dubdisciple


@SuperG I was not talking about the publicized incidents. I was referring 100% to in person encounters. i have know way of knowing if my experience was typical nationwide and would to claim so. The circle of TP members I was regularly exposed to seemed to lean towards racism and other forms of fanaticism. In their defense, I don't think they had any clue they were racist, even when the members who did not participate in such things pointed out how their actions could be regarded as such. Anyways, I think I am going to abandon this thread because it is very off topic at this point and I apologize for that.

Ah well, we're all adults here (if somebody doesn't take this snark-bait..)     


I got off track, we all got off track. All we can do is face-palm and move on.

dubdisciple


@SuperG I was not talking about the publicized incidents. I was referring 100% to in person encounters. i have know way of knowing if my experience was typical nationwide and would to claim so. The circle of TP members I was regularly exposed to seemed to lean towards racism and other forms of fanaticism. In their defense, I don't think they had any clue they were racist, even when the members who did not participate in such things pointed out how their actions could be regarded as such. Anyways, I think I am going to abandon this thread because it is very off topic at this point and I apologize for that.

The trouble with accusations of "racism" is that everyone's definition of the word is so wildly different, it's impossible to take any unspecific accusation seriously. For some people, merely disliking a president who happens to be black is irrefutable evidence of racism. Alarm bells ring in my head when an accuser says something like "I don't think they were even aware that they were being racist." This is usually a sign that the "racist incident" in question was highly questionable. 

Defintions of racism. Let's let it go gentlemen....

backwoods


Defintions of racism. Let's let it go gentlemen....

But but but but how will I ever sleep? 

sharke

dubdisciple


@SuperG I was not talking about the publicized incidents. I was referring 100% to in person encounters. i have know way of knowing if my experience was typical nationwide and would to claim so. The circle of TP members I was regularly exposed to seemed to lean towards racism and other forms of fanaticism. In their defense, I don't think they had any clue they were racist, even when the members who did not participate in such things pointed out how their actions could be regarded as such. Anyways, I think I am going to abandon this thread because it is very off topic at this point and I apologize for that.

The trouble with accusations of "racism" is that everyone's definition of the word is so wildly different, it's impossible to take any unspecific accusation seriously. For some people, merely disliking a president who happens to be black is irrefutable evidence of racism. Alarm bells ring in my head when an accuser says something like "I don't think they were even aware that they were being racist." This is usually a sign that the "racist incident" in question was highly questionable. 

Racism is just a variant of bigotry. It's a perverse, obstinate prejudice in the face of reason.


So of 'dislike', you have to judge it in the presence of reason. We could say, as an excuse, that the president being black is merely coincidental, but we can not take that at face value. It must past the test of reason. If past history, hypocrisy of ethic, or whatever is present, it is not reasonable.

I remember Michelle Bachmann's opinion on social security, and social program in general. She didn't think much of the program or those using it. Would her opinions be reasonable? What if it were discovered that her r husband was running a "pray-the-gay-away" program and had accepted medicaid funds as payment for services? Obviously, she and her husband have no problem accepting money from social funds. The reasonable thing to conclude is that she has a crude problem with honesty, and is bigoted too - and many like her are of the same religious bent.


If someone doesn't like Obama, so be it. Whether or not one is a racist merely depends on the reasonability of that dislike - it's no more simpler than that. 

Apple Corp is now one of, if not THE largest single company in the world.

Oh my. How far this thread has fallen, and I have not yet gotten to the argument about how to define racism.

Apple is one of the smallest big cap corporations in the world. It has an extraordinarily small workforce (about 70K compared to Walmart 2.2M or Starbucks 149K), very little in the way of Apple owned production facilities, most of its distribution system is short term leased property (< 400 Apple Stores worldwide) and so on. If you judge size by any criterion except for "market capitalization" (i. e the aggregate current value of outstanding stock certificates) or revenue it is a pipsqueak. What it has is a reputation for being able to drain an extraordinary (some might say exorbitant) profit from designing a limited range of products that are in extremely high demand from consumers, which in turn makes it an exciting investment, so long as it can keep up the magic. If the magic fails, there are damn few assets its investors can claim. 

It has risen to the pinnacle of second highest market cap company without the natural monopoly, and deliberately anticompetitive business practices of Microsoft, by making toys and tools that are very popular, and selling into a market that is for the most part very wealthy. However they are still a massive underdog compared to MS on the basis of desktop computers OS. Apple does not make the list of top 5 computer manufacturers (Microsoft makes none), but to compare operating systems which they both make, Microsoft Windows is on about 92% of PCs while Apple OS is on <7%.

Apple can make you do what it wants you to do, not because it is so big, but because it has limited your ability to do what you want on its systems by design. If you want Apple, you play by Apple rules, use Apple supported/marketed applications, and hardware. In the past MS has at least paid lip service to the concept of a flexible system that will install on machines made by many manufacturer's and support software and hardware from many sources. This has had the (probably unintended) effect of fostering a massively innovative personal computer/software environment, with the result that we have seen enormous progress in this area. Now Microsoft has found its stock value has not kept up with Apple, and so they are taking on many of the trappings of Apple. Marketing software via the Microsoft Store (effectively charging rent on the developers of new Windows software) prohibiting unsigned drivers (rent on hardware development) etc. etc.

SuperG

sharke

dubdisciple


@SuperG I was not talking about the publicized incidents. I was referring 100% to in person encounters. i have know way of knowing if my experience was typical nationwide and would to claim so. The circle of TP members I was regularly exposed to seemed to lean towards racism and other forms of fanaticism. In their defense, I don't think they had any clue they were racist, even when the members who did not participate in such things pointed out how their actions could be regarded as such. Anyways, I think I am going to abandon this thread because it is very off topic at this point and I apologize for that.

The trouble with accusations of "racism" is that everyone's definition of the word is so wildly different, it's impossible to take any unspecific accusation seriously. For some people, merely disliking a president who happens to be black is irrefutable evidence of racism. Alarm bells ring in my head when an accuser says something like "I don't think they were even aware that they were being racist." This is usually a sign that the "racist incident" in question was highly questionable. 

Racism is just a variant of bigotry. It's a perverse, obstinate prejudice in the face of reason.


So of 'dislike', you have to judge it in the presence of reason. We could say, as an excuse, that the president being black is merely coincidental, but we can not take that at face value. It must past the test of reason. If past history, hypocrisy of ethic, or whatever is present, it is not reasonable.

I remember Michelle Bachmann's opinion on social security, and social program in general. She didn't think much of the program or those using it. Would her opinions be reasonable? What if it were discovered that her r husband was running a "pray-the-gay-away" program and had accepted medicaid funds as payment for services? Obviously, she and her husband have no problem accepting money from social funds. The reasonable thing to conclude is that she has a crude problem with honesty, and is bigoted too - and many like her are of the same religious bent.


If someone doesn't like Obama, so be it. Whether or not one is a racist merely depends on the reasonability of that dislike - it's no more simpler than that. 

What bothers me is that in a lot of cases, one can voice a completely rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc, and there are some people who will always react to that with "face it...you just can't stand to see a black man in the White House." It's just using the race card to sabotage the debate. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist, or that racism doesn't drive at least some of the opposition to Obama.  But it's like dismissing any objection to George Bush with "face it, you just don't like people from Texas." And let's face it, there were plenty of liberals who openly played up the "ignorant redneck" angle. 

As for religious hypocrites, well of course they exist. And homophobic hypocrites who get caught with their manhood in a glory hole. But they're all over the place. Some of the worst of them are the progressives who fuel the fires of class warfare and hatred against the rich, while living in palatial mansions, being driven by chauffeurs and flown in private jets, and taking backhanders everywhere they can get them. Look at Al Gore and his environmental crusade, berating Americans for their irresponsible use of energy while he himself lives on a ranch which uses 12 times the power of the average American home. I find this kind of hypocrisy and dishonesty no less reprehensible than any other. 

rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc

sharke

Totally agree. They only way someone could play the 'card' in the face of apparently rational, reasonable objections if is those objections were either:


a:  not true, or innaccurate, miscaracterized (i.e. ideological history - no claiming truth just because some
     partisan hack on fox news said it...)
b:  consistently held  (no flip-flopping)

The problem for conservatives is that Obama, policy-wise, is simply that he [Obama] has been more conservative in many if not more practices than past popular conservative politico's. That puts the onus on conservatives to be very precise and very clear about those objections - and it's a tough one that quite a few will never pass. The race card remains a valid conjecture and until either rational objection are presented (keeping in mind the context points above), or other non-rational objections are presented. Tough choices, eh?


(funny, a lot of right-wing politicos that could pass those tests were voted out of office, imho....)

One could simply say he'd never vote for a Democrat. That would reduce the argument to the reasonableness of that, at least until supporting arguments were made, and then the cycle of rationality begins again, ad infinitum.

slartabartfast

Apple Corp is now one of, if not THE largest single company in the world.

Oh my. How far this thread has fallen, and I have not yet gotten to the argument about how to define racism.

Apple is one of the smallest big cap corporations in the world. It has an extraordinarily small workforce (about 70K compared to Walmart 2.2M or Starbucks 149K), very little in the way of Apple owned production facilities, most of its distribution system is short term leased property (< 400 Apple Stores worldwide) and so on. If you judge size by any criterion except for "market capitalization" (i. e the aggregate current value of outstanding stock certificates) or revenue it is a pipsqueak. What it has is a reputation for being able to drain an extraordinary (some might say exorbitant) profit from designing a limited range of products that are in extremely high demand from consumers, which in turn makes it an exciting investment, so long as it can keep up the magic. If the magic fails, there are damn few assets its investors can claim. 

It has risen to the pinnacle of second highest market cap company without the natural monopoly, and deliberately anticompetitive business practices of Microsoft, by making toys and tools that are very popular, and selling into a market that is for the most part very wealthy. However they are still a massive underdog compared to MS on the basis of desktop computers OS. Apple does not make the list of top 5 computer manufacturers (Microsoft makes none), but to compare operating systems which they both make, Microsoft Windows is on about 92% of PCs while Apple OS is on <7%.

Apple can make you do what it wants you to do, not because it is so big, but because it has limited your ability to do what you want on its systems by design. If you want Apple, you play by Apple rules, use Apple supported/marketed applications, and hardware. In the past MS has at least paid lip service to the concept of a flexible system that will install on machines made by many manufacturer's and support software and hardware from many sources. This has had the (probably unintended) effect of fostering a massively innovative personal computer/software environment, with the result that we have seen enormous progress in this area. Now Microsoft has found its stock value has not kept up with Apple, and so they are taking on many of the trappings of Apple. Marketing software via the Microsoft Store (effectively charging rent on the developers of new Windows software) prohibiting unsigned drivers (rent on hardware development) etc. etc.

I'd agree with most these characterizations but for a few:


1: Of course Apple never had a natural monopoly, but that doesn't mean that Apples has never been anti-competitive. Apple's lawsuit against Windows back in the day is a fine example of that. Apple had unclean hands concerning GUI's, seeing that its product was a copy of someone else's (i.e PARC).


2: Political taste's have changed (society is more conservative). The App Store is a fine example of hardware- software bundling. Note that famous IBM case that forced IBM's hand on it's OS, allowing companies like Ahmdahl and Fujitsu to thrive. However, the Library of Congress has recently ruled, unfortunately that breaking your iPhone or iPad is now illegal, because apparently Apple doesn't have monopoly status... How IBM weeps..except that, Gee Whiz, IBM won't sell you a copy of zOS anymore.


Oh well, the fun part is the shareholder lawsuit to get Apple to issue new stock in the face of the $150 per share cash-on-hand Apple is sitting on - and considering the 35% drubbing the stock had taken, and considering it's politically unfeasible to ask for yet another corporate tax-holiday/profit repatriation, seeing as citizens with an actual corpus hurting so bad financially...

A quick point about this notion that Apple ripped off Xerox. Apple actually made a deal with Xerox to be shown their system, and gave them a significant chunk of Apple shares to be given two demonstrations of the Xerox Alto, one to Jobs alone, and one to a larger tech team. Xerox didn't have any intention of commercially releasing the Alto system themselves (bizarrely, in retrospect), and only wanted to pursue the Xerox Star, which used some of the same ideas and techniques for a system focussed solely on document creation. There's no rip-off; Apple paid for the right to do it.