[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: war...

Michael wrote:
> Sorry, if you took my very poor school record and tried to correlate it with
> my IQ rating (the I in IQ meaning intelligence) you would find a great
> disparity.  I also grew up in a very poor urban area and consequently used
> much slang and incorrect grammar to which I was constantly exposed.

And G.W.Bush grew up in one of the richest, oldest, most powerful families in
the world.  What's his excuse?

All sarcasm aside, you make a good point about the lack of a necessary
connection between "book learnin'" and intelligence.  I, myself, tend not to
put too much stock in IQ values because I don't think intelligence can be
measured with one number.  

However, your strange jump to racism is totally unfounded by what I said.  Bush
went to Yale and Harvard, and yet still speaks incoherently (when speaking
unscripted) and makes basic grammatical mistakes.  His reputation in college
was that of a party animal but a brilliant politician.  He got bad grades, but
never forgot people's names.  I never said he wasn't a good politician; he is
an excellent campaigner.  No question about that.  The fact that he could get
himself, a *Bush*, accepted as a "good ol' boy" in contrast to Gore's perceived
intellectualism is a stunning achievement.  He brilliantly managed to turn his
English mistakes into a selling point by laughing at his own mistakes, thus
coming across as humble and distracting the focus from what he was saying to
how he was saying it.  There are things he does very well; abstract thought and
clear expression do not seem to be two of them.  If words like "smart" and 
"stupid" are too vague to be useful in discussion, let's ditch them.

> So it would follow from your "lack of mastery of the English language" poor
> urban people (often black) who use street slang and poor grammar are stupid.

Absolutely not.  Those are your words, not mine.  People in those environments
(of whatever race) are at a huge educational disadvantage.  When you have to
worry about getting shot, when you are not getting proper nutrition, when
you don't have a family structure, it is *extremely* difficult to nuture
and support intellectual education.  Like Malcolm X wrote about in his
autobigraphy: he knew people on the street who were geniuses at numbers, math,
and organization, but society had given them no means to exercise those gifts
except through vice and crime.  How can you possibly take my words with regards
to G. W. Bush and apply it to those people?

> I guess that means take a plane and ram it into a building. 

Hey, Jesus said to love your enemies and bless those who persecute you.  Didn't
stop his followers from killing millions of people.  My whole point is that
this kind of violent terrorism is not a part of traditional Islam, but rather a
recent perversion of it, which most Muslims (particularly American Muslims)
will tell you as well.  The KKK consider themselves Christians, but I certainly
wouldn't want to be blamed for their crimes.

> Interesting monologue but what does it have to do with the fact (much less
> refute it) that two people have a similar hatred of one ethnic/religious
> group.

I wasn't trying to refute anything.  I was trying to put it in historical context.
Some people seem to think that Arabs and Jews have been implacable blood enemies 
forever.  Absolutely not true.  

> Interesting concept, but if someone in your family was in the WTC that day,
> my guess is you would feel differently. 

I doubt it.  I like to think I'm mature enough not to blame innocent people for
the acts of the guilty.  I can't be sure, of course, since no one I know was
killed (although a few people came close; my step-brother was a few blocks away
at the time), but I have always tried to motivate my decisions in love, not
fear or hatred, and I don't think that would change.

> Innocent till proven guilty theories I don't believe took into account
> terrorism.

It's not a theory; it's a legal principle.  It applies to any crime.  I also
believe in "do unto others as you would have done unto you", and I know I
wouldn't want to be judged as suspect, merely because some people that I have
only the vaguest tenuous connection with committed crimes.

> It's a nice phrase also but it isn't even in effect in America.  

It's supposed to be.  That's why trials can get moved if the defense can show
that too many people in the jury pool are prejudiced in the case.  Just because
all-white juries in the south wrongly convicted many black men doesn't mean
that's how the system is *supposed* to work.  The principle was established
because "guilty until proven innocent" led to horrific human and civil rights
violations, and I firmly believe that to head down that road is to abandon one
of the great things about America.  I still believe in the principles of
America, and even if we fail to realize them, I think we should keep trying,
not abandon them.  To me, Sep 11th was a wake-up call that we need to stop
treating the rest of the world like they exist to serve us, that we need to
really take our principles seriously and apply them without hypocrisy, even if
that means giving up some of the luxuries and priveledges we've enjoyed at the
expense of others' misery.  Just because women earn less than men doesn't mean
we should stop trying to get equal wages.  Just because rich people get much
better legal aid doesn't mean we should not try to get equal justice for all.
The principles are still worthy, even if the practice falls short.

Okay, that's enough off-topic stuff from me today.  
-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                          http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

"I feel terrible sadness when I hear "Let's get back to 'normal'".
In other words, we have nothing to learn or change."  - Sylvia Aruffo
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/