no friends or allies, and maybe had prior history with his co-workers. That’s the only way I can make sense of this story, that it was not an isolated incident, but part of a more complex workplace situation that resulted in his co-workers trying to shaft him.
All that said, it’s no justification for what happened and it’s disgusting that it got anywhere at all; that it just didn’t die as soon as it got to any management level.
JayHub (0a6237) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:19 amWait until the Obama-McCain election… is having a McCain bumper sticker going to be “offensive” to African-Americans? Or at least to those that want to use these kinds of policies to shut down other people’s speech? Where do you stop? Do you even need an African-American complaintant? Or just some white guy who “knows” how offended “some” blacks might be?
Kevin Murphy (0b2493) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:26 amwe need a new word for affirmative action officers and other useless parasites who exist only to foment discord such as described here. there’s a strong candidate already in use for a small, bloodsucking insect native to the southwest:
chigger
assistant devil's advocate (7d37d0) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:28 amThe non-retraction is great.
“It was the perception of your co-worker” who refused to discuss the book in any way, and who clung blindly to her perception despite your willingness to discuss the matter…
Morons.
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:51 amOh God, ada, try that word and watch the floodgates burst open.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:53 amSounds a lot like the old USSR military practice of having a “Political Officer” on board to make sure the crew didn’t stray from the party line…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:54 amAnyone remember Al Capp’s Little Abner? S.W.I.N.E (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything)?
This needs to be mocked, hard and repeatedly. “Progressives” are egotistical, even when they’re not out-and-out narcissists, and that’s how to apply corrective force. Ridicule them.
LarryD (feb78b) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:06 amLook for “Hitler’s Dog” in this New Republic article:
rands (0e636e) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:15 amhttp://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=ba30ff16-a5af-4035-a883-cf15ffee406
For those of us who have read 1984, we know about the Thought Police, hunting for “thoughtcrime” everywhere, regardless of whether it actually existed in any given individual.
What does anyone really expect from the Left? They have to find SOMETHING to justify their positions, even if there isn’t a SOMETHING.
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:22 amNext time .. wrap the book in a brown bag.
Neo (cba5df) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:25 amI think that only Ed Wood agrees with me, here. They’re janitors for crying out loud. The only freedom of thought they signed on to is whether to use Comet or Soft Scrub on the toilets.
As idiotically as the University handled this, it is still the most innocent party.
nk (7b0075) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:27 am“Is anyone else bothered that there even exists an “affirmative action officer”?
Yes, yes I am, and I say that as a female minority.
“[Janitor and Thought Criminal Keith John] Sampson recalls that his AFSCME shop steward told him that reading a book about the Klan was like bringing pornography to work.”
…and as a female minority I believe this to be one of the stupidest statements I’ve ever read. Mr. John needs to learn the beauty of keeping one’s mouth closed when stupidity threatens to make its presence known.
This entire matter again illustrates what most of us already know – universities are no longer institutions where critical thought nor even the the very freedom of thought is encouraged or exists at the core of their mission. It is no longer a feasible option because the politicization of academia far supercedes the basic premise of learning.
Dana (b4a26c) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:32 amPatterico said “Hitler,” Patterico said “Hitler.” Isn’t that like saying [sharp inhalation and pause], “Hussein”?
509th Bob (dfa1f1) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:35 amYes, except this whole discussion is about the importance of context and intent, which you seem to have overlooked.
Leviticus (35fbde) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:43 amNo, I didn’t overlook it at all. I am in full agreement with Patterico’s post. I was merely responding directly to Patterico’s opening line: “Did the title of this post offend you? I did say “Hitler” . . .
509th Bob (dfa1f1) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:52 amto put the blame for this on liberals or progressives is completely unfair. i have seen both liberals and conservatives commit the offenses described. this is a matter of freedom of thought and those that feel they have the right to dictate to others how they should live. i don’t even care if the book was pro kkk, that fact is totally irrelevant. we have a right to read and think whatever we want. besides, making any assumptions of what someone thinks by what they read is utterly ludicrous. i have read both mein kampf and the communist manifesto. does thast make me a nazi or a marxist? no, reading is about understanding. you should read everything, especially the things you oppose. (or think you oppose) how can you understand what your against unless you understand those things from the perspective of those who support it. intolerance of anything is reprehensible, even intolerance of the intolerant. that is the price of freedom and if we do not accept that, then we are doomed to be the mirror of all that we oppose.
alonso (159736) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:54 amIF the report is correct and Sampson’s co-workers objected based solely on the title/content of the book (in which case it seems to me there was no conduct involved, offensive or otherwise), THEN I agree the AA officer and Sampson’s co-workers were out of line. Too bad the AA officer didn’t exercise more judgment and work to enlighten the co-workers instead of empowering them.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:17 amPersonally went through something somewhat similar VERY recently, when I made a statement about hanging award bicycles on our stage here at school. We had been hanging pinatas around the school as rewards for students, and someone commented that I was good with rope. I replied that I could get a rope, tie a noose, and hang the bicycles on the stage. A couple of days later I was presented with a complaint that said, and I quote: “I don’t know what he said, but I heard the word noose and it was disrespectful and unprofessional.”
I argued in my conferences that I used the word correctly, and in proper context, and the administrators agreed, but, it was the complaint that held sway, as the end result was that even with the person I spoke to saying that I said what I said, the investigation was “inconclusive.”
I’m still angry, and it’s not over yet, at least from my end….
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:28 amalonso – Why is it unfair to lay this at the feat of the victimists, the race pimps, and the sec proggs who promote this type of thinking, and intolerance of ideas? That is exactly who did this. Or is pointing that out a smear?
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:28 amRACISTS
Good Allah, what have we become?!
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:30 amJD, you’re just a religiousphobe….
(just kidding, by the way…)
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:32 amI am beginning to become phobic of sec proggs in positions of authority, reff. What -phobe is that?
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:34 amA fascistphobe.
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:36 amjd – because the root of the problem is not ideology it is intolerance and i have seen enough intolerance from both the right and the left. the fact that you are so quick to condemn the left exposes your own ideology and in my opinion has clouded your judgment to the real issue, but don’t worry, i support your right to express that opinion no matter how erroneous and intolerant i believe it to be.
alonso (c6a0cd) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:39 amJD, the phobe of that is….
Being American….and a believer in the Constitution as it was generally meant when it was written….
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:41 amI take it that the janitor was white? If the janitor reading this was black, would there be a problem? If not, then this is racial harassment by non whites against the white guy.
j curtis (c84b9e) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:45 amalonso…I’ve seen you say that twice here, about seeing this from “both the right and the left,” and from “liberals and conservatives” and, while I would normally dispute that, I know that religious conservatives who go overboard are lumped into your groupings, so, I’ll let it slide again…
However, I will argue vehemently that it is OVERWHELMINGLY a leftist point to say to others that what you think, or what you read, or what your context is should be decided by the government, or those in authority, in particular when there can be no rational arguments AGAINST the beliefs of the one who wants to control your thought with government interference.
(P.S.–There are rational arguments both for and against abortion rights, and evolution, which will be the first two things you will counter with in this discussion. My point is rational arguments, not irrational personal thoughts.)
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:49 amalonso – This intolerance is a function of the ideology, a tool of the ideology. This is the sec progg playbook. Just look at all of the perceived injustices that the Obama and CLinton campaigns push – sexist, racist, homophobe. It is a daily happening.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:50 amI condemn myself for being racist, sexist, homophobic, or any of the other -ists or -phobes that I will likely be accused of by the left liberal folks amongst us.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:52 amnk (#32), the attitude you expressed in this comment is frequently encountered among republicans, and it’s one of the reasons i’m a democrat. i cannot share your contempt for the working man “employers prefer to hire illegals”, “talk to them like a dutch uncle” or your willingness to excuse an employer no matter what “the university is still the most innocent party”. if i’m working for your company, and i’m on my break time, and my constitutional rights are implicated, and you talk to me like a dutch uncle, i’m gonna sue your ass!
assistant devil's advocate (7d37d0) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:55 amToo bad the AA officer didn’t exercise more judgment and work to enlighten the co-workers instead of empowering them.
DRJ, I hope you don’t mind if I correct that last sentence for you:
Too bad the Thought Police did not exercise more judgment and inform the co-workers of the true facts instead of pandering to them.
kishnevi (6273ad) — 3/7/2008 @ 11:55 amWell said, Kishnevi.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:06 pmAll due respect to DRJ (love ya’) but I prefer kishnevi’s construction in #52.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:07 pmWe cross-posted, JD, and it seems we both agree Kishnevi said it best.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:08 pmjd – g.w.bush has done as much to promote intolerance through the consolidation of power as f.d.r has. in both instances, that consolidation of power has lead to the marginalization of the individual and the stifling of other points of view. you have already divorced yourself from the religious right and perhaps you consider g.w.b as part of that crowd. fair enough but your position actually helps to illustrate my point. just as you distinguish yourself from the religious right parallel distinctions must be made for the left otherwise we are lost in a discussion of semantics. i have known many on the left who are very open to varying perspectives and the freedom of expression and thought, just as i have known those who are not. the main point being intolerance is the real issues to be concerned with.
alonso (c6a0cd) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:09 pmOh for fucks sake. Why did I know that under the cover of “both sides do it”, some BDS was bound to leak out.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:10 pmI am intolerant of intolerance is the mantra of the folks at firedoglake.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:12 pmJD, the BDS fantasies are hilarious.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:12 pmalonso wrote: “jd – because the root of the problem is not ideology it is intolerance…”
Utter nonsense, alonso. The problem is indeed ideology – its the ideology that asserts the comically stupid idea that people have a right not to be offended.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:16 pmalonso, a good point…
Now, do what Patterico, et. al., have done here. Go forth and find ridiculous examples of intolerance from the right, like this one from the left. Show us those examples which have done like this one, to give us people from all over the spectrum, liberal and conservative, that think the example is a joke, and a real threat to our freedoms, like this one is.
When you do, I’ll be right next to you, like all the other conservatives here, in hammering that example, like we have here…
I’ll await your examples….
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:17 pmSPQR – I have been trying to be nice, but some BDS rant was as predictable as the sun setting in the West. He could have led off with “As a lifelong Republican prior to Bush” to make it complete.
The simple fact is that by any measure, when speech, ideas, thoughts, words, and deeds are IN REALITY being stifled, it is being done in the name of the sec progg PC crowd.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:18 pmalonso, if you were called to jury duty, would you be honest and tell the court during voir dire that you were incapable of rendering a judgment about the guilt of the defendant? I won’t even qualify the question (although I’m doing so now) by adding that the proof of guilt was beyond a reasonable doubt. Based on your comments here and in the New York bombing post, all you seem to do is to say that, since both sides “do it,” there can be no assessment of blame.
In this post, is the AA Officer in the wrong? Yes or No?
509th Bob (dfa1f1) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:18 pm(P.S.–There are rational arguments both for and against abortion rights, and evolution, which will be the first two things you will counter with in this discussion. My point is rational arguments, not irrational personal thoughts.)
The counter example I kept seeing come up in the VC thread last night was little old church ladies trying to get harry potter banned from school libraries. Which is of course silly, but not anywhere near as pernicious as the nonsense in this case.
Taltos (4dc0e8) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:26 pmspqr – there are those even on the right-wing who would impose there views because they find other points of view offensive. you are entitled to your opinion no matter how “comically stupid” it may be. i hope you express it when those you support, in your zeal to demonise the left, consider you to be an obstacle and put you against the wall. don’t worry though, they will probably shoot me first so you can release yourself of some of the anger and indignation you will be feeling by spitting on my corpse. after all, it appears you are more interested in throwing stones at someone you can marginalize than rooting out the problem.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:27 pmMichelle Obama, is that you?
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:37 pmHe said “Jehovah!”
Techie (ed20d9) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:38 pmHa! I hate it when people type “ROTFL” but since I had to climb back into my desk chair after Paul’s response, I’ll do it.
Even those old church ladies at least had *some* degree of reasoning going for them – since libraries DO have to decide what to spend taxpayer money on. But I happen to know a goodly share of elderly church ladies, and you could be reading The Satanic Bible in the break room and they might give you nasty looks, but they wouldn’t report you to the thought police.
Oops. Possible exception – if it was the church janitor they might.
Don (7321d7) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:41 pmAll I know is that all of the major universities are overrun with sensitivity courses and seminars about how to be more culturally sensitive to Christians, heterosexual men/women, whites, etc. It’s getting so bad that our dictatorial President has thrown each and every person, who spouts whichever conspiracy theory of the moment has just been posted at the Daily Kos, into a dungeon beneath the White House. Movies cannot be made because Cheney and Rove have replaced each and every “thinking” celebrity with a Stepford Wife automaton.
/I-think-you-see-my-point sarcasm
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:45 pmalonoso
Please give us a non-PC example of this from the right.
The rest of your rant was pure unadulterated projection. But, nice of you to strip off the false blanket of objectivity and go full-on BDS.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:46 pmif i’m working for your company, and i’m on my break time, and my constitutional rights are implicated, and you talk to me like a dutch uncle, i’m gonna sue your ass!
Which is why your job is in China or in Mexico.
nk (7b0075) — 3/7/2008 @ 12:56 pmalonso, you avoided the request from my post #62, on purpose, right?
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:00 pmbob – “both sides do it” is not a defense, it is a logical conclusion that seeks to identify the problem and not point the finger and lay blame to a whole group that may have nothing to do with the issue. i am not incapable of rendering a judgment of guilt as long as there is sufficient evidence to do so beyond a reasonable doubt. i have seen nothing in the case of the ny bombings that would give your statements any credence using that measure of evidence.innocent until proven guilty is still suppose to be the creed of our system of justice, or is that too left wing for you.
reff – i generally assume that everyone is capable of objective critical thought so i don’t think it’s necessary for me to run the fool’s errand of looking for examples. those who do not see the measures of intolerance from both sides beyond what i already have indicated, will only discount and rationalize any that i might point out. besides for me to go further along that path only gives credence to the red herring that seeks to create conflicts among ourselves and further obfuscate the issue.
as long as people pick ideologies like they are a team at the super bowl we will all lose. “my team right or wrong” may work for football but not in trying to uncover the truth. it takes no skills to parrot the party line. that only makes it easier to ignore the real problems. i am not left wing or right wing, i am an american and i will support or oppose each issue based on what i feel is right or wrong on an individual basis. the issue here is one of intolerance, freedom of thought and the rights of the individual in the face of ideologues of any kind. everything else becomes trivial.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:00 pmTaltos, thank you for making my point for alonso. Those would be the types of things I was referring to, the “arguments” of the left that the right is intolerant, because the right won’t agree with them that something is “offensive” or “lacks diversity.”
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:02 pmdamn, alonso…
I answered your post before you even responded.
Thanks for playing….do us all a favor and eat the red herring you brought up yourself, so that we can enjoy the view….
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:03 pmreff – i’m a vegetarian so you can eat that red herring yourself
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:07 pmI agree with JD: There needs to be a permanent moratorium on the “both sides do it” argument unless you can actually provide examples of the other side “doing it.”
alonso, we are waiting.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:07 pmSo alonso, your only response to my comment is to predict violence by “those I support”. That’s a brilliant response ( sarcasm for those not following closely ). Well, that after confusing the difference between intolerance and political correctness.
Robin Roberts (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:09 pmSpeaking of intolerance, alonso, I’m “intolerant” of those who confuse their dietary preferences with an identity.
Robin Roberts (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:10 pmMy apologies, the above two comments were incorrectly labeled and should have been marked as mine.
My fault.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:12 pmdamn, alonso,
Avoided the post again, and then choose to go hungry???
What a guy?
By the way, it’s your red herring, in case you missed it, that you chose to bring into the conversation by avoiding the point.
Not being a herring fan, and since I made your point for you in the abortion and evolution points, you obviously have nothing else to say…
Again, thanks for playing…and as for vegetables, eat all you please….I’ll have a big Cowboy cut ribeye, Pittsburg style, with grilled shrimp on the side….
reff (bff229) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:14 pmIt’s amazing how many times that the Left states that the people whose opinion differs from theirs will be putting people before firing squads when the people who have put people before literal (Marx, Stalin, Castro, etc.) and figurative firing squads (as seen in this article) come from the Left.
Paul (0f949e) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:17 pmThe ‘both sides do it’ argument excuse is exactly what squabbling kids resort to when they’ve been caught. Fingers pointing, ‘He did it first!’.
And it never negates responsibility.
Dana (b4a26c) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:22 pmok i will play your game one time even though i know it is a losing proposition because every on will read what they want to in it and the real issue will be lost. back in 2006 congressman keith elison (d) minnesota created a conservative uproar when he wanted to take his oath of office using the koran instead of the bible. personally i think he should use whatever book he believes in the bible, the torah (as many jewish members have), the constitution. an oath taken on a book that represents your beliefs is far more relevant than on a book you don’t believe in yet he was lambasted for being “unamerican” for wanting to do so. that seems pretty intolerant to me.
robin – i do not predict violence by those i support i choose my positions by that measure and i did not confuse my dietary preference with my identity. i made a joke following along the lines that reff laid out when he suggested i eat the red herring. it’s called humor, look it up.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:26 pmpaul – if you notice when i made the allusion to the firing squad it also included the notion that i would have been shot first.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:28 pmdana – i am sorry. i just realized the comment i made to robin about reff making the joke is another example of he did it first. i guess my ideas will be responsible for the fall of western civilization.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:33 pmp.s. robin – what i just said to dana was a joke too.
I call BS.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:40 pmjd – “I call BS.” i’m sure that position is relevant in your world view. obviously you only feel comfortable with imposing a label on me because it allows you to stand on the other side and point the finger of blame at me.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:43 pmalonso – Who was threatened with losing their job or livelihood as a result of Rep. Ellison’s choice? Nobody. Try again, douchenozzle.
You are really not very good at this. At least find a case where someone actually has their livelihood attempted to be taken away as a result of their thoughts, reading habits, ideas, or words. Pointing out that taking the Oath on a Koran is not right is fucking miles and miles away from the issue at hand.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:44 pmalonso, you wrote: “i hope you express it when those you support, in your zeal to demonise the left, consider you to be an obstacle and put you against the wall.”
That is predicting violence by those you claim that I support. It is just despicable namecalling devoid of argument and frankly I don’t find it funny.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:46 pmI am not blaming you, asshat. I am blaming your mindset, your inability to know that some things are wrong, and do not require some kind of left/right he did it/she did it bullshit moral equivalency. If you are incapable of knowing how anithetical to our society this lady’s actions were in the name of tolerance, affirmative action, and perceptions, then there is literally no hope for you.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:46 pmThe main critic of Keith Ellison swearing his congressional oath on a copy of the Koran that I can recall was Dennis Prager, a conservative radio talk show host. My recollection is that Prager later said he was wrong to criticize Ellison for that.
Certainly it was an example of intolerance, but not political correctness.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:55 pmjd – “douchenozzle” name calling. i am shocked that you have to lower the discussion to that level. i was only asked to provide an example of right wing intolerance, which i did. as far as ellison, real issues were ignored and his character defamed which would hamper his ability to protect peoples jobs and livelihood. those who would be content to apply the label “conservatives” were bitter after losing the election and all they had left was name calling. oh wow, i guess that’s your position also.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:55 pmspqr – it was more than prager go look it up. an apology after the fact is pretty useless once the damage is done.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:56 pmNot even 3 PST and JD is already into full curse/insult mode.
Must have been a tough week at the office.
voiceofreason2 (10af7e) — 3/7/2008 @ 1:58 pmjd – “asshat” still keeping your mind in the gutter, well i guess your comfortable there. what she did is unequivocally reprehensible, at no point have i offered any defense for her actions. quite to the contrary if you read my posts. i am just not comfortable with laying accusations at everyone on the left for her actions or even those of the university
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:02 pmI am not satisfied with your explanation, alonso. This is an instance where a man’s job was threatened by a PC-leftist on account of his chosen reading material, the nature of which any reasonable person would agree is benign. In comment 38, you said “I have seen both liberals and conservatives commit the offenses described.” You were then challenged to give us an instance of a conservative threatening to have someone fired from a job over their choice of reading material. Instead, you wander off onto a tangent where Dennis Prager complains about Keith Ellison. Ellison has chosen to be a public figure who serves at the electoral whims of his constituents, and criticism of the choices he makes for his swearing in may be tacky, but they are certainly part and parcel of being a politician. To pretend that his case is similar to Keith John Sampson’s is an insult to the serious consequences that Mr. Sampson faced, all because his choice of reading material caused an aggrieved minority group to whine.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:07 pmspqr – i didnt expect you to find it funny, it was not a joke. it’s just the path i believe that blindly following ideas leads to.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:08 pmjvw – again i never defended what sampson faced and IF YOU READ i condemned what happened to him. as far as what i was challenged to provide, i provided it only now that i have provided it you have added all sorts of modifications to the challenge. just what i predicted would happen, imagine that.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:12 pmOops – I forgot. salty language is bad. Racists.
JD (d5bd6e) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:15 pmalonso – give an example of a conservative attemtping to force a person out of their job because they were reading what they considered objectionable material. your moral equivalency fails miserably.
JD (d5bd6e) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:21 pmjd – the offences i was talking about was that of intolerance not of a specific situation, if you took the time to read my posts completely you would get that. if you can not see that then i guess you suffer from a moral ambiguity which you perpetuate because apparently you feel too uncomfortable to explore when it is held by those you wish to ally yourself to. and i do not speak of moral equivalency but of immoral equivalency. you just go ahead and sit in your cave contemplating the illusion that tolerance/intolerance and morality/immorality is a left/right issue. you should learn to look at individuals and not the groups that you choose to associate them with.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:31 pmalonso, we appear to be “talking” around each other. I didn’t never said you defended the actions of the AA office at IUPUI (if you read, and all that). What I pointed out is that you claimed that conservatives have also threatened people’s jobs over their choice of reading material. One last time, either provide an example or retract your assertion.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:32 pmjvw – you are right, i took the statement “is an insult to the serious consequences that Mr. Sampson faced” as an assumption that i felt that sampson situation was either justified or not serious, and i apologize for that. as far as my assertion, i stand by it, again i was commenting on intolerance not a specific situation and nobody has a monopoly on intolerance.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:39 pmAlonso,
paul from fl (47918a) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:39 pmC’mon man! This entire “ajudication of personal offense” Is a liberal leftist stratgem and you know it full well. The entitlement mentality follows it hand-in-hand to the Nirvana of Multi-cultural/Pluralism hoo-ha.
Were we to revert to our traditional American ideals, this issue would have been settled in the Supervisors office with each side listening to the other and the true nature of the text (and the true nature of he/she who is offended!) revealed.
However, as we are or prancing joyfully down the path of “ajudication of personal offense’ we end up with a new sub class of citizens, Non African Americans. Who do not have the rights that African Americans have.
As an American of Polish extraction whose people came to escape the Pogroms long after the abolition of slavery, I found “Roots” to be very offensive, along with the subsequent lumping of every Caucasian into the “Slave-Owner” role. Where is my re-dress?
Sigh. Your quote from 38:
to put the blame for this on liberals or progressives is completely unfair. i have seen both liberals and conservatives commit the offenses described. . .
The “offense[s] described” was reading a book that some PC-spouting idiots were too ignorant to understand. You claim that conservatives do this too; give us an example.
Yeah, I know you are trying to weasel out by saying that you meant “intolerance not of a specific situation,” and then you go on a discourse of the history of bad faith of the left and right. Here is what I am saying, and I think most of your antagonists are too: Thought control and censorship are most prevalent on college campuses, and college campuses are generally run by the left side of the political spectrum. Ergo, leftists are more likely to engage in this sort of behavior. Are you willing to concede the point yet?
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:39 pmMike Adams at Townhall had a series of columns in 2006, linked below, about a research librarian at Ohio State Mansfield who was asked to recommend so books for a freshman reading course. A gay professor took umbrage at the book selections and made an issue of them.
F.I.R.E. made note of the case at the fourth link below. The fifth link is a John Leo column about speech codes and political correctness posted at FIRE’s site.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2006/04/16/jf_buckley_intellectual_terrorist
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2006/04/18/the_intellectual_rape_of_scott_savage
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2006/04/20/it_aint_over_til_the_fat_lesbian_sings
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/6991.html?PHPSESSID=a19b9a61aee0731528ca70ede2dfce0d
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/7706.html?PHPSESSID=
daleyrocks (906622) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:41 pmWhoops, our posts are crossing again. I’ll concede the point that neither side of the ideological spectrum “has a monopoly on intolerance,” if you will concede that there are deep problems with thought control and censorship within the academic left, and a large part of it is due to the left’s monopolization of discourse on campuses.
It’s been fun, if exasperating, arguing with you, and I appreciate your gentlemanly demeanor in comment 105.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:45 pmok i will play this silly game one more time. senator eugene mccarthy, despite the fact he was a democrat he was an ultra conservative and anyone that even had the hint of left leanings was ostracized, marginalized and blacklisted. there’s your intolerance and loss of livlihood. (i am not defending democrats or republicans so no crying foul because you don’t like the example, there are plenty of conservative democrats)
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:45 pmHmmmm is Alonso referring to “Tailgunner” Joe McCarthy?
paul from fl (47918a) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:51 pmi will concede to problems with intolerance and thought control from the academic left but i would be surprised if one of the christian conservative universities would be so tolerant of some of the typical left positions either. also, once you get out of school the intolerance comes from everywhere so to focus solely on the schools is to take a myopic view of the real issue.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 2:54 pmpaul – i am an american by cuban decent so the indignant polish minority angle does not work with me. i never justified that anyone was offended. i think too many people are too easily offended in this day and age and that part of the rights/responsibilities of being an american is that we have to shrug off this fallacy that you have a right not to be offended. freedom of speech/thought automatically carries with it the consequence that we will inevitably be offended. our rights end where the other guys nose begins not where his pride does.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:03 pmWell, Baylor University may not want to let you dance or drink, but I doubt if they would threaten to fire a janitor who was caught reading Noam Chomsky.
Besides, there is a significant difference to be made between a private university (like BYU on the right, or Brown on the left) and a public university like IUPUI. The latter has much more of an obligation to be reasonable.
JVW (85f15c) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:04 pmI wrote about this on my blog as well: http://agentintellect.blogspot.com/2008/03/bias-fear.html
Tragic Clown Dog (c81cc7) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:07 pmjvw – well “i would be surprised” and you “doubt” so we are both just spitting in the wind at this point and neither of us really knows.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:07 pmalonso – When you enroll in a Christian conservative university, don’t you think you do so for a reason and have some sort of expectations as to what is in store for you?
daleyrocks (906622) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:13 pmdaleyrocks – so that intolerance is acceptable? when i read the new testament i see nothing that justifies intolerance. quite the opposite as a matter of fact. should i not expect that the core values are based on the teachings of jesus and not some political agenda?
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:19 pmI still think that alonso is confused about a couple of things.
First of all, the key issue in this event is not really even that the janitor was reading something actually offensive. The hilarious part here is that the affirmative action office held the janitor responsible for the other employee’s mistaken offense. Further, the larger issue is that of political correctness not “intolerance”. That is where alonso gets confused because he brings up lame examples not of political correctness but simple intolerance.
And they are two different things.
Here we see the evidence of the abandonment of the mission of an affirmative action office to ensure equal opportunity ( the mission of fighting actual intolerance ) and the replacement of that with the mission of providing a forum for grievance theater – that is political correctness.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:20 pmspqr – you choose to see only the problem with political correctness, if we work on that we are still left with the problem of intolerance. i on the other hand choose to see the problem of intolerance, when we are done with that there will be no more issues of political correctness. in my opinion, your vision is far too limited.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:25 pmalonso – I think you need to define your terms. What “intolerance” do you see at a conservative Christian university? I did not claim to accept any, those were your words.
I would certainly expect many of the rules in the student handbook to be somewhat different at such an institution than at a public university, but I don’t know what you mean by intolerance.
daleyrocks (906622) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:34 pmdaleyrocks – ok now i have to talk with using assumptions based on my high school experience (i went to a catholic jesuit school that originated in cuba and was subsequently transplanted here) because i never went to a christian university so i can’t honestly speak of that kind of a university with any real authority, but if i had tried to start a club in support of renewing trade relations with cuba i would have been lambasted, harassed and probably suspended as a nuisance. the issue would have nothing to do with the schools religion but of it’s politics. so if you went to a christian university maybe you could share your experiences. if not, you can’t honestly speak of any accuracy either.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:50 pmNo, alonso, besides misrepresenting the opinions of those you disagree with, you are simply confused.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:52 pmalonso appears to think that intolerance and disagreeing with a position are equivalent. Yiu disagreed with me, so tou must be intolerant kind of touchy feely hoo ha. He is attempting to divert from a concrete example of left lib actual intolerance, coupled with a halthy dash of thought policing based on BS greivances, to his idea of intolerance, disagreeing with him.
JD (8fd56a) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:54 pmalonso, how is telling us your speculation of what you think might have happened if you had done something sharing an experience? You did not share an experience, you shared a fantasy.
More confusion.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:55 pmspqr – in my opinion you should apply that comment (122) to yourself
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 3:55 pmalonso – I get it. You are just making things up as you go. Thanks for playing.
daleyrocks (906622) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:03 pmjd – how have i supported the thought police? i am opposed to the actions taken by the university. i think that even if the book was pro kkk sampson has a right to read it wherever he wants. i think that part of being american is to accept that other peoples thoughts and words may be offensive and it must be accepted as that persons right. i have tried to steer away from wholesale accusations of a particular group and applied them to everyone and in so doing am encouraging critical thinking.
spqr – well i could have held the fact that i was speculating back to strengthen my point but that wouldn’t be right. i prefaced what i wrote as a matter of intellectual honesty. i speak of what i experienced. i don’t have to drop a ball before i know the direction it would take is down. unless of course i am in outer space but then maybe that’s where your from. speculation is not necessarily fantasy but if you’ve had experiences in a christian university, please share them. i am waiting to be enlightened by your experiences. if not then you are just speculating based on your own experiences as well.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:09 pmdaleyrocks – i have made nothing up but i’m guessing nothing short of inviting you over to my house so we can go through my yearbook and my diploma will convince you. thank you for playing.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:12 pmSPQR–I’ve lived in South Florida for forty years. I can even make a guess at which school Alonso attended, and while I can’t guarantee the suspension, I can assure you that in the Cuban exile community lambasting and harrassment used to the usual fate for anyone who deviated from the (exile) party line, and sometimes worse. Museums have been bombed because they dared to show artwork created by people who were living under Castro; mobs and quasi riots would occassionally pop up (such as during the early days of the Elian Gonzalez affair); all in all a level of vehemence that is very unusual in US politics was a regular feature of life up until a few years ago. (The Passion of St. Elian was probably the last great flare up. And there would be more than a few Cubans who say that was a good name for the whole thing.) And almost invariably they were, in US terms, conservatives/Republicans because of their mililtant anti-communism and traditionalist Catholicism. There are two reasons it is disappearing: first, the older Cuban community, the original exiles, is dying off, and the younger Cubans and more recent emigrants often think differently (like Alonso); second the Cubans are becoming a much smaller part of the overall Hispanic community here. But the militant anti Castro/pro embargo element is still fairly strong here, and Tancredo’s jibe that Miami is a banana republic is only slightly exaggerated.
So Alonso’s experience is colored by a flavor of conservatism that is more violent in expression and sometimes in action that what most of the rest of us are used to.
Alonso–was it Belen?
kishnevi (a6ffde) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:28 pmkishnevi – yes it was belen. just one minor correction, i am not an immigrant, my parents where, i was born here. otherwise you are completely correct. your accuracy makes me wonder if you went there too. if not, i must compliment you on how perceptive you are.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:35 pmAlonso,
I don’t know if Kishnevi was there or not but I guarantee you he is perceptive and intelligent.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/7/2008 @ 4:51 pmalonso – I am not questioning your hign school. You have yet to present specific examples of right wing intolerance when requested, whether at a Christian university or elsewhere. They don’t even have to be from personal experience. The only reasonable conclusion is that they exist in your mind or you are making them up. I am happy to be convinced otherwise. You have not done a job of it so far. All you do is evade.
Thanks for playing.
daleyrocks (906622) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:17 pmAlonso has a perfectly valid point. The political spectrum bends in a circle and you get to fascism from the left and the right. Resisting intolerance is resisting political correctness (or vice versa). It may have been a tad off topic but so what? No need to get all offended about it.
EdWood (911c25) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:17 pmAlonso, you’re confusing belief with what is believed. You’re apparently doing so in order to avoid judging anyone, or anyone’s beliefs.
I don’t quite understand that impulse; the Founders strongly believed in Liberty, to the point of being willing to sacrifice their lives in its pursuit. We’re they wrong to have such strong beliefs?
The Abolitionists were intolerant of slavery, and the passion of their beliefs changed the course of American history, leading to a war that killed more Americans than any other. It also happened to end slavery in the US. Were they wrong to be so passionate in their beliefs?
Surely, there are people who are fervent about bad ideas. But it’s not their ardor that’s the problem, it’s the ideas.
Rob Crawford (8578d9) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:38 pmNo, despite alonso’s repetition, intolerance and political correctness are not equivalent.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:39 pmResisting intolerance is resisting political correctness
They really are not the same thing, and as I type that, I note that SPQR just said the same thing.
From the beginning, alonso has conflated PC with intolerance, and then redefined intolerance as those that do not share his perspective, or those that criticize others. Criticism is not intolerance either.
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:42 pmdaleyrocks – before you jumped in i gave the example of senator eugene mccarthy (post 109). if that is not a good enough example for you, nothing ever will be and i’m not going to waste my time trying.
edwood – yes, you get it. thank you for speaking up. i am just trying to get people to be a little more critical in there examination of the issues rather than just bitching about it being “the left”. it is impossible to find the solution to any problem without looking at the whole picture. yet the attitude that seems to come through is that “the right” can do no wrong. i am not trying to deflect the blame from “the left”, quite the contrary, i acknowledge that there are definite flaws there but if we are going to find solutions we must look at “the right” as well. “my side” can do no wrong will leave us in the same place we already are only with a different perpetrator.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:47 pmI guess it’s how you are looking at it. If you see intolerance as an encroachment on the whole idea of “live and let live” then it is. Or if you see resisting intolerance or PC as a way of resisting socially (or legally)forced comformity to an idealogy, religion, or mode of speaking/acting then it is.
I don’t think Alonso was advocating any touchy feely stay-open-minded-till-your-brains-fall-out kind of tolerance. He was mostly saying listen to the ideas of people you disagree with. It makes you smarter.
There are plenty of other ways to look at intolerance. Rob Crawford’s perspective is a great one.
EdWood (cceb3b) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:52 pmI meant my last comment as a response to #135
EdWood (cceb3b) — 3/7/2008 @ 5:54 pmSPQR–As far as I am concerned, political correctness is intolerance done in the name of leftist ideology. I think we would agree that the instance of political correctness which this post is about is exactly that–intolerance meant to enforce leftist ideology. PC is just a subspecies of intolerance.
Alonso–Did not go to Belen, or any school in Dade County. But I’ve lived and worked in the south Broward County/north Dade county area since I was nine (not counting time spent at university in Georgia and north Florida). That’s almost four decades worth of observing all the ins and outs of Miami politics.
DRJ–your flattery is greatly appreciated 🙂
kishnevi (da26af) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:16 pmjd and anyone else who wishes to accuse me of of siding with political correctness – at no point have i accused anyone here of being intolerant. at no point have i defended political correctness. yes i have fused intolerance with political correctness because i see them as related with intolerance being the umbrella that contains political correctness. i have never said criticism was intolerance, quite the opposite, i have repeatedly stated here that part of being an american is accepting that we all will some day be offended because everyone has a right to express their opinion and believe what they want. we live in a pluralist society and it is inevitable as mores, customs and ideologies collide that there will be conflicts of thought and philosophy. my position affirms the right to dissent from any side, (right, left or in between) and i will be opposed to anyone (right, left or in between) who tries do that in any form. racists have the right to be racist, bigots have the right to be bigoted, chauvinists have the right to be chauvinist,xenophobes have the right to be xenophobic, feminists have the right to be feminist, conservatives have the right to be conservative and liberals have the right to be liberal. i have/will never support anyone that does not respect that except to say that they have a right to their intolerant beliefs and not to impose them in any codified form.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:19 pmalonso – thank you for you patient and generally cogent replies to the commenters here.
Is PC thought control a proper subset of “intolerance” as you suggest? I think not. Political Correctness is a rigid orthodoxy that is used as club on anybody who does not toe the party line.
Intolerance may be a necessary precondition for PC, but one can be intolerant without being PC or having inclinations toward forcing your views on others.
In fact, a certain amount of intolerance is a good thing. There are plenty of subjects that I will not allow to be discussed in my presence – but that’s why my feet are so handy, they can move me out of range. There is no way that I wish to become so tolerant of every nasty opinion out there that I will accept them as being as valuable as my own (which are always just a hairs-breadth from Universal Truths of course).
Being lactose-intolerant does not mean that I must stop my neighbor from eating cheese; I only need leave when they insist on cutting it in my presence.
JSinAZ (5fbdba) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:27 pmjust to clarify post 141, my listing of examples at the end of my post was in no way an accusation that anyone here is any of those things. choose the labels you wish to identify yourself and i will defend your right to do so while at the same time trying to resist the labels others would try to impose on me.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:31 pmSenator McCarthy seems to have some defenders today, with proof.
As to alonso’s refusal to answer the simple “yes or no” question, I would *judge* him as being unsuitable as a juror in any criminal trial jury that I would have to choose from. The entire “moral equivalence” context is pure horse-crap. There ARE moral choices to be made. It does NOT matter whether a bomber is “left” or “right” wing, all that matters is that there was an ideological-inspired bombing.
I am the son of left-leaning Central American father (not Cuba). I have absolutely no sympathy for a Cuban son-of-exile. Alonso, you are entitled to your world-view (this is America, as Gringo as it is). Why do you FAIL to recognize that others have a different world-view? Is it that you, like Fidel, and now Raul, wish to impose YOUR world-view on the rest of us at the point of a gun-barrel, that a free expression of beliefs poses a threat to your desired little tyrannical ego-model of the world?
By the way, alonso, you never answered my question. Was the Affirmative Action (i.e., Approved Thought Police) Officer right or wrong? Answer, you coward, and justify your answer.
509th Bob (056d31) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:34 pm‘Cept they ain’t the same thing, no matter how many times you try to explain it.
Intolerance and not agreeing with alonso are not the same thing either. Criticism of a person or idea is not intolerance.
When did tolerance, in and of itself become a value? There are things that should not be tolerated.
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:35 pmThey said if GWB won the 2004 election that students would be made to appear before tribunals who objected to learning about efforts to suppress evil white suppressors, such as the KKK.
They were right.
Ed (8166cd) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:41 pmjsinaz – i agree that intolerance does not necessarily mean political correctness but i firmly believe that political correctness cannot exist without intolerance, and while a little intolerance may or may not be a good thing (i will not debate that fact), it is codified intolerance or intolerance that has been incorporated into the system that i feel is unacceptable. if that was not clear from my previous posts then i am making it clear now. if we deal with intolerance on that level we will not only do away with political correctness, we will have insured ourselves of a system that respects the right of the individual to believe/express what they want regardless of the majority. i will concede that being lactose intolerant you should not eat cheese and you have every right to walk away when you neighbor is cutting it, but i will also add unless he is doing it in your home (where you have the right to kick him out) your neighbor has every right to cut the cheese regardless of your presence.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:45 pmWhere can one find this if not in speech codes, diversity offices, etc … Is there an office of anti-liberalism somewhere that I have not yet heard about? The simple fact is that the codification of a person’s right to not be offended, or in this case, the right to not be smart enough to know that they should not be offended – these ideas originate in liberalism.
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:53 pm509th Bob – i never saw your previous post but i have answered the question of my position of of the affirmative action officers actions repeatedly. but so it’s real crystal clear for you, no that person was completely wrong. i am not trying to impose my world view i am merely asserting the fact that everyone has the right to there own world view and we should examine before we make judgments or assumptions about any individual.calling me a coward does nothing to strengthen your point, it actually only serves to demean yourself as you have no idea what i may or may not have faced or done but i’m sure it made you feel good.
Rob Crawford – yes, opposition to slavery was a good thing but it that opposition was in defense of a group of people whose right to freedom was denied. the slave holders had every right to believe slavery was justified, they just had no right to impose that belief on a group of people who undoubtedly would have believed otherwise.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 6:57 pmjd – it just doesn’t exist exclusively within the ideas of liberalism.
and with that i bid you all a fond farewell it is time for me to make dinner and i no longer have the time to continue pontificating with all of you. you are entitled to your opinion as i am of mine and i will defend your right to have and express it whether or not you will defend mine. i know i have convinced no one who has expressed views contrary to mine but hopefully those who come to read all of this after the fact will be provoked into some critical thinking and a broader view.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:05 pm#147 – Yes, he has the right to cut his own cheese. I also have the right (in my view, duty) to point-out in as convincing a manner as I can that by doing so he makes it clear how nasty and smelly he is to all who would listen.
And PC would gag my protests, which is much more offensive than his gag-making offense. And that is something that I simply won’t tolerate.
JSinAZ (4a9d9c) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:09 pmWe have debated this topic with you for over 9 hours so far today, so to suggest that anyone here would not defend your right to express your opinion is a wee bit disingenuous, no?
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:12 pmalsonso – Then show us where it exists outside of liberalism.
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:13 pmjd – i never said you would not defend it, i merely said i would defend you right whether or not you would defend mine. i do not know who here would or would not defend my right, to make that assumption about a group of people whom i do not know and have not stated an opinion on way or anouther would run contrary to everything i have stated and believe. i only made that statement because i have been accused several times of endorsing tyrannical views (example 509th Bob throwing me in with fidel and raul) which i have not done at any point within this conversation.
and now it really is goodbye. i am hungry and for me in the ET it is late. i just couldn’t let that last misrepresentation go unanswered.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:23 pmYou complained upthread about these discussion devolving into semantics, but now you want to play words games and hide behind “I didn’t explicitly say that, but anyone with an IQ over 23 would take that from what you said. You stated that you would do so without question, but that you were uncertain of the rest of us.
JD (626b4c) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:34 pmalonso never did respond to my original request for something anywhere similar to this event…as pointed out by others besides me….
But, he spent the rest of the day with a couple of examples of how Democrats did it to themselves, or about how religious acts were done (which I said happen in the first of the posts I did) that point out the fact that extremes are there…
This act that begins this string is not an “extreme.” Quite the opposite, it happens too much, as my own personal experience shows….
reff (59b2ad) — 3/7/2008 @ 7:49 pmI am glad that alonso was willing to “pick and choose” between some AAO who was willing to impose his/her politically correct viewpoint on a person’s willing choice to read a book about the fight against the Klan, and the janitor’s (who is seeking a degree) choice of (purely P.C. correctness) reading material. But, given his (alonso’s) absolute “moral equivalence” stance, I give little credence to it. There are circumstances in life where one is called to say this is “right or wrong.” [I confess, I’m a prosecutor.]
I have previously expressed my belief that Patterico was morally “right,” notwithstanding my snarky commentary about his use of “Hitler.” But alonso’s refusal to accept the REALITY of the danger posed by his moral equivalence arguments cannot be ignored. By his argument, I should be EXCUSED, like the UNABOMBER, in conducting an assassination program against left-wing [ahem!] persons, since certain right-wing persons [say, Timothy McVeigh, prosecuted and put to death by the U.S. Government, thank you very much] have engaged in equally-reprehensible criminal activity.
I refuse to do so. Criminals are Criminals, no matter what their ideology. I will happily continue to support their prosecution. I just hope, as I have unfortunately experienced in the past, that I will avoid having a loser like alonso be included within the jury pool appear within the people I have to pick, as a prosecutor, as a jury member.
And, if alonso happens to catch this blog before it disappears, unlike him, I, personally, have prosecuted neo-Nazi murderers who have sought to impose their vile “ideas” upon the rest of us. When alonso steps up to that stature, I will tolerate to listen to his idiotic blathering. Otherwise, I would recommend that his posting privileges on this blog be revoked.
alonso, provide your bona fides!
509th Bob (056d31) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:12 pmOh? I forgot to mention that he never answered the question about whether he would honestly inform a judge that he was incapable of adjudging guilt due to his “morally equivalence” standard.
509th Bob (056d31) — 3/7/2008 @ 8:44 pmunlike him, I, personally, have prosecuted neo-Nazi murderers who have sought to impose their vile “ideas” upon the rest of us…..
Ah, so you agree with Alonso that there is a right wing PC that won’t get you fired from your job but will get your teeth kicked in. Thanks for providing and excellent example of right wing PC at work Bob.
EdWood (de441c) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:01 pmThe right wing pc is not you of course Bob, its the Neo-nazi murderers.
EdWood (de441c) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:03 pm….man I don’t do this gotcha thing nearly as good as Daley Rocks does…
Nope, Ed, you don’t.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:07 pmThe neo-Nazi murderers killed a husband, wife, and 8-year-old girl by suffocating them to death with their heads wrapped in plastic bags. According to the forensic pathologists, the died anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes upon being so wrapped. I do not apologize in any way, shape, or form for prosecuting such murderers (there were two other murders that the jury did not find them guilty of). Quite frankly, if the murderers had simply shot the victims in the head, their suffering would have far less acute.
As for “left-wing” politically correct murders, would you be interested in crack-smoking murderers who feared that someone ate the “big piece of chicken”? Totally race-neutral. Still a murder. Would *this* assuage your sense of political correctness, Ed Wood? Seen those, done that. Have you?
Murder is Murder. Period. Bombing (in New York Times Square) is bombing. I don’t give a flying F*** why somebody does what they do, only that that they did it. I give no mercy to right-wing criminals, nor left-wing criminals. What about you, Ed Wood? Are prosecutors supposed to strengthen or lessen their enforcement of law to *fit” the political views of the defendant? I don’t *buy* that. As a representative of the Government, I cannot and will not *buy* that. If a drug dealer is murdered, no matter what I personally think of him, I still have a duty to prosecute his murderer for Murder.
I invite you to think about your *duty* as a potential juror if you are ever confronted with making such a decision, and to cast aside your political views (if you can) and to weigh the merits of a case ON THE MERITS!
And, for what it’s worth, I personally and professionally took GREAT pride in being able to hammer the asses of two particularly scum-bag murderers in a death penalty trial. It is not easy to *live* with that, but there are people who have proven themselves worthy of the ultimate penalty.
I, by the way, am a Right-Wing Conservative. If I was going to exercise a political ax-to-grind, then by Daily Kos standards, I should have thrown the case so that the neo-Nazi bastards would have been acquitted. I refused to do so then, and I refuse to do so now. Thank God you that are not a prosecutor who is called upon to enforce the law.
509th Bob (056d31) — 3/7/2008 @ 9:46 pmSPQR- yep. I’ll leave that game to DRocks from now on.
Bob
I didnt attack your bona fides nor did I attack your integrity in prosecuting murderers. I thanked you for providing an example, and I think a good one, of a right wing type of PC that other commenters have been insisting should be provided. I think neo-nazis are a great example of right wing pc at work. I ruined my point by being an asshat about it.
I respect and admire the people, like you, who protect us from criminals. But if you think that alonso or me are confusing tolerating other races or political points of view with tolerating violent criminals you didn’t read anything we wrote very carefully, or you weren’t listening since you had already made up your mind. Nobody said anything about unlimited tolerance.
It sounds like you are equating unacceptable tolerance of certain groups with first amendment rights for people like neo-nazis to exist/hold rallies etc. and would like them disbanded with predjudice. OK. I cant say I necessarily disagree with the idea. But who chooses which groups? Principled people favor banning certain evil ideas because they know that they will do the right thing. But the problem is that other people wont do the right thing. They will want to disband groups or ideas that are in their way. Or they will game the system.
PC is a case in point. It probably seemed like a good thing at first to set up a way to deal with people being isolated and bullied at their workplace. Now its just another system that people game and it drives everyone nuts and restricts their freedom.
EdWood (de441c) — 3/7/2008 @ 10:28 pmI admire your candor in acknowledging that you’d been an asshat about it, but quite frankly, I don’t think the underlying point was a very good one.
First, characterizing a bunch of street thugs as “right-wing” is self-serving and lame. How many neo-nazis are running for office on the Republican (or any other) ticket? You seem to be arguing, in effect, “I don’t like right-wingers, and I don’t like you, therefore, you are a right-winger.” I suppose two can play that game, by declaring most other gangs as “left-wingers,” but there wouldn’t be much of a point in that, except to show how silly yours was.
Second, even if we assume the validity of the “right-wing” label as applied to a gang of thugs with no power in government, corporate America, or anything else except a little gang turf, so what? Intolerances and excesses by one group do not justify similar intolerances or excesses by another. A “friend” of mine in college read Mein Kampf in the original German and said Hitler complained at length about the human rights excesses of the communists. If in fact he did (I never read the book myself, so I don’t know), then Hitler was probably right about their abuses. That doesn’t make Hitler himself look one iota better; it just makes him everything bad that you’ve heard he was, and a hypocrite, to boot.
Xrlq (62cad4) — 3/8/2008 @ 8:16 amthought i would see the final commentaries before i went to work.
509th Bob – i really don’t get you. you put words in my mouth, you call me names and then you make my points.
you wrongly accuse me
and then propose i should be silenced from this blog
despite the fact that i have been civil and tried to make my arguments with ideas and not epithets and defended the right of everyone (including you) to have a differing opinion. something which you sadly have not reciprocated. it is my opinion that people who use name calling to make their arguments don’t really understand or the believe the arguments they profess and so resort to a form of verbal bullying to try and silence the person they disagree with. i never supported anyone committing any crime. my comments about the bombing related to the hastening to judgment of who the perpetrators are. the comments i read indicated a rush to judgment that is not substantiated by any evidence. being against the war is not a left/right issue there are people on both sides who oppose it. i used myself as an example as someone who is against the war yet finds the reckless endangerment committed by the bomber to be reprehensible.i have no sympathy for kaczynski, mcveigh or your neo-nazis. they chose violence to make their argument, which i consider to be the last refuge of the bully who can’t make his argument. the only person i offered support for (in the ny bombing blog) was richard jewell who was wrongfully accused of the olympics bombing and defamed when he should have been honored as a hero for the lives he saved. i did say (in this blog) that even if sampson was reading a pro nazi book it wouldn’t make a difference but that is because i believe you can’t make a judgment of anybody based on reading material.(i thought government staying out of peoples business was a conservative principle)as far as post 159, i answered that back in post 74. i have no problem laying judgment, i just have a problem laying judgment based on ideology, which apparently you dont disagree with.
you accuse me of “picking and choosing” but i did nothing of the sort, quite the opposite. i indicated that the actions of the AAO were out of line from the very beginning. one of the reasons my comments have drawn such response is because of my insistence to holding both sides to account for imposing intolerance instead of just looking at the left. your accuse me of moral equivalency when the closest thing i said to that was of an immoral equivalency. my choice of words was quite deliberate. i chose the word immoral because it indicates that something is wrong, and if something is wrong we correct it. i firmly believe in justice but i believe in justice blind to everything but the relevant facts. (hint – that’s why lady justice is blind folded as she’s holding the scales.) the crime your neo-nazis committed is not in being neo-nazis but in being murderers. what really concerns me is that you are a prosecutor. i hope you take more care in analyzing your cases and presenting your arguments than you do here. as for my bona fides i will not present them to you. not because i don’t have them but because your lack of respect, accusations, your name calling and your apparent lack of interest in actually reading what i wrote. i have nothing to prove to you and have no desire to even try which i suspect will ire you greatly but i’m sure you’ll get over it…in time.
reff – i did respond to you but you apparently live in a world where all democrats are liberals and all republicans are conservatives, which means we will find no common ground because i will not put myself in a position where i am defending the democrats (or the republicans for that matter). as far as i’m concerned, they have both betrayed their membership and the principles they attribute to themselves quite some time ago. you are stuck in a paradigm that i don’t accept as valid.
jd – the fact is you read more in my words than is there. like i said before, i made my statement in response to the accusations and misrepresentations that were hurled at me earlier. despite what you may think, i am not left wing or right wing. some of the things i support are considered conservative other things are liberal. to me, i’m just supporting the things that make sense to me
and with that i give what is probably my last good bye. i came across this blog as a result of a google search and just thought i’d offer my 2 cents as i cruised on through, but i unfortunately do not have the time to be sitting around all day having cyber discussions on a regular basis. yesterday was a luxury i generally do not have (and probably should not have taken) but i do enjoy a good discussion. to those who showed support, i thank you and offer my best wishes as i think you probably have your hands full with this crowd. to those who showed respect while sharing their disagreements i commend and thank you as well. and to everyone else, your probably glad to see me go but i would counter that my presence here helped inspire an exchange far more interesting than if the comments were merely a cheering section for some idea or the inane name calling i have seen in other blogs. and so now, until chance and the next google search bring me here, i bid thee all farewell and offer the last word to whoever out their wants to have it. i am sure someone out there will want to take it.
alonso (75ae09) — 3/8/2008 @ 8:48 amcya
Don (7321d7) — 3/8/2008 @ 9:15 am