Setting something straight

[bellatrys]

If you believe that Members of group X are innately bad - that is to say, intrinsically worse than all other humans, whether the claim be that each individual is flawed, or that a higher percentage is flawed - by virtue of the subgroup into which they are born - then yes, you are a bigot

Comments

[greyladybast]

*Applause*

Thanks - i just wish I didn't have to keep saying this

[bellatrys]

You really think that any of these Bennet/Neuhaus/Domenech defenders would be able to replace "black" with "my own ethnic subgroup" and transpose themselves mentally and see the problem with it. Nobody said, or implied, that all Franco-Americans were bloodthirsty psycho Neo-Nazis after that guy Robida went on his rampage, or even more likely to be dangerous criminals - it's only non-Northern European-descended types who get picked on this way. And yet, odds are, every one of them is descended from some immigrant group that was at once point or other denounced in the same tones by the already-here false populists - and probably keeps harking back to the time when their grandparents were called dagos or micks or polacks and couldn't get an even break...

[brown_betty]

And the rather tragic thing is that I immediately thought “Oh, you've been reading the DC Comics message boards, then?” even though I rather doubt you have. It'd be nice if seven or eight examples didn't leap to mind.

Oh dear. No--

[bellatrys]

--it was in response to all the people who kept insisting that Ben Domenech wasn't a racist, despite his citing of an older version of the "even though aborting all black babies would end crime in America, it would be WRONG! [/faith-as-buffy]" argument. It wasn't even pro-forma qualified with an "even-if", and yet scarily none of them (including "Xerox" Domenech) have the slightest clue why this - combined with an encomium for Jefferson Davis - would give that impression.

I'm afraid to ask, what's going on on the DC boards...

Re: Oh dear. No--

[brown_betty]

This is the sort of thing that makes my social conscience want to hide under the bed. I admire you bunches for wading in it all the time; I generally only have the strength to get my rage on once a week.

The DC Comics board generally attract a varied demographic that definitely includes the bottom of the barrel. Yesterday it was a man who said he couldn't see why everyone thought his revulsion and low opinion of the moral character gay men was a big deal, since he wasn't killing anyone.

talk about lowering the bar so low you trip over it

[bellatrys]

"as long as I refrain from actually killing people, i'm a good guy" - whoa.

No, junior, that just means that you're not as bad as you *could* be, there's a difference. Whaddya wanna bet this is one of those guys who also hangs out at Stormfront and bitches about how they put Morgan Freeman in a good guy's role and made the bad guys white in Batman Begins?

. I admire you bunches for wading in it all the time; I generally only have the strength to get my rage on once a week.

Oh, I get tired too (altho' sometimes it turns out to be the flu coming on.) It's just that I can't stop *my* rage, it's like being the volcano. Ranting and researching for more ranting is my safety valve; and when I do it online it actually makes some slight potential difference, and I feel less futile and despairing. Don't give me more credit than I really deserve!

[anonymous]

Confession:

I'm a bigot.

I despise religious fundamentalists. I consider them dangerous and ignorant and would love to see them on society's margins where they belong.
I find them presumptuous, as they believe that they have a monopoly on truth-- when they don't.

The only difference between me and the bigots you complain about is that my hated group has some element of choice in what they are. You don't get to choose your ethnicity or skin color. There's some evidence that sexual orientation might be genetically determined. You can, however, choose your religion or lack thereof.

If you choose religious fundamentalism, you will have my contempt and distrust. I will consider you a fool at best, a potential terrorist at worst.

--Architeuthis

I said "innate"

[bellatrys]

Nobody's born a "religious fundamentalist", whether the religion is Arianism or Old High Capitalism - you yourself say "choose." So that's not bigotry by the definition of the above post, because it's a self-selected ideological thing you're talking about. Since what constitutes the fundamentals of any given religion is a thing hotly debated about - is Christianity fundamentally about feeding the poor/visiting the imprisoned/clothing the naked/not following Rules off a cliff, or about hating on Teh Gay while you hoard Teh Loot? liberal readers of the primary source texts would argue that *real* Christian fundamentalism is the former, not the latter - it *could* be argued that your definition is sloppy enough to leave you open to justifiable counterattacks; but I suspect that everyone bar nitpickers will understand what self-selected groups of people you're talking about.

Of course, this is the internet, so "bar nitpickers" doesn't mean a thing...

Except for men of course

[davidbyron]

If you say men are innately bad then you're a feminist.

Would you say this was an example?

[davidbyron]

Would you say this is an example of assuming that a birth group is innately bad