What does ‘too scientific’ mean? You hint at a definition, i.e., a logical argument. Yes, exactly. You observe that such a thing is not an emotional argument, and again, yes exactly.

“Yes, you are 100% factually correct, and no, that doesn’t matter in the slightest, because the belief you’re arguing against doesn’t stem from rigorous logical conclusion, it stems from emotional conclusion.”

So, factual correctness or logical arguments don’t “matter in the slightest”? If that is true, then the human race is doomed (which of course it may be).

I think your statement really underestimates the ‘groups’ you may be talking about, so: ‘don’t present a logical argument, because it won’t have any effect on such people, it isn’t emotional enough’. Because it assumes that ‘angry’ is a static condition, which it isn’t. And while some may be emotionally stirred by Wright’s racist rants, the very same people may come to ultimately reject them, because people’s thinking does change, even if perlhaqr doesn’t believe so. But in fact some (or even few, but not none) people do change their thinking, if they can see why they should or that they should:

Claim: The US government created HIV to kill black people.

Question: Can this really be true, since HIV is equally lethal to all races of humans?

Answer: You are a racist.

Question: Can this really be true, since HIV would have to have been invented in the 1950s, when knowledge of genetics, viruses, retroviruses, etc. was much more limited than it is now, and yet we still don’t know what to do about HIV/AIDS?

Answer: You are a racist.

Question: Can this really be true, since it would have to have been kept secret from virtually everybody but J. Wright for over 50 years?

Answer: You are a racist.

Yes, there are people who would see nothing wrong with the ‘answers’ to the questions posed above. Yet there are some who might begin to question these answers, as well.

No – logical arguments are not for the masses, and frankly, it has nothing to do with religion – human beings in general tend not to be swayed by logical (or other) arguments if those clash with beliefs they already hold. Humankind does not consist of rational animals. Some humans are more often or consistently rational than others, but all are at times irrational.

No – I am not going to convince La Rana that Wright is wrong – nor am I trying to (even though ‘perspective’ does not convert a fallacy to a valid argument).

The only people that will be reached, if any, are those for whom, while listening once more to Wright’s (or others like him) hateful rants, also hear a still voice asking ‘Are you sure you believe this? Can this be true? If not, then why is it being promoted? Am I drinking milk or poison?’

I’m curious, because I’ve never been there and would like to know, so that I may begin to formulate an opinion on the subject: Does the museum discuss the issue of white slavery in America, or does it focus exclusively on the enslavement of black people?

—-

There are many good points here, made by many different posters.

Some of my thoughts.

Several people have commented “How could Obama have sat there for 20 years while Wright spewed this racist vitriol?”

Do any of us know–or even have any idea–how frequently Rev. Wright made these claims? It was a church, I presume he spoke of other things on occasion.

Yes, if this church was a 3 hour hatefest every Sunday for the last 20 years, then it’s probably unreasonable for Sen. Obama to have sat there through it and formed a positive relationship with this man, and then claim that he just thought of him as a kooky uncle. But if the “Government invented AIDS, kill whitey” speech only came up once a year, I think it’s less objectionable for Obama to have had a positive relationship with his church and his congregation.

Michael Chaney made some good points. I think they point at a second conclusion, though. The sort of institutionalised racism that happened to black people happened within the lifetimes of some of the older members of that group. They have a good reason to be angry. Now, personally, I think that means they have an obligation to teach their children to be vigilant, but to recognize that change has occurred, and been occurring.

Likewise, I think it’s important for people in a position of power, like Obama, to know these other, angry people. It’s difficult to bridge the gap to the radicals, and create constructive outlets for them, if you don’t know they exist, or don’t talk to them. In short, people like Rev. Wright exist, and that means they are a part of the operant conditions of the world. If we want to make progress, we have to be able to communicate with those groups, and that means making ties to them, to mitigate the damage they cause.

Pencil Pushr: Your refutation of the “Government created AIDS” idea is too scientific. Yes, it makes logical sense, but you’re talking past the emotional level at which MMIE was making his point about.

The government has done medical experimentation on black people–explicitly in the realm of sexually transmitted diseases–and so some portions of the black community believe that the government is willing to do things like that to them.

The idea that the government created AIDS to destroy black people is a belief, not a logical conclusion. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to argue a religious person out of their beliefs, but it doesn’t work. When you speak logic, you’re not talking to the same part of the psyche that holds beliefs.

Basically, I’m saying that you both have good points. Yes, you are 100% factually correct, and no, that doesn’t matter in the slightest, because the belief you’re arguing against doesn’t stem from rigorous logical conclusion, it stems from emotional conclusion.

It’s fascinating to read Paleolibertarian and Pencil pusher. I can’t even remember the last time overt racism was an acceptable topic of conversation.”

Overt racism appears to be perfectly acceptable to liberals when it’s a black man such as Wright spouting it.

“In singling out Wright’s theories for damnation…”

Um, in case you missed it, Wright was the TOPIC OF DISCUSSION, so singling him out is not racism, it’s just “staying on topic”. That you see that as racism is interesting and suggests certain things about you (based on observations I have made in many other such cases).

“For starters, the only problem with the past was state-enforced racism.”

Well, that and “state-allowed race-based crimes” (that is, turning a blind eye to lynchings, etc), but that’s (mostly) the same issue, really. A better way to state that would be:

“the only problem with the past was racism by the state.”

The state needs to be race-blind. The rest of us should be free to be racist if we want to be, because the government “solution” to private racism is 1) worse than the private racism it purports to fix, and 2) just racism against different groups, which is not in any way “solving” racism.

Racism is repugnant, but so is advocating pedophilia - in either case, the government shouldn’t do it itself, but the government “solving” the problem involves abrogation of very important rights (freedom of association and freedom of speech, respectively).

This is a great point, and really why I at least find Obama’s choosing of such a church so awful.

Wright is a race huckster, by definition a racist. “Getting over” racism would be BAD for him - indeed, Obama being elected would likely be bad for him, as it would take a lot of the wind out of his racist BS.

Choosing to associate with such a group of vile racists (of any skin color) is a very bad judgement and not something I want in my President.

I wouldn’t really care if we had a black President, as skin color is not relevant to the job qualifications (black, white, blue, orange, purple, whatever) - Rice has been discussed by many Republicans as a good candidate, actually (a bit of a fantasy, as she’s not interested in the job at the moment), and that would have been fine with me (certainly a better choice than McCain in most areas).

(Sex is actually a semi-relevant topic to discuss, as a pregnant President is not something I ever want to happen, but, as almost every national-level female politician is past menopause, anyway, it’s mostly theoretical.)

When I said observation I was referring to the fact that few white people were willing to acknowledge that Wright’s beliefs were reasonable. This is an observation. When I accused you of racism, I assigned moral qualities to you. But I did this on the basis of your writings, not on the basis of the color of your skin.

In singling out Wright’s theories for damnation, among all the crazy ideas making their way around this great country - there are literally thousands of less objectively reasonable ideas in wider circulation - you unwittingly locate your own common denominator. You simply sealed the deal when you analyzed the claims from your perspective instead of Wright’s. Lemme guess, the Duke case was the first time you ever got really angry about prosecutorial misconduct?

It is used by some in situations that call for an answer but for which they have none. So, if I assert that leukemia was invented by Latvians in order to get rid of Norwegians, I don’t have to answer the obvious facts that even Latvians get leukemia (so this would actually be a bad plan), I don’t have to answer the observation that the creation of such a disease would be very hard to keep secret, nor do I have to explain how I “know” this about leukemia, when, if I really had any evidence, I could probably put it to use.

Nope, when asked to support these claims, all I have to do is call the one asking the questions a racist, and that settles it. I can convince myself this is an objective thing by ‘observing’ that the questioner is a racist, rather than ‘assigning the person the moral quality’ of racist.

Yeah, that works better.

The only problem is that it ignores the really glaring questions unanswered, such as - what motivates someone to make these claims? Could it be some kind of class hatred kind of thing?

And what motivates someone to accept these claims as plausible without really examining them? That too, maybe?

Your obliviousness to the distinction is precisely the point.

From La Rana-
“My guess is they’ve probably convinced themselves that so long as they steer clear of certain words, assigning moral qualities to a group of people on the basis of their skin color isn’t racism. ”

So, La Rana, according to your own definition, you are a racist.

The phenomenon of projection is an interesting one, don’t you think?

Tybalt put it well.

No. I’d boycott both. Neither should be a criminal offense, because neither violate nobody’s rights. But just because neither action violates anybody’s rights doesn’t mean the actions aren’t morally objectionable.

So you’d boycott a restaurant that refused to serve blacks, or Jews, or whites, etc, but you’d have no problem with that same restaurant who refused to hire them?

Two points. But to preface, I will say that, for example, I agree that discrimination in hiring or choosing to serve customers, be it based on race or an other characteristic, should be perfectly “legal” and allowable. Nobody has a “right” to be hired by anybody else.

That said.

(1) It’s just plain WRONG to suggest that the “only problem” with the past was “state enforced racism.” In fact, many vile, unjust, violent acts were committed by private citizens in their capacity as private citizens, against Blacks and other minorities. One example would be the New York City Draft Riots, another would be group lynchings in the South, where entire families turned out to cheer on the torture and murder of Black men. The State was NOT the only organization committing _violence_ against Blacks and other minorities. Private citizens did as well.

(2) Second, it’s equally wrong to suggest that racism is not a “problem” simply because it can be expressed in ways which don’t violate a person’s rights. The use of ethnic slurs, shabby treatment, degrading language, making broad, racially motivated false statements about entire ethnic groups - are problems that libertarians SHOULD be concerned with, by virtue of the fact that they are members of humanity. Justice (which deals with Rights), is not the only virtue, just the only virtue you can enforce with coercion. I’d boycott any restaurant that refused to serve blacks, or Jews, or whites, or Poles - and any decent human being would do the same.

Not only that, but in its nearly infinite evil knowledge, the U.S. was able to create this disease such that it targets just certain ‘undesirable’ humans, and not the designers.

Not only that, but no other, more superior government, research agency, or rogue genius has been able to do anything truly effective about HIV.

Nope, I don’t have any problem believing that, because I have a certain blind hatred of a vague, not even defined, group who is out to get ME. This allows me to ignore the fact that there is no known group of people of any color, race, or sexual orientation that is immune to HIV.

Not only that, but I can ignore that the people that created this menace are able to continue to keep it a secret, and of course to keep the cure a secret too, only to be brought out when the thing has done its job; and as already noted, no one else has even come close to understanding what the designers of this scourge have known for years.

What a load of CRAP.

But that’s OK, I will just apply the other wonderful argument found here in these pages, which is: “Hey, other people have believed equally ridiculous and outrageous things, so I (or whoever needs justification) might as well believe this.”

What an additional load of CRAP.

So the arguments are 1) hatred is a really good argument, and 2) if not, just find someone sillier to compare yourself to.

Private racism should perfectly lawful, need not involve “force or fraud,” and in a free society there will be many private and voluntary groupings, some racist or ethnic or otherwise exclusionary, that neither the state nor anyone else should do anything about.

If you’re a real libertarian you should be complaining about Brown v. Board and the very existence of public schools and federal involvement in such local matters as vociferously as you complain against the drug war. Both the “war on segregation” and the “war on drugs” are means of expanding the federal government, always in the name of some supposed public good or the rights of some aggrieved minority.

Second, blacks need to get over it and start living like free, responsible adults. Wright is from Philadelphia, not the Deep South. Obama’s the son of an African grad student (and bigamist) who grew up in Hawaii and went to prep schools. So long as Wright, Obama, and half-hearted libertarians like you make excuses, then they’ll continue to seek hand-outs from hard-working productive whites and Asians and continue to bamboozle them into feeling guilty. A good swath of the latter groups are the natural constituency in favor of libertarianism–consider all the Asians who come here broke and make it big–and are constantly beset and leached after by folks on welfare who are the real engine of state growth. The welfare state aims its goods at the poor and minority and is much larger than the meager law enforcement and prison resources used in the drug war. Look at the Social Security or Department of Agriculture budget sometime, or all the money spent on public schools for that matter. It’s not for nothing the first welfare state grew up around claims of equality and human rights for blacks under Abraham Lincoln. The claims of equality and liberty are directly contradictory and the imposition of equality–such as that sought by Wright and Obama–has always been used to expand the state. Obama just wants middle class and poor whites to hop onto the gravy train.

Finally, Obama and Wright both seem to have a beef with “rich white people. The people they hate are the people who’ve made this country great, building businesses, universities, libraries, and other institutions of culture. Compare liberal America and orderly Europe to socialist Kenya, the land where Obama got the Dreams of His Father. Instead of heaping so much hate upon the productive majority and joining in with Rev. God Damn America, maybe you can show a little recognition of their virtues and quit worrying about alienated folks on the parasite side of the bell curve. They’re not going to join your liberarian movement any time soon; if you somehow got weed legalized, they’d demand government weed just like they want government food stamps and government section 8 housing vouchers. Trust me on this one.