The Letters Feature Will Continue in 2019

Armin, Race and ethnicity are not the same thing, though you seem to using them interchangeably. Race is related to the uncontrollable attributes of biology, whereas ethnicity is related to the controllable attributes of culture. And when you say, “blacks are disproportionately predisposed to commit violent crimes,” you are indicating that you see a causal link between skin color (black is a color) and criminality, whether you mean to or not. My simple push back is that if you want to claim that race is causal in criminality, name that tune. I think you will have a hard time, but… Read more »

BJ, You said: “Race and ethnicity are not the same thing, though you seem to using them interchangeably. ” That’s a fair point. To avoid confusion I should have said “racial solidarity” rather than “ethnic solidarity,” since those words aren’t interchangeable. I think where we are getting our wires crossed is in how we define the term “race.” You want to equate that term with skin color, and I disputed that in my last post. But I never said that the color of a person’s skin causes him to be more predisposed toward violent crime. All I claimed was that… Read more »

I called it bad scholarship, not because it was false, but because it was misleading and imprecise. Good scholarship seeks clarity and precision. The fact that there is no proven causal link between melanin or hair color or eye color means that talking about the “average black” or the “average white” is akin to discussing the “average red head” or the “average person with green eyes” or the “average person with a particular shaped nose.” The categories are irrelevant to the behavior, unless you can prove a causal link. (For instance, height or muscularity can have causal links to athletic… Read more »

Katecho: “Generalizations and averages can be helpful, but they don’t tell me anything about my particular neighbor.” That’s true, but they’re not supposed to. That’s why they’re generalizations. You act as if there’s something inherently wrong with making decisions based on generalizations, yet we do it all the time. As I was explaining to BJ, it is because of our ability to generalize that we know not to approach a wild lion. It’s possible that you could approach any given lion without being attacked, but because you understand the behavior tendencies of lions (which you derived from pattern recognition) you… Read more »

Katecho: “He offered no practical example of how he would fulfill due process for a Black family moving into his neighborhood.” That’s because I don’t have to. I never said I have a policy of avoiding ALL blacks, to the point that I would never tolerate a black family moving into my neighborhood, or would insist that my children go to a school that is no less than 100% white. I’ve simply pointed out how an increase in the population of blacks (assuming they’re average blacks) statistically effects the likelihood of a homicide occurring. it’s just math. I assert that… Read more »

Okay, so you think it is immoral to let white people buy houses in black neighborhoods, drive taxicabs, or enroll their children in schools with lots of black students without first warning them of the statistical risk of their being murdered by a black man. I really hope you are careful how you carry out these helpful warnings. Attaching flyers to real estate signs –“Caution–three black families on this block” –might land you in serious trouble. We’re not allowed to do that even for convicted pedophiles. But, I would like you to consider some of these findings from the federal… Read more »

Jill, The fact that whites are more often the victims of other whites than blacks is irrelevant. This is the case with every race and shouldn’t be a surprise, since people tend to be exposed more to other members of their own race than to other races in their daily lives. However, what IS relevant is the fact that blacks commit 27 times more violent crime against whites than the other way around. Do you not find that the least bit shocking or disturbing? There’s no doubt that if those numbers were reversed, people would call it a genocide. “If… Read more »

First off, the ratio of Black crimes against White people to White crimes against Black people isn’t even close to 27 to 1, that supposed statistic, if I remember correctly, is manufactured by taking advantage of the fact that there are far more White people than Black people and then using the large denominator in more than one direction. What are the total number of White people killed by Black people in the country (regardless of whether they get off or not), and the total number of Black people killed by White people? Second, in cases of crime with financial… Read more »

You’re twisting my words, Jill. I said it would be immoral to keep relevant crime information from people (including blacks, frankly) due to political correctness. Your exact words were: “That is a thorny problem, and a very practical one. In the hierarchy of duties and responsibilities, should parents prefer keeping their children safe, or properly color-coded?” This is not a thorny problem at all. To insist, or even suggest, that parents put their children in unnecessary danger in order to have a particular (arbitrary) quota of diversity in their lives is simply immoral. In fact, I would say that those… Read more »

I would choose a black neighborhood with a stong Gospel influence over a white neighborhood without one.

”Majority average human” was very good.

Armin, when you look across cultures, minority status accompanied by historic hostility/discrimination from the dominant majority is a much stronger predictor of any group’s developing a sense of ethnic solidarity and pride. As groups assimilate and achieve mainstream success and acceptance in a multi-racial society, ethnic ties gradually weaken. Many blacks express pride about their group’s successes in athletics and entertainment. But, surely, this must be due to the fact that those avenues to fame and fortune were often the only ones open to them. And when you believe that your group is generally regarded as inferior, you will cling… Read more »

Jill, You said: “As groups assimilate and achieve mainstream success and acceptance in a multi-racial society, ethnic ties gradually weaken.” How did you reach this conclusion? Is there some kind of study out there? Would this apply to different races as well as ethnicities? And what if there are certain groups that, for whatever reason, aren’t capable of assimilating? Do you even entertain that possibility? “But, surely, this must be due to the fact that those avenues to fame and fortune were often the only ones open to them.” But blacks have had all those avenues open to them for… Read more »

You might find this useful: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882688/ But I think there is evidence we can see for ourselves. Consider the position of the Irish when large numbers arrived in the northeastern US (or, for that matter, the Italians). Discrimination in housing and employment forged very strong ethnic identities for two groups who were seen as either Catholic and dumb or Catholic and criminal (or all three). It is undeniable that people of Irish (or Italian) descent see themselves as Americans first. Their affluence means that they don’t need Joe Kennedy I or a Mafia don to hand out turkeys at Christmas… Read more »

Both of your posts are excellent Jill. There are similar examples in my history. When the Palatine German refugees migrated in caravans across Europe seeking new lives in England or America, many of the British called them a “race of Vermin” who were “infesting” the country, said they were lazy, stupid, unskilled, and that German Catholics could never integrate into a free society. When my own German-speaking ancestors, most of whom were protestants facing religious persecution (Huguenots, Amish, Mennonites, etc.), came to America, they often settled in segregated communities speaking only the German language and engaging in German customs. Some… Read more »

Jill,

“our current social structures do not favor the less intelligent. ” This is so true it hurts my brain. This is the American meritocracy at work.

In the past, there was a real sense of obligation to the family and those who were unable to compete, so the really negative outcome were hampered to some degree by familial support. As the family connections decline, the social Darwinism of our ruling elites will leave more and more behind.

I find it heartbreaking. Most of the jobs that decent, hardworking people used to do without degrees or special training have vanished. In my childhood, people who drove milk trucks and women who were excellent typists could support not only themselves but a family. They owned houses. And benevolent employers with a sense of obligation to the community didn’t demand that even the mailroom guy have stellar academic qualifications. My own dear Snowflake has chosen a career–musical theater–in which she is virtually guaranteed to be living hand to mouth. But at least she had that choice.

And there was a time in history where resources were divided such that even a “less intelligent” person could make a living with no problem, even if he might not be quite as successful as his neighbor. A less-intelligent person could still hunt enough game, grow enough food, put together a good enough home, etc., because making your own living off your own resources doesn’t mean you have to fight tooth-and-nail to graduate at the top of your class so the capitalists will deem you worthy of their patronage. If you have property and a tradition of making good use… Read more »

There are plenty of other physical differences between blacks and whites including bone density, brain size, and serum testosterone, as well as mental differences such as IQ, time preference, and impulsiveness (traits which I do believe contribute to the crime disparity). It’s misleading to claim those are differences between Black people and White people. Black people and White people tremendously in all of those categories and overlap extensively. There isn’t a single category you have described for which you can draw any sort of lines that would define the “white” side and the “black” side, or for which you could… Read more »

Did Jonathan ever consider that Confederate solidarity isn’t merely about slavery, but is about a shared experience of what it is like to be treated the way people in the South were treated in America? When did I ever suggest that Confederate solidarity was merely about slavery? This topic is drawing out a number of ironies. It proves that Jonathan is actually capable of understanding certain arguments, but apparently only when they serve his agenda. Either reference whatever you think you are talking about, or we chalk this up as the 6th time this month that you have lied about… Read more »

You lie, I never once suggested that Confederate solidarity was merely about slavery.

JP,

That account is hilarious!

Here is the money quote: “We should replace all juries with diversity experts who can assign guilt or innocence based on quotas.”

Stop painting with racial colors and start addressing actual sinful behavior and actual guilt and you will get a much more sympathetic hearing from me and most others here. Until then, you have oppressed whites paying money to rich blacks for sins they didn’t commit. I’m really bothered that you’re making false accusations here. Coates essay addresses a GREAT deal of actual sinful behavior and actual guilt that has real consequences. And he never insists on,”oppressed whites paying money to rich blacks” EVER in the article, and neither do I. I suggest you read the article and discuss the ACTUAL… Read more »

Jonathan,

I read the article when it first came out, and Coates has consistently argued that whites in society today should pay money to blacks in society today. If the only categories you use are racial colors, then you end up having oppressed, poor whites paying money to rich non-oppressed blacks.

If you use your categories (black and white)m which are the same categories Coates is using, then my criticism stands.

Neither I nor the article are discussing having poor white people pay money to rich black people. That has NOTHING to do with the conversation at all. The point of the article is to demonstrate that the experience of many black people (not necessarily all) has been qualitatively different from the experience of even oppressed White people. That is the very point I was making, with the article as a citation for that point. The solution is of course open-ended and there is NO chance in hell that the scenario you are speaking of will ever, ever come about, so… Read more »

Jonathan, “Neither I nor the article are discussing having poor white people pay money to rich black people. That has NOTHING to do with the conversation at all.” Then stop quoting an advocate for White reparations to black people, and stop using white and black as a category. Start using oppressed people and oppressors as your category and drop the racial broad brushes. “In discussing the specific scenarios described in the paper, would you agree that they are different than what White people face? ” Who is playing the oppression Olympics now? Your bigger point seems to be focused on… Read more »

The idea that I am not allowed to quote stories from someone who happens to hold a different position on an issue than me is ridiculous. Over the last two weeks there has been an enormous number of arguments brought out by at least four different people concerning why they refuse to engage with the actual information in the story, and it’s beginning to lead me to believe that something makes even the very act of engagement with these narratives very, very threatening to some people. I’m quite nonplussed by the fact that in every time we have discussed this… Read more »

Jonathan,

Let’s not talk past one another. Let me ask you some direct, simple questions. I will happily do the same for you.

Do you disagree with Coates that White people today, regardless of their personal behavior, have a Christian obligation to pay money to Black people today, regardless of the effects of slavery on their lives? Why/Why not?

Do you acknowledge that it is unbiblical to call people to repent of sin they have not personally committed?

My goal is to seek clarity.

Related to what? What list are you responding to? What tendency are you referring to? I have a habit of doing “this sort of thing” in what way, where? Why are you even talking about sexual abuse right now?

None of this comment makes any sense in this context, at all.

If you are “calling me out”, then PLEASE quote what you are calling me out for. I can’t even make sense of what you are trying to say right now, nothing I’ve said in this entire conversation fits your attack in any way.

Substantiate your claims or stop posting.

Substantiate your claims or shut up.

I have caught you lying about my past statements six times this month alone. You have REPEATEDLY refused to substantiate your claims with quotes even after I have called you out. Why are have you been able to reply to dozens of my posts, often finding the most nit-picky things to critique, yet can’t reply to my challenges for you to substantiate your claims?

Let’s not talk past one another. Let me ask you some direct, simple questions. I will happily do the same for you. Do you disagree with Coates that White people today, regardless of their personal behavior, have a Christian obligation to pay money to Black people today, regardless of the effects of slavery on their lives? Why/Why not? I don’t believe that White people have an obligation (Christian or not) to pay money to Black people regardless of the effects of slavery on their lives, nor have I seen Coates suggest it. If he did suggest it I would disagree… Read more »

Jonathan, “I’m not sure if “unbliblical” is the right word, but I definitely wouldn’t do it. It is, however, Biblical to repent on behalf of not just yourself but also your greater community.” A call to someone to repent of sins they have not committed is a back-handed way of making an accusation. Accusations require two to three witnesses and are serious business in the Bible. If I called you to repent of raping three women, you would rightly say I am being “unbiblical.” If I called you to repent of a gang of people who shared your eye color… Read more »

CORRECTION: “Only a fool DENIES that.”

A call to someone to repent of sins they have not committed is a back-handed way of making an accusation. I have never done that, and I don’t believe Coates does that anywhere in his essay. The historical facts themselves, I don’t dispute. His implications that Blacks are powerless to change their circumstances now, and his claim that black poverty today is predominately caused by slavery and Jim Crow, I openly dispute. No one says that all Black people are powerless. However, the simple math of how capitalism works means that changing circumstances is difficult from the bottom and exceedingly… Read more »

Actually, if we wanted to completely change the discussion and argue monetary policy, then the main changes I would suggest would involve less federal involvement in money and interest, not more. The most well-known economist who pioneered the critique I am proposing, Silvio Gesell, was far more anti-statist than those who developed our current monetary system, and could even be described as a sort of anarchist in his opposition to state control. Keynes in fact describes him as the positive counter to Marxism. But that’s just obviously an attempt by you to throw out false red herrings and poison the… Read more »

Notice that Katecho has proven himself incapable of verifying all the previous false claims and accusations he made yesterday after I rebuked them, so he just cast a bunch of downvotes and then moved on to a completely off-topic agenda from a four-day old post. Interesting, and in line with what he’s been doing the entire last month. Here is yet another example why no one should take Jonathan’s account of things for granted, and without verification. Gesell was hardly anti-statist. He was a radical economist who proposed extreme State intervention in both monetary and capital control. Anyone can do… Read more »

Gesell isn’t a radical statist and free money isn’t extreme statist, you may literally be the ONLY person in the world who has ever claimed that. This agenda of yours is making you spiral further and further into a caricature. This is how people whose agenda isn’t a single-minded obsession with another commenter describe Gesell. Just a heads-up – “anarchist” and “libertarian” aren’t typically used as code-wars for “extreme statist.” Silvio Gesell (17 March 1862 – 11 March 1930) was a German merchant, theoretical economist, social activist, Georgist, anarchist, libertarian socialist, and founder of Freiwirtschaft. The publications of [Gesell’s] Free-Economy… Read more »

Also, just because it’s an amazing quote from Gesell that should honestly place him in higher regard than any length of warped misunderstandings you might spill about him, here is what he had to say in a letter to the editor on November 10, 1918, the eve of the armistice agreement ending World War I. In spite of the holy promise of all people to banish war, once and for all, in spite of the cry of millions ‘Never a war again,’ in spite of all the hopes for a better future, I have this to say: If the present… Read more »

Jonathan, “I have never done that, and I don’t believe Coates does that anywhere in his essay.” When you use overly broad categories like White and Black, you necessary implicate innocent people in your statements. I reiterate my point once again, drop the racial categories, and we will probably agree much more. “No one says that all Black people are powerless. ” You are not directly saying black people are powerless, but your fixation on race definitely leaves the impression that poor pitiful blacks can never get a break from the evil white man. I was a teacher in inner-city… Read more »

But this is a good place to add that you seem to spend a lot of time talking about discrimination in lending, and I will agree that it does happen. But here is where I would make two points: (1) This is more of a class-based thing than a race based thing. It does happen to blacks more, but that it because blacks are more likely to be poor, statistically speaking. I don’t like the stereotyping anymore than you do, but it also happens to rural redneck types, because we tend to be poor, statistically speaking. I know, because it… Read more »

Housing speculators were more responsible for the mortgage crisis than homeowners were. Housing speculators caused the increase in home prices from 2004-2006, and when the market collapsed, speculators defaulted at much higher rates than homeowners who lived in their homes did – perhaps for obvious reasons, and homeowners wanted to stay in their homes, while speculators had far less issue just dumping a bad bet. https://qz.com/1064061/house-flippers-triggered-the-us-housing-market-crash-not-poor-subprime-borrowers-a-new-study-shows/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2011/12/flip-this-house-investor-speculation-and-the-housing-bubble.html https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/files/economicconsequencesofhousingspecula_preview.pdf There’s a lot more I could unpack from your statement and I disagree with several of your other assumptions too (though I do agree that subprime loans are stupid and encouraging more… Read more »

Housing speculators were more responsible for the mortgage crisis than homeowners were. Housing speculators caused the increase in home prices from 2004-2006, and when the market collapsed, speculators defaulted at much higher rates than homeowners who lived in their homes did – perhaps for obvious reasons, and homeowners wanted to stay in their homes, while speculators had far less issue just dumping a bad bet. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2011/12/flip-this-house-investor-speculation-and-the-housing-bubble.html There’s a lot more I could unpack from your statement and I disagree with several of your other assumptions too (though I do agree that subprime loans are stupid and encouraging more debt is… Read more »

I agree that if you’re just going to post lies, we won’t get anywhere. I quoted a study by the Fed themselves, that explicitly showed the data in a manner easy even for laymen to see immediately. You quoted a false statement by a conservative paper referring to a study from a conservative think tank, with no link to the actual study because the study did NOT state that Democrats were “fully to blame for subprime mortgage crisis.” Here is the link to the actual study. https://www.nber.org/papers/w18609.pdf Your article doesn’t link it because the actual study doesn’t say a single… Read more »

Of course, what you left out is the fact that Gateway Pundit also linked to Investors Business Daily, which in turn referred to the NBER study. And don’t even try with the “b-b-b-but they didn’t actually give a DIRECT LINK to the study!!!eleventy!!!” You’re not going to skate on a technicality. Jonathan, lying by omission is still lying. Or is it that you didn’t actually read the article to which I linked? Neither looks good for you. Investor’s Business Daily is the conservative paper the quote came from and they did NOT link the study because the study says nothing… Read more »

Thank you again FP for showing everyone exactly who you are. No one is going to decide to agree with you because you’ve become profane and insulting again. It’s always your tell that you’ve been caught in the wrong. Where’s the MASSIVE Republican support, Jonathan? Republicans supported it 115 to 12 in the House, to be exact. Republicans 25 to 7 in the Senate, to be exact. It was a bipartisan bill passed with the support of over 80% of Republicans voting. That quite obviously counts as massive Republican support. Then the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 passed with…… Read more »

If only 20 persons in the House voted against, and only 7 in the Senate, it obviously was heavy republican as well as democratic support.

As usual, you obsessively browse around in the little patch of weeds off in the far corner in order to score a gotcha! rather than deal with the entire lawn. No wonder most of us here are getting exasperated with you.

I love that you called a direct link to the Fed “a little patch of weeds off in the far corner” while then posting a false statement in a conservative propaganda piece as your rebuttal.

The comment with links seems stuck in moderation, here is a more mainstream article:

https://qz.com/1064061/house-flippers-triggered-the-us-housing-market-crash-not-poor-subprime-borrowers-a-new-study-shows/

You are making the same mistake as Armin is. You are using categories far too broad. Many people with white skin have had been oppressed and subjugated in the last 80 years. You have quickly made the categories far broader than I did. I am not denying that there are White people who face oppression. I have never said anything like that. What I said was that there are situations that many Black people are in that are categorically different than the situations White people are in. The vast majority of White people in America were not part of families… Read more »

Jonathan, “What I said was that there are situations that many Black people are in that are categorically different than the situations White people are in.” Still using white and black as categories. This is too big. “Again, we aren’t playing the oppression Olympics.” You are not understating my point if you think this is what I am doing. My criticism is that you are using improper categories. I am not arguing whites have had it worse than blacks. That would falling into your error of using categories that are too big. My point is that you need to stop… Read more »

Is “Christian” too big a category to use when discussing oppression in various Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc?

Is “Jew” too big a category to use when discussing oppression in Nazi Germany?

I have trouble seeing how “Black” is too big a category to use when discussing oppression that even Pastor Wilson has admitted was explicitly along White/Black lines in a manner that directly affected people here, including Wilson, in our own lifetimes.

Jonathan,

When discussing history in order to gain knowledge, that level of generality is fine. So, no the categories are not too big in that context.

When discussing guilt and who should pay indulgences to whom to expiate their sins, white and black are far too big.

When discussing guilt and who should pay indulgences to whom to expiate their sins, white and black are far too big.

Absolutely no one, not me nor Coates’s essay nor anyone else in this discussion, has used White and Black as categories to discuss guilt or who should pay indulgences.

NO ONE HAS SAID THAT.

Is that clear yet? I’m getting past tired of having my actual words and arguments ignored in place of dead straw horses who are taking terrible beatings right now.

If you are going to rely on Coates to make your point, you have to understand that you will be assumed to agree with him and his open calls for reparations unless you state clearly that you disagree. If you have done that and I missed, apologies.

I’d rather just assume that my arguments be taken at face value and people not assume anything other than the actual point that is being made. Should everyone who flies a Confederate Flag be automatically assumed to be supporting slavery until proven otherwise? Coates does not say anywhere in that essay that all White people need to pay cash to all Black people. He doesn’t advocate for any particular means of reparations, he even says at one point that society may simply determine that reparations are impossible and simply concede that the injustice can’t be undone. The thing Coates is… Read more »

Liar, I have never anything like that.

Katecho, your false misrepresentations know no bounds. I stated that the Confederate Flag was flown to PRESERVE slavery during the Civil War. That is obviously a historical fact about 1861-1865 (the last time that preserving slavery was even a question), not a claim about people flying the flag today. And you KNOW that, because this is the paragraph before that in the very comment you just quoted: But I would make a different argument, probably the same one that you are trying to make without the hyperbole – that if a symbol has come to have one dominant meaning, and… Read more »

Not “when confronted” Katecho, I made that point back in the original debate within the exact comment we were discussing, and you purposely ignored it when selectively quoting. The Confederate Battle Flag, which was only flown starting with secession in 1861, DID only have one meaning – to represent Southern Secession from the union for the purposes of indefinitely maintaining slavery against perceived Northern interference. I made quite clear on multiple occasions that this was not the reason that every Confederate fought then and that this is not why every Confederate sympathizer flies the flag now, but it was certainly… Read more »

That’s an obviously false reworking of my statement, and anyone can look at what I said and then look at what you claimed I said and see the difference.

Coates made the case for why reparations is justified, but did not suggest that reparations would consist of all White people paying cash to all Black people, did not advocate for any particular means of reparations, and explicitly stated that it may be impossible to undue the injustice that was done.

Absolutely no one has used race to discuss guilt or who should pay indulgences. I certainly haven’t done that, and I’m pretty sure Coates never does either anywhere in his essay.

So STOP with the red herrings and strawmen and start dealing with the actual arguments that are being made.

A. Gun deaths are not extremely localized. For instance, of the people in my life who have died from guns, the majority have been White, though a large number of my friends are non-White, and those deaths have occurred in Oregon, suburban Los Angeles, and urban Los Angeles. Many of the places with high rates of gun deaths are quite rural. B. If we believe criminal gun use to be a significant issue, then reducing criminal gun use obviously has significant benefits whether the effects of the issue are localized or not. The disasters that occurred in 9/11 were quite… Read more »

26% of gun homicides is a lot, 74% is a lot more. And gun homicides are less than half of gun deaths, so you’ve just proven that about 10% of national gun deaths are highly concentrated. There are certain places in which gun homicides are especially high, but that does not preclude there being a LOT of other places where gun deaths are also an issue. The ten states with the highest rates of gun deaths are Alaska, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Arkansas, and South Carolina. Notice the relative lack of major urban centers? Meanwhile, the… Read more »

I don’t know what you consider the minimum population to qualify as a major urban center, but those ten states with the highest rates of gun deaths do have cities. Granted Kansas City and St Louis (MO); Oklahoma City (OK); and New Orleans (LA), to name a few, are not NYC, but they are hardly rural villages. I do not know the within-state statistics, but I suspect in all those ten states gun deaths are concentrated in the cities. St Louis, MO for example, has one of the highest murder rates in the U.S., if not the highest. When you… Read more »

I agree that those states have cities and the cities have high rates of gun violence, but most of the US population is in cities so merely pointing out that much of the gun deaths are in cities doesn’t exactly concentrate it that much. And states like Alaska and Montana and Arkansas were also on the list of top-10 highest gun death rates. I looked up Alaska and Oklahoma as two test cases. It looks like Anchorage has 40% of Alaska’s population and 44% of its murders, so the murder rate outside Anchorage is almost as high as the murder… Read more »

I guess I should be delighted that I’m not the only one Jonathan is ignoring. Welcome, JohnM. As you not only saw my response that dealt explicitly with the topic that JohnM brought up but even downvoted it, I find this one of your more inexplicable lies. Notice that Jonathan wants to discuss gun deaths, generally, rather than have to acknowledge that gun homicide is quite localized. Clever tactic, but not helpful. Another strange lie – while I do think that gun deaths in general are significant, the following three paragraphs after this single sentence you quoted all dealt explicitly… Read more »

Also, compare your map of gun homicides to this map of population: http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/north-america.jpg You had merely pointed out that people die where people live. 50% of the gun homicides don’t even occur in the big cities that hold 25% of the population – so the lower 50% of gun homicides being distributed across 75% of the population is still a great deal of homicide. And as gun accidents, suicides, police killings, and other gun-related deaths track differently than gun homicides track, the distribution becomes even greater. You can’t claim that gun deaths are a localized problem when states from Alaska… Read more »

No doubt gun suicides and gun accidents are more randomly dispersed, but we were discussing gun homicide before Jonathan tried to change the subject to gun deaths in general. That is another lie on your part, I said gun deaths from the very beginning before YOU tried to change the subject to gun homicide. Not to mention that this entire subject is a strange attempt to change the subject by you, as it has absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about and enables you to avoid answering in the numerous places where you were challenged to substantiate… Read more »

I consider gun accidents, gun suicides, and gun homicides to all be of importance, though obviously not for all the same reasons. Gun accidents often lead to the death of someone other than the “stupid” person, and gun suicides are often preventable. Poor mental health is not a static state but often an impulsive one – the large majority of people who attempt suicide never successfully commit it if they are stopped or fail the first time. However, access to guns makes suicides far more likely to fail. Thus measures which make it more difficult for someone in an impulsively… Read more »

See how Jonathan uses statistics about the “average gun in the home” in precisely the same way that he rebuked Armin for using statistics about the “average black in the neighborhood”. This is why no one should trust Jonathan with statistics, or with logical consistency. You think I was suggesting that no one quote average statistics, ever? Arwin used statistics about the “average” Black person to argue why all Black people should be considered dangerous and no one should move to a Black neighborhood. I have never stated that no one should own a gun, in fact I’ve repeatedly told… Read more »

I note a difference between your usage of statistics here and regarding murder by race: – With murder by race, you chose to focus on the actual number, not the rate, but … – here you focus on the rate, not the actual number. In other words, you seem to change your usage according to your desired result. That’s not true, when the question was how significant gun deaths were to different regions of the USA, I brought up the actual numbers several times. Do you not remember me quoting the total number of gun deaths and gun homicides in… Read more »

Wait, I guess I could use an actual number in the sense of saying, “If you have a gun in your home, that increases the chance of a death in your home by approximately 0.1 over the course of 50 years” (very roughly). In other words, for every 1000 homes that chose to have a gun, there will be about 1 additional death. That’s saying the exact same thing as the “rate” argument, it’s just a bit more convoluted and slightly tougher to understand. But it makes the same point – the presence of a gun in the home is… Read more »

I did not introduce safety into the home gun ownership conversation, Pastor Wilson did, when he insisted that gun ownership is a Christian duty due to safety concerns. I argued that those safety concerns were misplaced. I did not argue that giving up guns was a Christian duty due to that issue, I think it is people’s own decision to make, but they should make it with accurate knowledge (and theology) rather than false assumptions. Arwin argued that due to fear of safety issues, Christians should be advised not to move into diverse neighborhoods. I argued that gun ownership was… Read more »

There’s a huge difference between making a clarification in reaction to a false statement, and in bringing in a new argument altogether as your main point. The part that you keep missing is that I was arguing against Pastor Wilson’s use of safety as a reason to insist that Christians should own guns, and brought up the statistics to counter Pastor Wilson use of false statistics to claim that guns make you safer. I said that people are free to own guns, like I do, but they should NOT do so under false promises of safety. I never bring up… Read more »

No.

I think there is a moral obligation for the Church to not avoid diversity when avoiding diversity is bringing harm to members of the body, even when avoiding diversity has become the “default” position.

A good example is Acts 6, where the separation between the Hebrew and Hellenist communities was causing the Hellenist widows to be neglected in the distribution. As a very different example, note how Paul appears frequently aware of how the Jews and the Gentiles needed each other’s perspectives and could see problems brewing where one or the other was missing the witness of their counterparts. N.T. Wright in his incredible study on Paul (honestly one of the most comprehensive works put together on any Biblical figure in our lifetime) comes to the conclusion that one of Paul’s primary missions was… Read more »

If you want to think about it in a different way, would Armin’s argument have looked the same if he himself had chosen to relocate in a Black neighborhood? If not, then it’s probably a pretty different argument from mine, as someone who enjoys guns, is an excellent target shooter, proud of hunting big game (deer and bear), and is not against informed and non-violent gun ownership.

Isn’t this the same thing I complained about the two previous weeks, where an assertion is simply dismissed without the slightest bit of support, citation, or even demonstration of the logical process that it took to reach it?

How exactly do you wish the conversation to proceed from here? I don’t see any next step.

What? The article’s title is The Case for Reparations and the word reparations is used at least 50 times in the article. The article makes the case for WHY reparations would be justifiable by discussing the different histories of White and Black people, it barely even discusses what actual reparations would look like and never once says they should involve payments from White people to Black people. And maybe Coates doesn’t “advocate for any method”, but it’s interesting that he only mentions one method That doesn’t make sense, that’s one of several “methods” that he mentions. Okay. Hang on, didn’t… Read more »

Yes, OKRickety, you are right and I should have been more clear. I should have said that in the author’s discussion of the Black experience in America, he barely even mentions what actual reparations would look like. He did discuss reparations more extensively in covering those other historical issues. Thank you for discerning what I meant (even though I made it more difficult than I should have). And thank you for understanding the case – that was literally all I was asking from that reference. It is beyond obvious that any sort of cash transfer or government reparations is a… Read more »

I also note the interesting trend in this community to demonize money when it comes to Black people, even though money is otherwise seen as a great positive good. Pastor Wilson started off this entire conversation with his suggestion that we shouldn’t even talk about apologizing for injustice towards Black people because they might bring up cash. His exact words, in the very first paragraph on the subject three weeks ago, were: And then also, if you want to read about the inevitable consequences of this, the utterly predictable howls of “that’s not nearly good enough, although cash might be… Read more »

I’m not sure which secular and Christian progressives you are referring to. I rarely see the idea of reparations brought up, there’s probably been multiple-year stretches of my life where I didn’t even hear the term in a positive sense once. Coates’ essay was interesting in that it reignited the discussion for the first time in quite some time, before then I can’t remember having heard anyone use the term in years other than as a boogeyman. Can you point to specific Christians that I would have heard of before for whom reparations is “a huge part of their belief… Read more »

Destiny was being kind. More likely it would be Destinee or even D’estinee.

Why is a White-sounding name “kind” compared to a Black-sounding name?

OKRickety didn’t say a white-sounding name is kind compared to a black sounding name. He was talking about likely, as opposed to ordinary, spelling.

I would kind of like to see an end to the geographic motif. Did these people use an atlas and a pin?

And then your next step is the fight with your daughter’s school. I made several trips demanding that Carolina be changed back to plain, English Caroline. This was quite noble of me because I was told that having Carolina on her official records might benefit her down the road. I looked at them in astonishment. “You are telling me that this Canadian and her Jewish husband are supposed to pretend to be a Hispanic family entitled to affirmative action? Do we claim we were born in Tegucigalpa? ” Well, it was just a thought, take it or leave it.

Happy new year, Adad! I hope you and the family are well. My snowflake is studying drama in Scotland and I am an apache helicopter with no one to hover over. Time for a foster child so I can produce another snowflake to add to the avalanche.

I don’t think so. Once folk were exposed to them and their ideas, they were elected to the Senate.

However, the electorate that voted them into the Senate isn’t necessarily the same as the segment that rejected them in the primaries.

I think Cruz was smart to go by Ted rather than Rafael. On the other hand, Robert O’Roarke took some heat for going by Beto. My patient snowflake explained the rules to me. You are only allowed to appropriate from the dominant culture. I can’t call myself Juanita without accusations of cultural appropriation, but Juanita can call herself Jill. Though why she would want to, I can’t imagine. Inquiries about what Jack and I did while disporting ourselves at the top of the hill were amusing only for the first 50 times or so.

I prefer to imagine devotion rather than clumsiness as the explanation for tumbling Jill, if it makes you feel any better.

Did O’Roarke really get accused of cultural appropriation for going by “Beto”? Literally all the liberals I know like him going by Beto, and I was under the impression that he was well-liked by the Hispanic community, while literally every single person I’ve heard criticizing the “Beto” name was a conservative who accused him of pandering, not of cultural appropriation.

And the rules your snowflake suggests only apply to a tiny segment of internet warriors. In general society, people from the majority community appropriate from the minority community quite happily and often to great financial benefit.

Hi Jonathan. The criticisms I read of O’Roarke’s using “Beto” were not made by liberals or by Hispanics liberal or not, but by a few conservatives who chose to apply a rule in which I suspect they do not ordinarily believe! I agree with you that pandering was the real but unspoken accusation. But my daughter explained to me how the rule operates. She is not an internet warrior but she does, alas, identify as a member of the dramatic community which is equally doctrinaire. This makes it impossible for me not to tease her, especially during our recent slog… Read more »

“Ted” not Rafael. “Bobby”, not Piyush. “Nikki”, not Nimrata. Conservative politicians due seem to think that names matter.

You also see this in how they treat opponents – I’ve repeatedly seen Conservative politicians emphasize their opponents’ middle names when those names were especially “ethnic” and they thought could be used to hurt them. Not just in Obama’s case, but it even happened in some elections in this cycle.

You are certainly intelligent to notice the obvious logical flaw you just committed. That was one of the most basic errors of logical reasoning possible.

Does if A then B mean if B then A?

Well said. But those signals are sent by the parents, not the kids. Either way, though, once people are exposed to the person, the signal sent typically fades.

I just have a hard time thinking a bad name creates an impenetrable wall to opportunities.

Agreed – the signal tells you about the parents (or the culture). And sure – it’s a marginal impact. No argument here.

BJ, sure it’s marginal and the worst name won’t outweigh genuine talent and professional competence, but we all have to first get through the door. I think we are vastly more tolerant of odd names than we used to be, but hiring managers are human. I am thinking of the recent fuss when a couple of flight attendants were overheard ridiculing a child’s name: abcde. To my amazement, the poor girl is not the only one in the under-ten set to have been saddled with this name. I think that abcde, along with Florence Supermax, are names that might pose… Read more »

I don’t think so. I happily concede that crazy ridiculous names do create challenges. But there are ways around them, and they usually fade in importance once you meet the person. But who doesn’t have something that hampers their initial access? I have a slight twang when I say certain words, and yes it creates a slight barrier in my initial encounters with folk (which are extremely important for ministers, which why I am so aware of it). But after a bit, unless there is just some deep hatred of Southerners in this person (despite the fact that I am… Read more »

You silver-tongued fox, you! It’s a good thing you just had my nickname and not my photograph. I have gone through life with a face that yells Dumb Blonde. I used to practice trying to look intelligent in front of the mirror (scowling fiercely, trying to raise one quizzical eyebrow), but I gave it up as a hopeless task. This was actually a smart decision as it has enabled me to weasel my way out doing anything that struck me as difficult or distasteful!

I was imagining all that. Unlike you I see Flower as sweet, clean, and blonde, but with an unfortunate tendency to wander out of the office in the middle of the workday in order to take food to the feral cat colony. Vegetarian food which the cats won’t eat, of course, but poor Flower lives in hope of teaching them that birds are friends not food. The commie’s child has a terrifying name like Winnie Mandela, while the druggie’s child says, “My name is Crystal. Crystal Meth.” But even Abbie Hoffman’s son america sold out to the establishment and started… Read more »

Caylee is mild these days. Pull up the 2016 list for California names and weep softly into your morning coffee. Reading through it made me think fondly of teaching in the 1970s when roll call went: Lisa M, Lisa R, Heather B, Heather J, Heather T, Ashleys G through P, and Tracy with a y, Tracy with a circle-dotted i, and Tracey with an E. Those were the days! Addicted as I am to this kind of trivia, I read how to choose a name for your daughter that will has tested sexual appeal among grown men. It puzzled me… Read more »

Let’s start with the first acknowledgement before we jump to a new topic. If we admit that the bias is ongoing (and that data along with the other conversation above makes it look almost impossible to deny), then we have to admit that it is VERY difficult for Black people as a whole to improve their situation in comparison to White people as a whole. Using the poker analogy again, imagine a room with 100 poker players and then you give the Black half little stacks and the White half big stacks. Then you take 20 strong poker teachers and… Read more »

He sure seems to be awfully coy when pressed concerning his true agenda. That is an absolute lie, one you repeat frequently no matter how many times you are proven wrong. How does Jonathan propose that the Church address his criticisms of capitalism? If Jonathan is not proposing any statist solutions (his claim), then what is the Church ever supposed to do about low economic mobility? Is low economic mobility even a sin that the Church has jurisdiction to discipline over? If Jonathan is not proposing a statist rejection of capitalism (which appears to be the case here), then what… Read more »

But at the same time he will refer to radical economists like Gesell who wanted to mandate that the State take over all private land property and become the perpetual currency manipulator and perpetual landlord with no option of private land ownership for anyone. Gesell is certainly a radical economist, but as I pointed out he is interchangably described as anarchist or even libertarian, and in fact calls for far LESS statist monetary policy. Your complaint that I want the state to be the perpetual currency manipulator is strange – that is in fact the status quote, and Gesell’s policies… Read more »

If literally 25% of my supporting material is Scripture, for a modern topic that of course requires heavy historical context to even be able to talk about the issue, then that sounds like very high reliance indeed of Scripture indeed. Most importantly because Scripture was the FOUNDATION of my entire move in this direction. I did not in my entire life ever once think of lifting a finger to help the Black community or move into a Black neighborhood until I became a Christian, once I gave my life to Christ it took exactly 4 months for God to tell… Read more »

You’re right about mobility being hard in general (so long as we’re not participating in Biblical systems like the Old Testament Jubilee or the New Testament sharing of resources), but I was being specific about naming Capitalism because in each system, economic mobility is hamstringed for different reasons. I wanted to point out specifically why it is so hard to move in capitalism, not just the fact that movement is difficult in general. I’m not sure about the claim that it’s the most economically mobile system ever (even outside of those Biblical systems), and it definitely depends of course on… Read more »

One of the prime indicators of economic mobility is whether or not you have access to the resources to move up. In the Jubilee system, everyone always got access. You always got the starting point back, the land was always available. Your family wasn’t going to get stuck on the bottom with no resources for any extended length of time. That’ pretty much an ideal situation to allow mobility. In economically stagnant systems, one reason there’s no mobility because the “rungs” on the ladder become too wide. The people on the top accumulate far more assets than the people on… Read more »

First off, on a quick read I don’t disagree with any of the directly Biblical claims of that essay. Most of what he’s saying at least appears to be reasonably accurate. Now, he is trying to employ all of those claims to do work for some completely unjustifiable propaganda, the moment he switches from talking about the Jubilee to making some point about society I take issue with his leap in almost every instance. But if you think his claims about Jubilee contradict anything I’ve said, please be specific because I didn’t see any issues on first read. Secondly, since… Read more »

Isn’t an obvious difference that one source is historical fact and the other exegesis of Scripture? I would think there would be a different standard there. And further, even though I was able to demonstrate a serious bias, I still went to the work of reading and discussing the sources, and even acknowledged where they were right. Whereas the people attacking my sources were using a crazy standard (that they didn’t like the guy’s father) and then using that to even read the source, much less discuss or acknowledge them. As it was simply historical narrative, they could dispute anything… Read more »

Do you recognize that there is significance to the fact that Jubilee only applied to the Jews, and, as far as I know, the communal sharing of financial resources by the early Christians was restricted to the Christian community? As most Black people are Christians, I’m not sure how that fact can submarine the responsibility. If you only wish to join community with Black Christians, well then, at least join community with Black Christians. And Julian the Apostate in 362 testified, with disdain, that Christians were helping far more than the Christian community: Why do we not observe that it… Read more »

I think you’re missing slightly on the actual definition of economic mobility. I’ll say about, economic mobility is not a measure of how much richer you can be than someone else. It’s a measure of how likely you are to switch places with other people. In the Jubilee system it appears that the ability to switch places with others (to become one of the “relatively wealthy” or one of the “relatively poor”) but then switch in the next generation was remarkably fluid. Do you dispute that? Do you think that something about the system would have placed some people at… Read more »

Again, you’re talking about absolute wealth, not relative wealth. Economic mobility is always defined by relative wealth – whether you are richer or poorer than other people. Read the links I posted – it’s always about relative measures, not absolute ones. That also seems to match up with what drives satisfaction, low corruption, and other positive indicators in nations. Countries with low overall economic disparity also tend to have high economic mobility, and both of those tend to correlate with higher satisfaction, higher communal trust, lower incidence of mental health issues, and lower incidence of corruption. When there are very… Read more »

Jane, look at what you’re saying about Jubilee though. I showed that Jubilee is most concerned with maintaining relative mobility while avoiding absolute destitution, and you were pointing out that Jubilee is a poor means of creating “absolute prosperity”. So, what does that tell you about which one God values? Doesn’t the nature of Jubilee itself show that God favors the relative mobility over the absolute prosperity? And don’t the verses from Acts confirm that? As well as the extortion from Paul? And that’s exactly why I posted those Biblical verses. Note how the “relative” state of the poor and… Read more »

Never mind what modern sociologists and psychologists have “found”. Scripture doesn’t need their affirmation. That said, yes it is observable that inequality causes dissatisfaction. Some the very scripture you quote speaks to that: “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” This is speaking to the one who desires more when he already has real needs met, as much as it is speaking to the one who has superabundance.… Read more »

Are you suggesting that the Hellenists were wrong to go to the Hebrew disciples and complain about the inequality in the distribution, or that the Hebrew disciples were wrong to address their request and work towards more equality? Or that Paul was wrong to insist that his goal was equality, or that Basil the Great or John Chysostom were wrong to continue to preach the same? You are right that any individual Christian can find satisfaction even in an economically depressed situation. I myself have far, far less material things than the average American, and live in a situation that… Read more »

I’m not suggesting, I’m stating that the Hellenists did not complain about “inequality”, the complaint was that the needs of their widows were not being attended to. Likewise, Paul’s goal was not equality for it’s own sake, but supply of need so that none would lack. What pretty much every American needs to do is reconsider their notion of “economically depressed”. Right now it seems to mean “having less than somebody else I can see”. Also, some Christians, and maybe Americans generally, but certainly some Christians, need to reconsider their notions of “my community”. I’m really not quite sure what… Read more »

Are you suggesting that there is not significant need in the Black community? The desperate situation of many Black communities has already been a major arguing point made by numerous people on all sides of this argument, with all sorts of statistics posted to prove the point. Even the openly racist, anti-Black citations were in that direction. Do you not recognize that desperate need? I’m not talking mere income, but wealth inequality is certainly one of the drivers of those issues. Going back to the Bible, do you believe that the Hellenists had literally zero resources with which to support… Read more »

That is, the cheapest housing, food, clothing, etc., without insurance of any kind, and giving your unneeded funds to others who have need? If you limit your question to those 5 points, the answer would be “yes”. However, I certainly don’t believe I’m living as the ideal Christian. I hopefully am growing closer every year, as it takes a lot of time and a lot of growth in myself and my relationship with God in order to keep getting better at this. And I don’t ask that anyone else live as the ideal Christian ever. I only hope that people… Read more »

If you want to see something really shocking, here’s a working paper from the IMF, a pro-wealth group if there ever was won, admitting in a strong case that inequality is especially harmful for societies. “There is a widespread perception that trust and social capital have declined in United States as well as other advanced economies, while income inequality has tended to increase. While previous research has noted that measured trust declines as individuals become less similar to one another, this paper examines whether the downward trend in social capital is responding to the increasing gaps in income. The analysis… Read more »

I don’t expect you to accept it as correct no matter how many citations I provide, at least not in any way that would change behavior. If you are really interested though, entire books have been written on the matter:

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies-Stronger/dp/1608193411

And here is one of MANY studies on inequality and corruption, something that has been studied extensively as the relation is quite apparent. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145353?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents That gets into one of the large issues with inequality – it isn’t just create psychological issues, nor just the issues of absolute poverty, but it concentrates resources away from the relatively poor regardless of their absolute economic level. The Black community in America, might have X average income, but they still can’t control their own land, can’t get good teachers in their own schools, can’t get good doctors in their own hospitals, can’t get good… Read more »

For such a incredible addition to the discussion, I think a crude but historically quite comparable analogy might be appropriate. Imagine you stole a girl from her family and kept her as your sex slave. Imagine that you didn’t steal the rest of her sisters, you just raped them in their own home, destroyed their family, and left them there after plundering much of what they owned. Then imagine some years later, after you’ve released your sex slave, you draw a silver lining around her situation by pointing out how much nicer things she had than her sisters back home.… Read more »

I can only surmise that you completely, utterly missed the point of my argument. Read it again and respond to what I actually said.

I thought I gave quite a long response, I wish you had dealt with it. If your question is meant to be more than just picking the right word to tag something with, then please be more specific. I believe that any racial bias which is meant towards harm is certainly unjust. In the example in question, charging Black people more for their car because they are Black is definitely unjust. I answered as I did, though, because I wanted to make clear that simply tagging an act as “unjust” wasn’t my primary aim in bringing up that situation, and… Read more »

No, my objective wasn’t to “condemn communities of people where a black man has a statistical likelihood of paying more for a car”. If you read the links you’d see that the issue literally covered all of America. Like I explained, my objective is the same as it was in my very first comment up top and all the other comments I’ve posted – to point out that the action of the status quo operating on almost every level is to force Black people to remain an underclass, and so long as the status quo remains and the Church doesn’t… Read more »

And I’m really bothered by your last paragraph because it makes it look like you’re not even reading my words, you’re just projecting something else on top of them. This was my entire commentary from the original comment: Those were three quite different studies examining three different factors, but they all come to the same conclusion. If you’re Black then you are going to get gouged on the price. The issue is pretty easy to explain from a free market standpoint – customers tend to get gouged by the seller when the seller knows that the customer doesn’t have as… Read more »

I point out the historic injustices in order to make clear that it is outside forces that are heavily responsible for the current situation, against any posters who argue that it is “culture” or “Black people’s innate criminality” or “welfare mentality” or “their own bad decisions”, and in order to explain why the current situation is virtually impossible to change from within alone. But no, I don’t think the “guilt” of the historic injustices is what should drive our practical response as Christian neighbors. Yes, the obligation would remain even if we were “entirely innocent”. If it was a horrific… Read more »

sorry, that should read, “his message does not appear to depend on the amount of ‘guilt’.”

We have all sinned, none of us are innocent, our call to obedience does not come and go depending on how “innocent” we happen to feel in any particular situation.

But it’s not solely income levels that’s the issue. That’s been a major part of the discussion for three weeks, something that even Arwin and others have been demonstrating as well. The poverty that affects the Black community is an entirely different nature than the poverty that affects the vast majority of the White community, as it is a multigenerational, segregated poverty imposed from outside that it thus far more difficult to escape. You want to throw away literally everything we’ve been talking about that makes Black poverty unique – the segregation, the depressed inner-city communities, the terrible schools, the… Read more »

Bad form is to ignore the first five paragraphs in order to pick at a single word in the 6th paragraph. We’ve been making the case for serious injustices against Black people leading to the current situation for two weeks now, that case is obvious. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining – that was all OBVIOUSLY injustice. Are you really going to deny that, or deny that that argument has been made extensively already? You’re ignoring 90% of what I said in that comment in order to make a claim that you can only make by ignoring nearly everything else I’ve said… Read more »

I already answered your question directly, I said that bias that results in harm is injustice. Obviously, it is bad to commit injustice. However, our Christian duty to react to help suffering people does not hinge on whether their suffering is the result of injustice. When we read the story of Lazarus and the rich man, or Jesus’s frequent edicts to help the poor, we never see the qualification of whether their situation was the result of injustice or not. Our duty is to love our neighbor regardless of whether they ended up in the situation due to injustice or… Read more »

Or in bullet form if you prefer: * Have Black people suffered due to injustice? Yes. * Does that mean that all Black suffering is due to current injustice? No, it can be current injustice, the inevitable effects of historic injustice, or other issues. * Does that change our duty to respond to suffering? No, we are called to respond whether the cause of suffering is injustice or not. * Does that change how we respond to suffering? Yes, understanding the causes can inform our best response. Though sometimes suffering due to injustice and suffering due to other causes can… Read more »

It’s quite difficult to tell what your actual complaint is. Injustice and poverty are both important issues, sometimes both are relevant and sometimes only one is relevant. You seem to want me to give the same answer to every question, which doesn’t make sense because different questions have different answers. Where am I actually being inconsistent? Can you quote the two different statements, in context, that appear to be inconsistent to you and explain how they are so? And to clarify, because you said “poverty” just after I said it wasn’t about poverty, people can be in desperate situations where… Read more »

No, that’s not what I’m saying, and I’ve explained it to you before, but at this point it doesn’t appear that you’re interested in honest discussion.

Anyone interested in limited discussion can ask if any clarification is actually needed (I doubt there is), but you’re just playing games at this point.

OKRickety, if I had provided multiple URLs then the comment would have been thrown into moderation, to emerge who knows when. I tried to provide a link with multiple URLs earlier and it still hasn’t shown up yet, so it doesn’t seem to me to be an effective way to comment. I notice that you did not challenge FP this way when he referred to a study that was quite difficult to find even with the URL (because, of course, the source was intentionally obscuring its name as it didn’t say anything like what the source claimed it said). I… Read more »

1) OKRickety and I have not interacted this whole thread. There’s really no reason for him to challenge me when I refer to a study that, according to you, is “difficult to find” (apparently, you are unfamiliar with the Google). What would you have googled to locate the study? I’m interested in what your search phrase would have been and how far down in the results it would have appeared, as your link didn’t even give the study’s name. As you already know, I did manage to find the study, but it was not elementary. And I assumed poor motives… Read more »

You’re right, it was the article YOU quoted that made the ridiculously false claim “New Study Finds Democrats Fully to Blame for Subprime Mortgage Crisis that Caused 2008 Financial Disaster.” It looks like you had to use three layers of conservative telephone to get that ridiculous assertion, rather than quoting the study itself which says nothing of the sort. And The Gateway Pundit itself has quite the illustrious history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_Pundit And yes, I read the NBER study which suggests that the CRA may have increased foreclosures by all of 0.75%. It would be absolutely ridiculous to claim that this tiny… Read more »

Yeah Katecho, anyone the least bit interested in the truth can see that you’re full of it. I don’t even need to defend myself because everyone can see the entire conversation written out. I doubt God is amused by your lie, whether you successfully predict that I’d call out an obvious lie or not.

There was no inconsistency, I wasn’t “supporting” the CRA, anyone who can read can see that, and supporting the CRA (something that had over 90% approval in both the House and Senate) wouldn’t make someone a “statist” anyway. Anyone can see that FP tried to throw the CRA into the discussion as the argument that Democrats fully caused the 2008 economic meltdown, and all I did was point out that Republicans and Democrats were both behind the CRA and that it didn’t the meltdown. So that makes me a “statist”? What would a non-statist do then, deny reality and claim… Read more »

Jonathan sure finds himself defending State intervention in an all too predictable pattern.

I did not defend state intervention AT ALL there. The only thing I defended was an economic analysis.

Claiming someone is a statist just because they don’t think the CRA caused the economic meltdown is like claiming someone is a Muslim if they argue that Milosevic started the Yugoslavian wars.

I wouldn’t argue against the fact that Democrats were responsible for pushing and beefing up the CRA. Both Democrats and Republicans were definitely responsible. But to claim that Democrats were fully responsible, or that the 1977 CRA was the main cause (or even a major cause) of the 2008 economic meltdown, would simply be false. Where does the NBER study suggest that? That was how I read the combination of the results from pages 14 and 18 (based on table five), along with the fact that they were only seeing any effect at all in what was on average 3… Read more »

It doesn’t help, it just gets frustrating that at least half of my discussion here always ends up getting tied up trying to conform to extreme standards that neither our host nor any other commenter is held to. I’d rather discuss the issue than spend, what, 4-5 comments already discussing the form of citations? I recall the discussion on gun control, when Pastor Wilson printed completely false statistics about guns and didn’t source them at all. I saw on face value that the statistics he posted were unlikely, and with some detective work was able to show that they were… Read more »

That’s even stranger than your “those slaves and their offspring should just be grateful they’re not in Africa” comment. Like other commentors said, your animosity towards me is driving you towards completely unhelpful discourse.

Sorry, my brain mixed up FP’s name with Katecho’s name leading the comment.

To be clear, FP is the one that claims the hypothetical Black Jonathan would take disagreement as open racism, and suggests I desperately wish I was this Black Jonathan.

Katecho is the one who advocates for a return to debt slavery and suggests that the Africans who were the descendants of extreme atrocities in being kidnapped and enslaved in America should just be grateful they’re not the Africans who were the descendants of extreme atrocities in Africa.

I shouldn’t confuse them.

Is it my turn to tear my robe, call Jonathan a liar, and demand an apology? I think I’ll leave that m.o. to Jonathan. Of course you won’t, because I was right. You have repeatedly said that it was righteous, good, criticized modern nations for not understanding that, and said that it should be considered again today. Which of those statements is untrue? Is it my turn to tear my robe, call Jonathan a liar, and demand an apology? I think I’ll leave that m.o. to Jonathan. What a weird statement. You are constantly demanding apologies, you did it 9… Read more »

Katecho, I’ll spell it out because it seems like you still don’t get it.

For you as a White person to state that Black victims of injustice should look at Black victims of even greater injustice and feel grateful was a strange thing to insert into the conversation. Especially since your suggestion was made to White people, none of which can take your suggestion into practice. I still don’t have a clue what your purpose was in telling White people that Black people should feel more grateful, but I’ll give you room to explain.