Third Party & Independents: Archives

Well Bob,
Except for your pronouncment that a social safety net meant that capitalism was abolished in the sixties, the racist belief that blacks have more rights than whites (I’ve never been arrested for driving while black), or that discrimination in employment is okey dokey, I agree with you. I do seem to remember someone saying somewhere that all men were created with certain inalienable rights. I do wonder if congress will ever declare a war on terror, or drugs, or poverty,or whatever the next thing our warrior culture comes up with.

P.S. I find it curious, now that we’re in the business of nation building, that we are ignoring the genocide occuring in the Sudan when only a few days ago everyone was wringing their collective hands over the aniversary of the Rwandan slaughter. Guess we just have our hands a little full now. So much for conpassionate conservatism.

Greg: Opposition to the current form of affirmative action doesn’t make me a racist. I have seen the abuses I described so many times I have run out of fingers and toes to count them on. I believe in equality in the work place. I also do not assert that racisms in general does not exist. It does exist and I have seen it. Racism is not a good thing, but neither is abuse of the affirmative action program.

Opposition to affirmative action is certainly not a racist position, but I suspect Greg was talking more about:

In the strangest twist of fate in the history of our country, black people now have more rights that white.

More rights? Hardly.

Ceejayoz: Ok, I will put some qualifiers in. Within the context of available grievance paths accessible to the average worker, a minority individual has more rights that a non-minority. If you are a white male and your employer/supervisor is verbally abusive you have no real recourse. If you are a minority you can very successfully take him to task for such behavior by filing an EEO complaint. If your work habits are less than industrious and your employer/supervisor takes you to task for that behavior, then a minority employee can file a harassment complaint. A non-minority employee has no such option.

Bob,

I will grant you that people abuse the EEOC rules from time to time and that affirmative action may from time to time promote people that have not really earned that spot, however that does not make a trend.

You’re acknowledgement that racism exists belies the logic of your conclusions. I have worked in the south for 25 years, in particular Texas. I personally have worked for several employers that have espoused privately to me that they would not hire blacks, use racist epitaphs, and have harrassed women in their employ. They usually do not suffer the consequences of an EEOC action.

Certainly, there are abuses of affirmative action but there are still plenty of advantages to being a white male. Until you recognize that, my friend, your thinking IS racist.

Greg: My personnel work experience has been the opposite of yours. I am willing to acknowledge that what you are reporting has occurred. How about giving me the same courtesy.

Here’s a thought experiment: If you were going to born tomorrow in America and could pick your race, would you choose to black or white? I assume Bob would black so that he could be lazy at work and not get fired.

Here’s a thought experiment regarding which racial group has greater “rights”: If you were going to be born tomorrow in America and could pick your race, would you choose to be black or white? I assume Bob would choose black so that he could be lazy at work and not get fired.

Good points Greg… this myth of the white male as the great victim of our time is getting tiresome. The other day I actually had someone insisting that “the reverse racism of affirmative action has done far more to damage race relations than real racism.” Yes, someone actually said that.

On topic, I think we’re just witnessing one of the known negatives of representative democracy; consistency and beliefs mean nothing, votes mean everything. Amnesty for immigrants may be against the conservative party platform, but if it can tilt the opinions of legitimate Spanish-speaking voters in the swing states then it becomes a political expediency. Massive, massive deficit spending lets you buy a little something for every special interest group… now you can have upper class tax cuts, wars, education bills, healthcare for seniors, increased national security, everything! It’s a sure-fire strategy for votes across the board, and no one will notice the massive hemorrhaging for years. By that time whoever’s the sitting president will be blamed.

Rove and his gang are gambling. He’s confident his broad strategy of covering all bases (by violating core tenets of conservative belief) still won’t alienate Bush’s constituency, because the alternative is Kerry. He’s probably right. Unfortunately most people don’t believe that voting 3rd party is a viable option.

So many areas to dive into, so little bandwidth to expend in the many endeavors. Hmmm. Maybe if I put it in outline form:

I. Affirmative Action. It’s a two-edged sword where a cunning black individual could indeed extort some prime concessions from an employer, but all of that can come at an extreme social cost as all the co-workers snicker behind their backs at the man who “couldn’t get a job on his own abilities and had to be crutched into it”. The avoidance of that snickering places an even HIGHER standard on self-respecting people of color to make sure that it will be baseless. Others will, tragically, feed into the very stereotype that keeps a plexiglass ceiling over their heads, socially, and act out in exactly the way the scared white people predicted they would. Bottom line is this: if you want people to be colorblind, YOU have to be colorblind. To the extent that black people can do this, they will get increased racial tolerance in return. To the extent that they back-slide into their form of racism, it will be met with the same. For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. It’s not just for physics anymore.

II. Socialism. The long and short of it is that the 19th century taught us that pure Capitalism will burn our society like hellfire; and the 20th century taught us that pure Socialism will set our society in cement and roll us into the lake. What some are beginning to realize is that Capitalism is fuel, and Socialism is an engine block. On their own you either get burned or go nowhere, but engineered into the right combination you can have a remarkably effective vehicle for going forward. One of the keys is to know which industries belong in a “justice” category, and which belong in a “commercial” category. Criminal trials ought not be up to the highest bidder; and government agencies shouldn’t be deciding who gets to buy the biggest house. This isn’t brain surgery here.

III. Confused politics of “left” and “right”. Political thought is three-dimensional, but a two-party system is one-dimensional. Distortion of political thought between ballot box and Congressional Committee is the only likely outcome in a scenario like ours, and it’s really no wonder that politicians represent a grotesque and unflattering charicature of what the American people really are.

IV: Patriot Act. We’ve recently had the “blessing” of knowing that 9/11 could have been prevented even without the spying authority accorded to law enforcement by the Patriot Act (and by the more draconian interpretations of foregoing criminal law precedent in more recent court decisions). Specifically, if John O’Neill’s career hadn’t been duct-taped to the tree by petty rivals and career-climbers in the FBI and State Department bureaucracies, it’s a good chance he could have rolled up Bin Laden and made Clinton a hero on HIS watch, rather than get fired and make Bush like like an idiot on that latter watch. No Patriot Act required there—just for agents and ambassadors to ACT like PATRIOTS. Perhaps there is more of a sense of urgency among current day agents and ambassadors. One can hope.

V. “New World Order”. If I hear that one more time I swear I will put a kaffiyeh on my own head, convert to Islam and go make my own play for the 72 virgins just out of exasperation with the conspiracy nut-cases. ENOUGH of that already. If you want to pundit your way through global politics, it breaks down into four main blocs:

1. American bloc
2. European bloc
3. Islamic bloc
4. “Non-aligned nations” bloc

#1 is rapidly shrinking to ONLY the U.S.
#2 is rapidly growing, replacing what used to be #1
#3 has always hated us and always will. Absent any genocide on our part or theirs, in the most peaceful scenario we will just continue to sneer at each other, arrogantly.
#4 just wants to be left alone and survive in their own ways.

But overall, there is NOTHING new on the scene here, NO power has the world in sway, and nothing about it resembles “order”. If anything what we’ve got here is “old regional chaos”.

Ciggy: The “new world order” comment was meant as sarcasm. I’ll try and remember to put a ; ) at the end next time.

Okay listen up!!!!

Affirmative action is little more than a serving suggestion in small businesses you stoopid conservatistas! There are no mandates and no quotas and never freakin’ were!!!!

“But…but Rush Blow-hole said there were?” Well there aren’t and rarely ever were there any such government mandates on hiring practices in growing businesses.

I’ll say it again, there never were any quotas, there never were any hiring mandates! The only place there has ever been such dictums are in big corporations not in small businesses.

I know numerous other business owners with relatively large companies and they have never been told to hire by race and many of those companies were established during times when supposed “Quotas” were in place.

If there were conservatistas, then riddle me this, Why is it that numerous majoritively immigrant companies who hire their friends family and those of similar race ever being harrassed by the government on hiring practices? Not because of a double standard! It’s because those so-called quotas were never intrusive or enforced as the dumb Conservies claim they were!

ONLY A CONSERVATIVE RETARD WOULD BELIEVE SUCH HORSECRAP AS ENFORCED QUOTAS. That and sasquatch should keep them occupied for another decade!

And another thing, the reason why companies uphold quotas is because they want to project an inclusive image. Being that many of their customers are not entirely white protestants.

Here’s an exercise for ya; Watch commercials and take a look at how many blacks and other minorities are in those advertisements are there quotas in commercials now? NO it’s called P.R. and being inclusive to all prospective customers and consumers via the projection of an image is vital.

And alot of companies do want to have a good race record so there is no exposee on how few minorities are hired. They want to keep their race records integral because it sells product. Is that PC and racism or reallity and common sense?

Why did Ben and Jerry’s make sure they don’t get milk from cows who are on growth hormones? So is there now a ‘quota’ on cows and cows on ‘roids? Perhaps Rush Limbaugh should address that one, those poor underpriveleged cows! Please conservatives, pull head from ass! Public relations sells product! And scandal causes losses in profits which make investors and shareholders do shit-flips, okay!

Skunkbud, it isn’t because “Rush blow-hole” said there were racial preferences. It’s because the Supreme Court (remember that edifice you hate so much for putting a stop to endless re-re-re-recounts?) said there were. They upheld hiring preferences, systems that add points based on race, and other formulas of basically saying if you’re white you are “excessively privileged” and need an economic millstone chained to your neck, even if you spent the first 18 years of your life in a trailer ducking the right hooks of a mean drunk. And that’s supposed to amount to “social justice”. No wonder “progressive” is a hard sell these days. Yeesh.

CIGGY,

“Quotas” namely effect large corporate retail, and large manufacturing that has unionized labor. A large portion of what people think is quotas in corporations are actually the decisions of those corporations to show a multi cultural face to increase sales and open new demographics.

In colleges that too is often times based on choice to show diversity to bring in more students and to be able to be inclusive to all monies incoming. Black students with scholarships or loans(still money) might not want to go to a school where they are an extreme minority. And money is money. It exists in many cases out of necessity to turn a profit than it does solely to be politically correct or be beholden to a governmental hiring mandate. Also foreign students are used as a bragging rite of that school to claim how far people have come just to go to their school (and other such BS).

The quota thing rarely has ever had anything to do with un-unionized construction(although OSHA has and others). Rarely has any sway in businesses with less than 150-200 employees and the only time it seems to effect restaurant businesses(Also too with many other businesses) is when a disgruntled employee makes a claim of discrimination as basis for firing. That’s a reason why when you apply for a job they make you sign a waiver that they can dismiss you for any reason, it holds up in court.

EOE(equal opportunity employer) is largely window dressing that some employers(myself having done in past) add in classifieds when looking for women moreso than men, but can’t be biased as to not leave options open for other positions that could come up or a good resume/portfolio. That’s not government anything.

Ciggy one more thing, the reason Teamster jobs or other Unions have “quotas” One is because they often get government contracts and two they are monitored by states. States have an interest in creating employment pockets in many different areas. Money goes into schools, buys property and pays property taxes by lifting economies in poor areas it makes it less of a burden on a state. With Unions government, federal and state have alot of sway.

It’s complex but it does create better living conditions for many and helps get rid of what might be a permanent underclass that drags on the state’s resources. To just cut services actually creates more problems not simplification, that’s why very few wealthy states do it. The south does it to some extent and you can see for yourself the permanent underclass everywhere and the problems it causes. The less people make the less they spend, the less goes into the economy and schools and infastructure etc. We need to not have a permanent underclass but create stimulus to get things mobilized and union “quotas” do that.

I’ll stop there.

Cig, one more thing briefly.

Union and large corporate “Quotas” are a move towards long-term economic goals versus republican short-term ones. By mobilizing the underclasses out of financial binds where they are reliant on services offered by the state we are all better off in the long run and it innevitably will result in lower taxes if republicans would let us do our work.

If we alleviate the stresses on the state’s resources and create hiring that reaches into those unemployment pockets it could reduce spending exponentially. Hence real tax cuts not just deferrals to be paid down by another generation. Republicans are the nuisance that are elected and derail the long term economic goals dragging them backwards. 1 step forward-1 step back and nothing ever gets accomplished due to republican popularism. Democrats are actually trying to accomplish stuff here and populist republicans want things now now now and don’t understand it takes time to build things. Take a look at the economies of red states in contrast to blue states, it holds self evident.

And yes not all Dems do it right and mistakenly add on where they should be streamlining. oo many independents to what should be a joint venture towards accomplishment.

And why do “quotas” effect large corporate retail?

Because in order to come into that city (usually a smaller one) they are often times beholden to hiring obligations. That city has unemployment pockets that drag on it’s economy and need to be lifted and city councils also give out building permits and without that nothing moves. This isn’t always true but local politicians usually want to create thriving job markets that raise the local economy and bring in more people creating more revenues from property taxes to fund schools and other civic things etc. So the city wants it as EOE as possible, I’ll bet Rush never discussed that. Not to mention it looks good at election time somewhat. Although this is more of a Democrat thing but Rudy Giuliani also made good use of it as he cleaned up commerce neighborhoods (Time Square and other tourism spots) It’s all inter-connected to bring in revenues although in NY it’s too much of a metropolis to micromanage but the EOE thing is quite prevalent with retailers. This is a very complex issue to say the least.

CRAIG HOLMES was on a schoolboard, perhaps he could elaborate (if he sees this).

Skunkbud, I’m flattered to have inspired so much verbosity in you. It seems like endless prattle to deny the obvious: that racial preferences exist in many sectors, and the reasoning behind it is to express to white people that they are too “privileged”, no matter what the economic background of the white person in question. You say this is an effort to try to “build” something long-term. You know what it’s going to “build”? Resentment, and probably violence.

I’m confused. :)

Ciggy, You think a Harvard MBA and an 18 ducking punches in the trailer home compete for the same jobs?

Greg, I’d say an 18 year-old ducking punches in a trailer home is out of the running from a Harvard MBA, whereas an 18 year-old ducking bullets in a public housing project might get one handed to him based on nothing other than the color of his skin. The one with the wrong skin color wasn’t any more economically “advantaged” than the one with the right skin color, though, so if you think blacks in the 1960s got angry, you probably “ain’t seen nothin’ yet” as they say.

Sure, that happens in Ciggy land I suppose. I happen to live in reality though.

If you want violence, keep pretending everything is equal for say 200 years and do nothing about it.

Civil Rights legislation didn’t occur along with affirmative action until there were riots in the streets. I was little in the sixties, but I do remember that. That didn’t come from nowhere.

The Anti American feeling in the middle east doesn.t come from no where.

We have remained a relatively stable republic because we do respond, albeit slowly, to social pressure for justice. Excepting that little row in the 1860’s, of course. When we don’t, it ain’t pretty.

In a few years, the white population will be a minority in some of the Mexican border states.
Some of us may see real minority white politics in our lifetime. When that day comes I might buy your position, today I think it’s just fear.

In a few years, the white population will be a minority in some of the Mexican border states.

I read somewhere that whites are already a minority (compared to all other races) in my home state of California. Habla Espanol? I do.

Greg, what’s “justice” to some will be cause to riot and wage guerilla warfare for others. That isn’t just “ciggyland” that’s reality. Racial preferences (be it pro-white prior to the 1960s or anti-white after the 1970s) will only incite such violence, not abate it.