Remiel

There is more to the problem than "institutionalized racism". As long as "socialized 'otherness'" is strong, there will be a problem. As long as people commonly identify others as "immigrants" then race or ethnicity will continue to be emphasized for those people.

That has been how capturing the enemy has gone down many, many times, Army Guy. I do not doubt that in wars past, prisoners of war who at their core were far worse villains than Omar Khadr, have been eventually released to go free when they could easily have been killed on the battlefield. The rules of combat and court do not run parallel.

Come on, Bonam. Regardless of what you think about the effects of the policies, it would be crazy to think that without the policies there would be no racial tension today.

If being employed by the government were a conflict of interest with voting for the government, then paying taxes would also be a conflict of interest with voting on tax proposals.

I suppose you would be the expert on perversion and capitulation as you cannot seem to avoid speaking about "race" out of one side of your mouth and "individuals" out of the other while pretending that there is no contradiction in what you say.

Two things: One, how was the interest rate obtained? Two: Turning a loan of 4500 pounds into a debt of 750 million in clearly usury or fraud. Both are crimes.

Or maybe I view affirmative action as an injustice that is necessary in order to correct other structural injustices in our system introduced by past racism and sexism. But, here is the thing, lictor. Your evidence against me is all coloured by the fact that we live in a country dominated by Europeans. The reasons for my support of affirmative action would not prevent me from supporting it in a country dominated by Africans with a disadvantaged European minority, where it would be to help the Europeans. I suppose affirmative action makes me a male-traitor too, by your account?

While Jerry's name calling may have been going a little overboard, this one trillion dollar business you are pushing is simply outrageous. Funny too, that it should be such a nice, round, arbitrarily high figure.

Well, the number one solution to a less than perfect study is to build a more foolproof test, is it not? Certainly measuring other factors that could account for differences should be part of further research, I would think. Also, even if not perfectly necessary, it would surely be research grants better spent than on some other things that are also studied.

The implication on your part that I am some sort of anti-white "race traitor" is a huge assumption. But, in short, you might say that a Racist tends to be someone who preaches the superiority of some races, or seems to have a vendetta against some race, or a hatred for some race.

I take the view that there is no one completely free of racism. The difference is between racists and Racists. I (and pretty much everybody) am the former. You, I am afraid, are the latter.

My argument was that your analagoy fails because sometimes the sickness is part of the cure. Not with AIDS, perhaps, but with many other diseases.

Do you have any idea how vaccines actually work?

Perhaps then either you have not noticed some of the same comments I have, or you have different criteria for vulgar. Also, if you looked closer at this very thread you would notice he is not above personal attacks. It is precisely because of this vulgarity that I lost interest in "playing the ball".

I will admit that I have used that term often enough, but for my part I wish we could get rid of describing people as colours altogether. I mean, it is no longer acceptable to refer to someone as "red" or "yellow" except in some cases of satire and comedy, but we still refer to people of European descent as "white" and people of African descent as "black". I also view the category of "brown" as pretty questionable, seeing as it looks to simply refer to someone as "not white" and "not black".

That would be one way to describe how you argue; a way that tries to sanitize what we despise and pretend that we are at fault for demonizing a demonizer. What you describe might be more like a generous way to portray Argus, but is way out of line with how you actually act.

If it were prejudice, perhaps. But it is informed discrimination. World of difference. Because I would be doing a disservice to those who do not already know you by not advising them of your distasteful intransigence on certain issues? I am only having this conversation because it is a meta-debate. Otherwise, I would be ignoring you.

Not presumptuous at all. Did this evangelical already have experience trying to debate you or was his opinion informed by only a short meeting and conversation? Obtuse would be thinking that just because someone does not want to debate with you means that they do not want to debate with anyone with a differing opinion.

Well, then we will just have to disagree I guess, Riverwind. I am fully aware of the deficiencies of relying on an unsubstantiated (to me presently, not to comment on the actual study) study from years ago, but I have always felt that even if it were only partially true that it would be sufficient to give pause to allowing assisted suicide. Obviously if I were to be drafting legislation I would have to hunt the study down (or ones like it) and examine its reliability in detail, but right now it is merely used to inform an opinion.

I did, actually, but I thought better of wasting any more time dignifying you with debate.

monkeyman, my advice to you is that you ignore lictor. No amount of reason will stem the flow of his stupidity.

Riverwind, perhaps you should put a little more effort into reading what I actually wrote; because, you know, what I said and what you attributed to me are practically opposite statements.

Maybe they should start a guild.

Because no one exists in a vaccuum.

In the end, living is never an option. Everything dies.