I never espoused killing 'black teenagers' as being a solution. You make it sound like I want to go through the ghetto and offing any 13-19 year old black person.
Just like you made it sound that I thought the kid was completely blameless and should be excused of any accountability because of his race and circumstances. You painted me as a classic wild-eyed bleeding heart, compared my stance to your condemnation of "social-based rulings" from a female judicial nominee, etc. This is what I mean when I say I doubt we are ever going to understand each other.
What you said was that you dissagreed and found offensive EVERYTHING I wrote. By your own words you implied it.
I think we'd be better off discussing actual statements rather than implications, but I agree, I have found a great many of your posts too thoughtless, offensive and filled with buzzwords to want to begin the task of sparring with you. I'm old and I don't have the hormones for it any more.
rather than the bad judgment and foolishness of a testosterone-filled teenager.
Combine that with the level of education and the environment this kid grew up in, and I think it's hard to say he absolutely deserved to die for 'making the choice' to be a thug--
In saying the above you imply that if a kid had a good education and grew up in a decent neighborhood or had a stable family that he would deserve differently than this poor black kid. Those are judgements based off of social/racial differences, which is exactly the point I was making.
No I don't imply anything of the kind. I
said, not implied, that a person's age, background and life experiences affect how they make decisions and are an element of the social environment that caused the occurrence.
And no, I'm not saying vigilantism is an example of blind justice. I'm saying that justice should be blind to the influences you ascribed to above.
Yes, it should. I never said he should not be held accountable for his actions or be judged differently
in a court of law due to an unfortunate background. That's your fantasy of my position.
... But let me get this straight, your offended because I don't like Sotomayor? If thats the case you better shut your eyes because I'm about to make your head explode....... I don't like OBAMA.
I'm shocked SHOCKED(!) If I were offended every time someone didn't like Obama, I'd have been hospitalized a long time ago. I could give two hoots who you like or don't like. I was offended by your shallow rejection of Sotomayor's competence for the bench on the grounds of biased, far-right talking points, just as I would be offended by someone automatically dismissing a conservative appointee because of a comment he made rather than on the basis of his legal record, qualifications and judicial history.
Her comments and fire fighter case is enough for me. Any shadow of doubt is more than enough for disqualification
Yes, of course they are, because if you took the time to read her decisions, investigate her record over her many years on the bench, and evaluate them on your own instead of accepting the predigested propaganda of the right it would deny you the opportunity to be outraged and make your head hurt.
So your only interested in having discussions with people who share a similar mindset with you? However, if you want to put me on ignore because your afraid your blood pressure might become elevated due to discussions with me, I'm more than sympathetic with your plight and won't engage you. But you could have just been up front about that with me
I'm interested in having rational discussions with almost anyone who has something serious to say, regardless of whether they parrot back my own views or not, and particularly if they bring a fresh and informed voice to the discussion. What I'm not interested in is spending hours banging my head against the wall trying to defend every point I make because my words have been twisted into a parody. I'm sure you don't either. I'm sorry if you feel I haven't been up front with you, but I don't think I've exactly sugar-coated my reasons.
See! Some clouds do have silver linings. But seriously, I hope your not implying that you would love to be a student of his if you had the money. If you are, then I really do hope you put me on ignore because I will not have anymore sympathy for you or your blood pressure.
I'm not frightened by Ayers, nor do I think he has horns and a tail, but he's a person whose past I have little respect for, an idealogue, and a confused thinker. I wouldn't want to study under him any more than I would want to spend hours on the Operation Rescue blogs absorbing their propaganda.
Really? Yeah, I would have never guessed. Keeping an open mind? But only if its with someone who has a similar mindset to you, right? I do find the oxymoron of you disliking race, class, and gender biasim with your previous statements about those being a source of distinction...
Where do I say race class and gender are a source of distinction?
I brought up the likely circumstances of the kid's background to say I thought the adult was more to blame than he was, and that they might indicate he didn't deserve to die because of a bad choice. I didn't say any of the other things you think were coded into my responses.
What did I say that had anything to do with gender biased accusations of Sotomayor? Why do liberals always resort to demonizing those who dissagree wtih them? What did I say that was sexist? What did I say that makes me a racist?....
Do you honestly think if a male's positions were similar, his rulings would be considered "too empathetic?" Did you "fear" that Ailito would bring social-based rulings based solely on empathy to his decisions because he said "When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."?
If you did, then I withdraw my assessment that your remarks show a gender bias. I don't agree with Sotomayors comment that a Latina might make a "better" decision than a white male, btw, and if her rulings showed that she actually displayed a strong racial bias, for or against any ethnic group, I totally agree she would not belong on any judicial bench. However, that's not going to be proved to me by one remark, or a bunch of poorly researched ad hominem attacks by people with a very obvious political and ideological axe to grind, but rather by the Senate hearings that fully explore her entire career. So far, nothing like this has emerged.
If you thought I called you a racist, I want to clarify that I didn't--if you want to say the attacks I'm referencing aren't racist or sexist, that's a different matter.
All I got out of your remarks was that you are in agreement with those attacks and seem to think Sotomayor as a female of color is less able to make impartial intellectual decisions than a man in the same position, based on your apparent lack of awareness of similar remarks by male judges such as Alito and a general feeling in the legal community and real life that empathy is not a four letter word. But perhaps you don't see that your remarks carried those implications, any more than I see the implications you read into mine.
Why does anyone demonize those they disagree with? Because everybody wants to get in on the indignation party. You and anyone else have a perfect right to disagree with Obama's reasons and his pick for whatever reasons you want. That doesn't automatically make them valid reasons for anyone else. As for me, I'm reserving judgment til the Senate confirmation hearings on Sotomayor and not condemning her on the basis of castigations from those whose opinions I
know are biased, like Rush, G. Gordon Liddy, and the other intellectual giants on the right, or automatically assuming she's perfect because Obama picked her.
I'm sorry I didn't capitalize her name. It had less to do with her than it did with my new keyboard, which I hate... Sometimes, I just don't even bother to try caping stuff. But, I did make an extended effort through out this post just for you.
Fair enough. Re-reading I see you also didn't capitalize Rush, so I withdraw that inference of Freudianism. I have the same problem capitalizing "I."
Common ground at last.
