Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Bla

[_Sam Harris]

Again Gaz, if we don't find each other (blacks in the church), who do we find? And do you think that Africans and black Americans have a lot in common culturally? I had a stepmother from Uganda. Our worlds were like night and day. But some in the church look at the dark skin and say it's all good. Culturally I'm probably closer to you, Gaz, than I was to my stepmother.

I don't see interacial marriages as an isue in the "post priesthood ban" times. I don't think now people care about that anymore. 40 years ago it was an honest issue since the priesthood would not be in the family. The only advice given now is to avoid it if it would put undue pressure on the couple due to others prejudices. I think time and the passing of the generation that grew up under that mindset will cure the problem.

Did you say you live back east? I wonder if in areas like that race is that big an issue.

Maybe guys avoided dating the black girls in the ward because they had been to the movies with a black girl before, and they just wanted to be able to watch the movie without someone yelling at the screen. : ) just kidding.

As far as your stepmom goes, What was it that was particularly different between you and her? Was it your American upbringing? Was she all proper british, and you were loud American?

Gaz

LOL! My boyfriend takes me to see horror movies so I jump in his lap.

I dated my first black man at age 23. I dated outside my race the few times I had a serious relationship previous to that.

Differences between me and stepma? Well, upbringing for one. Her father was a diplomat, my father couldn't keep a job. I think that language was the biggest barrier, and the culture is just not like it is here, I don't know how to explain it. Each country has its own culture. There was an article years back in the Washington Post about the cultural differences between Africans and African Americans. The biggest "hurdle" for me was food.

I used to have a neighbor from Sierra Leone. He took me to an African wedding once, and I remember not being able to "find" anything to eat. In some cultures, its a huge insult if you don't eat their food...but I'm terribly picky. My tummy turns at the slightest thing, and the guests were just looking at me like I was crazy. Not to mention, many Africans have a high fish diet. I can't eat that much fish. That was an issue for me.

Also, the agressive nature of some African men. Where they come from, that's expected. But for a black American woman? That's asking for a fight. That's one of the reasons why some of my friends in the church, myself included, had a hard time dating the men from Africa that we met. They were very pushy, very insistent, and the word NO didn't sink in. Remember the dude who proposed for 18 months? I'm used to them walking away after at the most, six. Well, my current has been chasing me for two years, but that's different....or is it? What's wrong with you men?

Scratch is right, my friend. The church in the past has not really looked kindly on interracial marriages. And even though on the surface many may be nice, there's still the cultural barrier. And most of the inner-city LDS up here are from Utah. To be LDS and be a native is an anomaly here.

[_Coggins7]

Scooter, reading someone elses work without having any education or knowledge or the underlying principles involved is what the point it. You are essentially a walking, talking, and worse, POSTING appeal to authority fallacy. You have no real understanding of what you read on many of those sites. You are unable to critically analylize the contents or find inconsistancies or contradiction contained in them as a result or your lack of real education. Anyone can point to a site and say "See! So&So says this, so it MUST be true", but without the training gained from higher education you are unable to see why they are right or what it is that makes them wrong. As a result, most of us look at you as being a slackwitted idiot who parades around articles and websites that you don't understand the full implications of.

It's pretty simple, really. You are proof that somewhere out there, a village is missing its idiot, Scooter.

Actually, I really don't expect anything beyond this from Coffee. Hmmm. Scratch is always calling for "proof" and "sources" when anyone makes a statement--even statements based upon fairly common knowledge, with which he disagrees, and now I discover that sourcing experts in various fields or the opinions of respected public intellectuals and academics is engaging in a fallacy of reasoning. Or, maybe its that the sources themselves aren't the "approved" ones?

You see, you just can't please those who are this desperate to make their points and win the argument. This is total war. No quarter given, even if asked. This is the meaning of "culture war", and why the stakes are so high within its precincts.

The race issue is a hot button with the Left precisely because of its potential to fray and shatter the American melting pot and create the war of all against all the Left has traditionally sought as the solvent with which to destroy the common Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian western weltanshuang upon which American identity and political culture was founded.

After all, Scratch can't ride in on his great white steed glistening with soothing balm of Socialism, wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, moral relativism, and secular humanism, unless the final threads of the moral, intellectual, and social fabric of liberal democracy are undone and the entire quilt set ablaze. This has been the overarching project of the Left since the late Sixties, and continues today under somewhat different names and banners.

[_Mister Scratch]

Scooter, reading someone elses work without having any education or knowledge or the underlying principles involved is what the point it. You are essentially a walking, talking, and worse, POSTING appeal to authority fallacy. You have no real understanding of what you read on many of those sites. You are unable to critically analylize the contents or find inconsistancies or contradiction contained in them as a result or your lack of real education. Anyone can point to a site and say "See! So&So says this, so it MUST be true", but without the training gained from higher education you are unable to see why they are right or what it is that makes them wrong. As a result, most of us look at you as being a slackwitted idiot who parades around articles and websites that you don't understand the full implications of.

It's pretty simple, really. You are proof that somewhere out there, a village is missing its idiot, Scooter.

Actually, I really don't expect anything beyond this from Coffee. Hmmm. Scratch is always calling for "proof" and "sources" when anyone makes a statement--even statements based upon fairly common knowledge, with which he disagrees, and now I discover that sourcing experts in various fields or the opinions of respected public intellectuals and academics is engaging in a fallacy of reasoning. Or, maybe its that the sources themselves aren't the "approved" ones?

No, Loran, you are completely missing the point. The point is that you never learned to evaluate sources, and to understand the basics of balance and academic objectivity. Your "sources" are unfailingly far-right-wing wankfests. That you seem not to understand how and why this might be problematic appears to be the result of your minimal formal education.

You see, you just can't please those who are this desperate to make their points and win the argument. This is total war. No quarter given, even if asked. This is the meaning of "culture war", and why the stakes are so high within its precincts.

That's not true, Loran. Besides, what "quarter" would you like?

The race issue is a hot button with the Left precisely because of its potential to fray and shatter the American melting pot and create the war of all against all the Left has traditionally sought as the solvent with which to destroy the common Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian western weltanshuang upon which American identity and political culture was founded.

You see? It is precisely this sort of silliness that undoes your homespun credibility. Do you honestly think that people on the Left Wing sit around saying, "We need to destroy American identity"? Moreover, on the issue of race, I already showed you that your racist "Black people are criminals" crutch was seriously benighted.... and what did you do? You threw in the towel.

After all, Scratch can't ride in on his great white steed glistening with soothing balm of Socialism, wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, moral relativism, and secular humanism, unless the final threads of the moral, intellectual, and social fabric of liberal democracy are undone and the entire quilt set ablaze. This has been the overarching project of the Left since the late Sixties, and continues today under somewhat different names and banners.

Again: what "social fabric" is being undone by the Left? Racism? What is it---specifically---that you are so afraid that the Left is going to do? You always spout out these vague, abstract generalities, probably because when you get into specifics---such as our race discussion---you get your butt kicked. I suggest that you step out of your Far Right Wing box and spend more time trying to understand the views of those you apparently fear and hate so much. Perhaps then you will arrive at a more intelligent, synthesized, sophisticated understanding not only of the issues, but the questions which still haven't been answered.

[_Coggins7]

Actually, I really don't expect anything beyond this from Coffee. Hmmm. Scratch is always calling for "proof" and "sources" when anyone makes a statement--even statements based upon fairly common knowledge, with which he disagrees, and now I discover that sourcing experts in various fields or the opinions of respected public intellectuals and academics is engaging in a fallacy of reasoning. Or, maybe its that the sources themselves aren't the "approved" ones?[/quote]

No, Loran, you are completely missing the point. The point is that you never learned to evaluate sources, and to understand the basics of balance and academic objectivity. Your "sources" are unfailingly far-right-wing wankfests. That you seem not to understand how and why this might be problematic appears to be the result of your minimal formal education.

Scratch's points here are, of course, purely emotive and polemic in nature, and display no intellectual content. Whether any of Scratch's personal opinions regarding my sources are of any existential value beyond those useful in defending his own ideology he has yet to engage in a serious philosophical manner. And of course, formal education is neither necessary or sufficient to be either educated or an 'intellectual" in a substantive sense. This is just more of the classic liberal intellectual snobbery traditionally displayed by leftists without the philosophical elements and discipline needed to engage those who disagree with them.

The race issue is a hot button with the Left precisely because of its potential to fray and shatter the American melting pot and create the war of all against all the Left has traditionally sought as the solvent with which to destroy the common Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian western weltanshuang upon which American identity and political culture was founded.

You see? It is precisely this sort of silliness that undoes your homespun credibility. Do you honestly think that people on the Left Wing sit around saying, "We need to destroy American identity"? Moreover, on the issue of race, I already showed you that your racist "Black people are criminals" crutch was seriously benighted.... and what did you do? You threw in the towel.

I'm quite conversant with the philosophical and political history of the Left and what it has attempted to achieve, societally, over the last forty years or so. What individual leftists sit around talking about I have no idea, but one would have to think it sometimes has to do with the vast restructuring of society that has been both the public and pirvate crux of its ideology.
Scratch's slander that I claimed that "Black people are criminals" is just par for the course for him and again, classic leftism caught with its pants down whenever its drawn out into the public square. Slurs, slanders, and personal attacks are all it has ever had to defend its ideology from serious critique. It will doubtless always be so.

I, of course, never made any such claim, and, of course, Scratch knows this (or...does he? That's what scares me).

After all, Scratch can't ride in on his great white steed glistening with soothing balm of Socialism, wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, moral relativism, and secular humanism, unless the final threads of the moral, intellectual, and social fabric of liberal democracy are undone and the entire quilt set ablaze. This has been the overarching project of the Left since the late Sixties, and continues today under somewhat different names and banners.

Again: what "social fabric" is being undone by the Left? Racism? What is it---specifically---that you are so afraid that the Left is going to do? You always spout out these vague, abstract generalities, probably because when you get into specifics---such as our race discussion---you get your butt kicked. I suggest that you step out of your Far Right Wing box and spend more time trying to understand the views of those you apparently fear and hate so much. Perhaps then you will arrive at a more intelligent, synthesized, sophisticated understanding not only of the issues, but the questions which still
haven't been answered.

I said, virtually the entire Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian framework that forms the foundation of American political and social structure. The rule of law, equality under the law (which is to be replaced by equality of condition by force of law), the rape of the language (PC); property rights, economic liberty ("Capitalism") traditional Judeo/Christian moral and ethical principles; the concept of moral absolutes, the entire edifice of rules and mediating cultural institutions channeling and conditioning human sexuality, marriage, the traditional nuclear family, the classical intellectual disciplines of logic, critical reasoning, and the liberal arts tradition in education etc., all have been under sustained attack by the Left for several generations now. Where have you been Scratch?

I never got my butt kicked dealing with the race issue because neither you nor GIMR ever entered the field of intellectual battle. Name calling, ad hominem slurs, and moral posturing are not debate, and are evidence of nothing save what is apparently your real lack of any rational ability to defend your beliefs. You do talk a good game (I'm to have a more "intelligent, synthesized, sophisticated understanding") when it comes to you moral and intellectual oneupsmanship, but when it turns to philosophical rigor or serious critical thought, the bottom just drops out.

I find it endlessly humorous that you berate me for using what you term "right wing" sources (and many of these are not only intellectually substantive, but, like Dr. Sowell, eminent) while you (quite unselfconsciously, it appears) expect me to take Foucault as an unbiased source of opinion, or to take the ADL in a similar vien or, of all groups, Counterpunch.

You as yet have not produced a single, serious, rational argument or fact in refutatin of a single point made by the either the black or white intellectuals and shcolars the links to whose work I provided. You call me names. You call Thomas Sowell names. You call Walter Williams names. You call David Horowitz names. If you ever want to be taken seriously as an "intellectual" Scracth, you've got a long, long road to hoe to get there. As things are, you appear and behave as a typical self righteous, half educated, emotion driven liberal.

Calling me a racist is standard fare for someone who must retreat into the hurling of invective because he has no rational means to defend his beliefs in the first place.

[_Sam Harris]

It is a statement based on fairly common knowledge that blacks are pretty much responsible for most of the crime, undereducation, and racism this country is dealing with at the moment?

Wow. Loran has spoken, everyone. We can all go home now.

[_Gazelam]

Sorry I put off answering this, but I get a little fried this time of the day, and so I tend to put off weightier topics.

The churchs history of racism is addressed somewhat in Bruce R. McConkies biography written by his son. There is a whole chapter devoted to the lifting of the priesthood ban. I copied a large section of it a while back in the celestial forum. Prsident Kimball addressed the Lord regarding the matter, and was told he would recive no further council on the matter till he himself purged any feeling of racism from his heart. So Kimball had to go do some repenting. Once this was done he began taking steps towards prepareing the Brethren.

I wish I could find the post where I wrote out that page from the book.

I remember when I showed my parents my Black girlfriends picture when picture day came in high school. They'e from the south, so I got quite a look.

Time will heal the wounds from the old views. Blacks will just need to come to terms with the history of their people. The Cain doctrine is hard to take, but true nonetheless. The Brethren have stated that they will make no commentsfurther regarding the old doctrines. So be it. I may make a long post soon on the subject and history. GIMR has inspired me to gather to gether the information I have. Hopefully I can put it all in my own words and not just cheat and type out the pages of information I have. I'm trying to cure myself of that habit.

I recommend you visit deseret and pick up the biography on McConkie if you want a detailed account of the lifting of the Ban. Hinkley also speaks briefly on it in his extended PBS interview on the Mormons webpage in the interviews section. You would probably enjoy Holands full interview as well, he touches on a large number of topics we talk about here.

[_Gazelam]

Well I would say all in all its going to take time for interacial dating and marriages to become a normal thing in the church. Maybe a generation.

But at the same time the history and doctrine will not change, and that wil be a hurdle for those of other races in joining the church. It might take me some time, but I'll try to make a post on the doctrine and history of the priesthood ban. I have some interesting tidbits that arent something heard before. I read an interesting article on things in the time of Seth and Enoch in dealing with the decendents of Cain.

[_Gazelam]

I found it:



The revelation extending the full blessings of the priesthood to all races ranks among the great events of this dispensation. It is one of the singular events necessary for the fulfillment of prophecies that the fullness of the gospel would be taken to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people before the return of Christ.

The events that attended the receipt of this revelation constitute a classic illustration of how revelation is received. The time was right, and accordingly the Spirit of the Lord began to work on President Kimball. For months he labored with the issue, spending many hours in the most holy of places in the temple, importuning the heavens for direction. Preparatory to the receipt of this revelation, he was required - according to the pattern established in Doctrine and Covenants 9 - to study, search, and councel with those charged to direct the affairs of the Church. By his own ackknowledgment, it was also necessary for him to rid his own heart and soul of any possible sence of racial superiority, particularly as such feelings were common to the community in which he had been raised.

President Kimball did not act alone on the matter. He sought the feelings of his counselors and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In March 1978 he invited any of the Twelve who desired to do so to make expressions to him in writing so that he could carefully consider them. Three members of that Quprum responded to this invitation: Elders Monson, Packer, and McConkie. Elder McConkie's memo centered on the doctrinal basis for confering the Melchizedek Priesthood on the blacks. After the revelation was received, he freely shared with his family the scriptural chain of thought he had suggested to President Kimball. The power of it was in its simplicity. He simply saw things in scripture that the rest of us had conditioned ourselves not to see. He saw them in a new light and had no hesitation in moving forward.

He reasoned that inherent in any passage of scripture that promised that the gospel would go to all mankind was the promise that it - with all its blessings - must go to the blacks. The Third Article of Faith states, "We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel." The word saved as used in the text, he said, meant to be exalted or obtain all the blessings of the celestial kingdom. To illustrate the point, he quoted Doctrine and Covenants 6:13: "If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for their is no gift greater than the gift of salvation," and Joseph Smith's statement that "salvation consists in the glory, authority, majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses and in nothing else."

He pointed out that all those who accept the gospel become the seed of the family of Abraham and are entitled to all of the blessings of the gospel. Jehovah told Abraham that his seed would take the gospel and the "Priesthood unto all nations" and that "as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father" (Abraham 2:9-10). Jehovah also promised Abraham that when his literal seed took the message of salvation to "all nations", then shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal" (Abraham 2:9, 11; emphasis added). This, of coarce, is the doctrine of adoption into the house of Israel.



In his address at Elder McConkie's funeral, Elder Boyd K. Packer observed that "President Kimball has spoken in public of his gratitude to Elder McConkie for some special support he received in the days leading up to the revelation on the Priesthood." It would be hard to suppose that this special help did not include the assurance of Elder McConkie's gospel understanding.

It is well withen the mark to say that no member of the Church was more excited or pleased than Bruce McConkie about the revelation given to President Kimball on this matter. One evidence of his excitement about this momentous event is the freedom with which he spoke and wrote about the events that led up to the receipt of the revelation.

As the First Presidency and the Twelve discussed the matter the week before the revelation, Elder LeGrand Richards identified the presence of President Wilford Woodruff in their temple meeting. Perhaps it was given to Elder Richards to know this because he was the only one of their number old enough to have actually seen Wilford Woodruff, which he had done as a young boy. As to why President Woodruff was there, Elder McConkie reasoned that since he had presided over the Church when the revelation to reverse its cource on the matter of plural marriage was given, it was natural that he would be called on to help direct the Brethren when the revelation was neded that represented a reversal of direction.

Elder Richards asked that the Twelve and the First Presidency keep his having seen President Woodruff a confidential matter because he did not want people thinking him some kind of great man to have had that experience. Elder Packer felt it proper to make this knowledge public at Elder Richard's funeral.

The revelation was received on Thursday, June 1, 1978, about twelve noon in the upper room of the Salt Lake Temple. The normal order of the day was for the Twelve to meet and attend to their business and then be joined by the First Presidency. When the two quorums meet, they unite in prayer, according to the pattern of the temple. They then conduct their bussiness, which normally ends about the middle of the afternoon. The Brethren then retire to a dining room for lunch, after which they leave the temple.

On Thursday, June 1, 1978, the Twelve met as usual. They were joined by the First Presidency, the Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric at 9 a.m., and the normal meeting was held. It included partaking of the sacrament and the bearing of testimony. The Spirit of the Lord was present in great abundance. After the prayer closing that meeting, President Kimball took the usual step of inviting the members of the First Presidency and the Twelve to remain in the room and excused the other Brethren. All had come to the meeting fasting. President Kimball told the Twelve that he would like them to continue during the rest of the day to fast with the First Presidency and that the normal luncheon at the end of the bussiness meeting had been cancelled. He reminded the members of the Presidency and the Twelve that in recent months he had been giving extended serious prayerful consideration to the matter of conferring the priesthood upon the blacks and that he felt the need for divine guidance. He had spent many hours alone in the upper room in the temple pleading with the Lord for councel and direction. He said he hoped the Lord would give a revelation one way or another and resolve the matter. He indicated that if it was the mind and will of the Lord that the church continue in the present cource, denying the priesthood to the descendants of Cain, that he was willing to sustain and support that decision and defend it with all its implications to the death. He said, however, that if the Lord was willing to have the priesthood go to them, he hoped for a clear affirmation of this so there would be no question in anyone's mind.



A long discussion followed in which each member of the Quorum of the Twelve expressed himself. Elder McConkie recorded: "A strong, compelling spirit of unity was in the meeting. It seemed as though all of the Brethren were in effect joining in the prayers which President Kimball had recently been making on this tremendously important matter."

President Kimball suggested that they go forward with the prayer. He said that if it was agreeable with the Brethren, he would be voice. He importuned the Lord with great fervor and faith. He asked that a revelation be given manifesting the Lord's mind and will on this matter so that the issue could be resolved. "it was one of those occasions," Elder McConkie wrote in his journal, "when the one who was mouth in the prayer prayed by the power of the Spirit and was given expression and guided in the words that were used and the sentances said. The prayer he gave was dictated by the Holy Ghost."

While President kimball prayed, the revelation came. When he ended the prayer, there was a great Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit such as none of those present had ever before experienced. There are no words to describe what happened. It was something that could only be felt in the hearts of the recipients and which can only be understood by the power of the Spirit. Afterward, President Kimball, his couselors, and President Benson, representing the feeling of all who were present, expressed themselves to the effect that never in their experience in the Church had they felt or experienced anything in any way comparable to what occured on this occasion.

The manner in which the revelation was given could not have been more perfect. it came through the prophet of the Lord, President Spencer W. Kimball, and at the same time was received by way of confirmation by twelve others. Thus, the prophet received the revelation with twelve men (two members of the First presidency and ten members of the Quorum of the Twelve) all of whom had been set apart as apostles of the Lord and all of them receiving the same revelation at the same time to attest to the verity of the event.

Those absent were Elders Mark E. Petersen and Delbert L Stapley. Elder Petersen was on assignment in South America, and Elder Stapley was ill in LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. It was felt that they should be given opportunity to learn what had transpired and to be asked if they were in accord. A call was placed to South America for Elder Petersen, who was in complete accord with the feelings of his Quorum. Later that day, the First Presidency called upon Elder Delbert L Stapley in the hospital. He, too, wholeheartedly sustained the revelation.

It was decided to present the matter to the rest of the general authorities the next Thursday, June 8, 1978. They were invited to attend the meeting fasting. The meeting enjoyed a marvelous outpouring of the Spirit that served both as a witness to all present that the time had come to give the priesthood to all races and also as a confirmation of the events the previous week.

Reflecting on the timing of these events, Elder McConkie observed, "I think the Lord waited to give this new direction to his earthly kingdom until his Church was big enough and strong enough to absorb those of all races and cultures, without being overwhelmed by the world, as the primitive saints were when the Church in their day gained acceptance in the Roman Empire."

Excerpt from "The Bruce R. McConkie Story, Reflections of a Son" - Joseph Fielding McConkie p.373-379

[_Mister Scratch]

Sorry I put off answering this, but I get a little fried this time of the day, and so I tend to put off weightier topics.

The churchs history of racism is addressed somewhat in Bruce R. McConkies biography written by his son.

I think you misunderstood me, Gaz. I meant that I'd like to see the Church's history of racism addressed by the Church itself. Elder McConkie's son, in my opinion, does not count, I'm afraid.

[_Mister Scratch]

Scratch's points here are, of course, purely emotive and polemic in nature, and display no intellectual content. Whether any of Scratch's personal opinions regarding my sources are of any existential value beyond those useful in defending his own ideology he has yet to engage in a serious philosophical manner.

This is why you are dubious as an intellectual/scholar/philosopher, Loran. What do you mean by "existential value"? What do you mean by "serious philosophical manner"? You see, my theory is that you have lifted these terms from your "reading regimen." It's not as if you've thought these things through, really. Instead, you've adopted them as rhetorical battering rams that function as substitutes for actual thought. Way to go, Gomer.

And of course, formal education is neither necessary or sufficient to be either educated or an 'intellectual" in a substantive sense. This is just more of the classic liberal intellectual snobbery traditionally displayed by leftists without the philosophical elements and discipline needed to engage those who disagree with them.

Ah, so you know, then. Please tell me, Loran, what are the "philosophical elements and discipline needed to engage those who disagree with [you]"? I would be delighted to know! You clearly disagree with me, and imply that you know what these "elements" are. I'd love to hear them! I will wait patiently for you to enlighten me.

The race issue is a hot button with the Left precisely because of its potential to fray and shatter the American melting pot and create the war of all against all the Left has traditionally sought as the solvent with which to destroy the common Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian western weltanshuang upon which American identity and political culture was founded.

You see? It is precisely this sort of silliness that undoes your homespun credibility. Do you honestly think that people on the Left Wing sit around saying, "We need to destroy American identity"? Moreover, on the issue of race, I already showed you that your racist "Black people are criminals" crutch was seriously benighted.... and what did you do? You threw in the towel.

I'm quite conversant with the philosophical and political history of the Left and what it has attempted to achieve, societally, over the last forty years or so.

No, you're not. Or at least you have presented zero evidence that you are. What you have presented is a grasp of a very straw-mannish, highly abstracted, condensed Cliff's Notes version of Left-wing politics and history. And that is what you don't seem to get. The most "serious" intellectuals treat their knowledge with humility and respect. You don't do that, Loran. You are so desperate for validation that you trot out your sources and reading lists like a groupie showing her breasts to a rock star. You don't say, "I know a bit about the left, such as this and this." You act as if you are an authority simply because you read some Althusser and Marcuse on your computer. You are a dilettante, Loran, not an expert.

What individual leftists sit around talking about I have no idea,

This is transparently, glaringly obvious. Your argument really only works in the abstract.

but one would have to think it sometimes has to do with the vast restructuring of society that has been both the public and pirvate crux of its ideology.
Scratch's slander that I claimed that "Black people are criminals" is just par for the course for him and again, classic leftism caught with its pants down whenever its drawn out into the public square. Slurs, slanders, and personal attacks are all it has ever had to defend its ideology from serious critique. It will doubtless always be so.

What ideology would that be? And be specific please! I know how hard that is for you, but I'm sure you want to impress everyone with your erudition. So, bring it on! by the way: you did claim that Blacks are criminal in higher numbers than whites, and you rather naïvely posted FBI stats in order to try and back up your racist assertions. It was YOU, my dear friend, you was caught with his pants down.

I, of course, never made any such claim, and, of course, Scratch knows this (or...does he? That's what scares me).

What scares you? The fact that you might really be thought of as the racist that you are?

After all, Scratch can't ride in on his great white steed glistening with soothing balm of Socialism, wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, moral relativism, and secular humanism, unless the final threads of the moral, intellectual, and social fabric of liberal democracy are undone and the entire quilt set ablaze. This has been the overarching project of the Left since the late Sixties, and continues today under somewhat different names and banners.

Again: what "social fabric" is being undone by the Left? Racism? What is it---specifically---that you are so afraid that the Left is going to do? You always spout out these vague, abstract generalities, probably because when you get into specifics---such as our race discussion---you get your butt kicked. I suggest that you step out of your Far Right Wing box and spend more time trying to understand the views of those you apparently fear and hate so much. Perhaps then you will arrive at a more intelligent, synthesized, sophisticated understanding not only of the issues, but the questions which still
haven't been answered.

I said, virtually the entire Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian framework that forms the foundation of American political and social structure.

No, Loran. I asked you to be *specific*. Concrete. Do you not know what that means? What aspects of the "Enlightenment/Judeo/Christian framework" are you talking about? Be SPECIFIC, man. I really don't understand why you have such difficulty with this.

The rule of law, equality under the law (which is to be replaced by equality of condition by force of law), the rape of the language (PC); property rights, economic liberty ("Capitalism") traditional Judeo/Christian moral and ethical principles; the concept of moral absolutes, the entire edifice of rules and mediating cultural institutions channeling and conditioning human sexuality, marriage, the traditional nuclear family, the classical intellectual disciplines of logic, critical reasoning, and the liberal arts tradition in education etc., all have been under sustained attack by the Left for several generations now. Where have you been Scratch?

Where is the "attack"? Where is your evidence? In your usual conservative "regimen"?

I never got my butt kicked dealing with the race issue

You did. In fact, you bailed out repeatedly.

because neither you nor GIMR ever entered the field of intellectual battle. Name calling, ad hominem slurs, and moral posturing are not debate, and are evidence of nothing save what is apparently your real lack of any rational ability to defend your beliefs.

What do you call your repeated "you are not intellectually and philosophically serious" (always with zero examples or evidence)?

You do talk a good game (I'm to have a more "intelligent, synthesized, sophisticated understanding") when it comes to you moral and intellectual oneupsmanship, but when it turns to philosophical rigor or serious critical thought, the bottom just drops out.

Where, Loran? It seems to me, that in these discussions of ours, that it is *You* who consistently "drops out."

I find it endlessly humorous that you berate me for using what you term "right wing" sources

You term them that, too. Moreover, many of them self-apply the label "conservative."

(and many of these are not only intellectually substantive,

According to whom? Many of your sources, when I've looked into them, have turned out to be quite vacuous. It is sad you are unable to see that.

but, like Dr. Sowell, eminent) while you (quite unselfconsciously, it appears) expect me to take Foucault as an unbiased source of opinion, or to take the ADL in a similar vien or, of all groups, Counterpunch.

I don't expect you to do that, Loran. That has been my point all along.

You as yet have not produced a single, serious, rational argument or fact in refutatin of a single point made by the either the black or white intellectuals and shcolars the links to whose work I provided. You call me names. You call Thomas Sowell names. You call Walter Williams names. You call David Horowitz names. If you ever want to be taken seriously as an "intellectual" Scracth, you've got a long, long road to hoe to get there.

Not nearly as long a road as you, my friend.

As things are, you appear and behave as a typical self righteous, half educated, emotion driven liberal.

Really? Would you care to compare diplomas? Ah, yes---that's right. You don't have one.

Calling me a racist is standard fare for someone who must retreat into the hurling of invective because he has no rational means to defend his beliefs in the first place.

No. I call you a racist because you are one. I hope you see the errors of your ways, and seek to fix them. Repentance will be key, no doubt.