Mexicans are Dumb and Will Destroy America?

[bybee]

I should. :idunno:

That said, some general points to go with this:

1. At least certain uses of the n-word are probably venial. But there are some people in this thread who think that this use constitutes solid grounds for firing someone from his job or forcing him into resignation.

For a venial sin which slightly impugns the good name of another, this person (and people of like mind) consider it proportionate to take away the guilty party's very livelihood, his whole substance, and leave him in utter disrepute.

Is that really proportionate?

2. I find it bizarre that so many people are outraged by this. It's certainly not the worst thing that I do in the course of any given day ( how fortunate and blessed would I consider myself if it were! :sigh: ), and it's definitely not the worst thing that many people do on TOL on any given day.

Sure. I may impugn the good name of another in an insubstantial way in circumstances where it isn't likely to be taken seriously. But on any given day, some members openly insult each other and attempt to give them a bad reputation in the eyes of other forum users in order to get people to dislike and shun them.

To my understanding, those are not venial sins (at least in terms of the due matter).

I don't think racial slurs are sins.
Rather they are vulgar, betraying a lack of good breeding. They are cheap shots betraying a lack of wit. They are examples of an egotistical, self-defining little pipsqueak who has mistaken spending a few years in college as a sign of superiority.
You Trad are not a gentleman. You would not fit into the company of genteel, well bred men.
In short Trad, you behave like a clod!

 

[Rusha]

I don't think racial slurs are sins.
Rather they are vulgar, betraying a lack of good breeding. They are cheap shots betraying a lack of wit. They are examples of an egotistical, self-defining little pipsqueak who has mistaken spending a few years in college as a sign of superiority.
You Trad are not a gentleman. You would not fit into the company of genteel, well bred men.
In short Trad, you behave like a clod!

Well ... that sums up this thread quite accurately.

 

[zippy2006]

I should. :idunno:

Agreed :thumb:

1. At least certain uses of the n-word are probably venial. But there are some people in this thread who think that this use constitutes solid grounds for firing someone from his job or forcing him into resignation.

For a venial sin which slightly impugns the good name of another, this person (and people of like mind) consider it proportionate to take away the guilty party's very livelihood, his whole substance, and leave him in utter disrepute.

Is that really proportionate?

No, though I think it would be right to distinguish different types of usage of the n-word here.

2. I find it bizarre that so many people are outraged by this. It's certainly not the worst thing that I do in the course of any given day ( how fortunate and blessed would I consider myself if it were! :sigh: ), and it's definitely not the worst thing that many people do on TOL on any given day.

Yes, I understand what you are saying.

Sure. I may impugn the good name of another in an insubstantial way in circumstances where it isn't likely to be taken seriously. But on any given day, some members openly insult each other and attempt to give them a bad reputation in the eyes of other forum users in order to get people to dislike and shun them.

Right.

To my understanding, those are not venial sins (at least in terms of the due matter).

:up:

I don't think racial slurs are sins.

Isn't that interesting though? Trad thinks they are mortal sins.

I was arguing that using the referent for a racial slur is a near occasion of sin, TH was arguing that it is a "moral failure." Trad argued rather convincingly that it is a venial sin. He took the hardest line on the issue. :chuckle:

 

[bybee]

Agreed :thumb:



No, though I think it would be right to distinguish different types of usage of the n-word here.



Yes, I understand what you are saying.



Right.



:up:



Isn't that interesting though? Trad thinks they are mortal sins.

I was arguing that using the referent for a racial slur is a near occasion of sin, TH was arguing that it is a "moral failure." Trad argued rather convincingly that it is a venial sin. He took the hardest line on the issue. :chuckle:

Zippy, my dear friend! I believe intelligent, educated, sensitive human beings know the difference between a mortal sin, a venial sin and just plain bad manners?

 

[This Charming Manc]

Seeing as 99.99% of Americans are descendent from immigrants does mean I can call all you lot stupid?

Of course not! (thought i'm tempted)

Its a stupid argument, and probably racially motivated

This makes no sense. They are criticizing this guy over a dissertation that he wrote at Harvard. If this guy deserves to resign, then so does his dissertation board (3-4 Ph.D.'s who read and approved the dissertation), as well as the administrators who gave him the Ph.D. based on the approval of his dissertation. What, that's retarded? Because dissertations involve a high degree of scholarship? We shouldn't be concerned about popular vs. unpopular opinions when we're doing academic research? We should let the facts be facts and face them as they come? I agree. And the facts are pretty clear to me.

Link

"A Heritage Foundation scholar has resigned after a firestorm erupted over his 2009 dissertation alleging Hispanics do not have 'IQ parity with whites' and that Hispanic immigrants to the United States will have 'low-IQ children and grandchildren'...Richwine’s Harvard University dissertation, written before his employment at Heritage, asserted that an influx of 'low-IQ' immigrants coming to the country would result in 'a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market.' 'No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against,' Richwine wrote."

 

[resurrected]

Seeing as 99.99% of Americans are descendent from immigrants does mean I call all you lot stupid?

100% of Americans are descended from immigrants.

As are 100% of English/Scottish/Welsh.

 

[This Charming Manc]

I was going only going back into recorded history...

100% of Americans are descended from immigrants.

As are 100% of English/Scottish/Welsh.

 

[resurrected]

I was going only going back into recorded history...

what do you accept as a record?

archeological remains?

written artifacts?

scripture?



We're all immigrants, ever since Adam and Eve were booted out of the Garden.

And we're all related.

Mexicans are my brothers and sisters.

People of low intelligence are my brothers and sisters.



Heck, even philosophy majors and grad students are my brothers and sisters. :thumb:


The British? :think:

:idunno:

 

[Traditio]

You had one, if not spoon fed. I gave him credit for knowing the origin of the term. Do you need its history? So the word, created by slave holders, used to dehumanize and distance long past the point of human traffic, isn't the sort of word that belongs in the mouth of someone who should love his neighbor.

Words (and signs in general) are extremely complicated. A sign is that which, when made present to the awareness of x, leads the awareness of x to something other than the sign. When I see a "STOP" sign, my attention is led to something other than the sign, namely, the fact that I should be stopping.

Words are very complicated signs. In the case of a word, you have to distinguish between:

1. Why the word initially was imposed to signify what it signifies.
2. What the word actually means (the public sense).
3. What the word actually signifies (the reference).

For 1, St. Thomas gives the example of stone (lapis), which name was imposed because a stone hurts the foot (loedit pedem). See ST I, q. 13, a. 2, reply to objection 2:

"In the significance of names, that from which the name is derived is different sometimes from what it is intended to signify, as for instance, this name "stone" [lapis] is imposed from the fact that it hurts the foot [loedit pedem], but it is not imposed to signify that which hurts the foot, but rather to signify a certain kind of body; otherwise everything that hurts the foot would be a stone..."

So, it's one thing to talk about why the name "stone" was imposed. It's another thing to ask what the word "stone" means. It's another thing to ask what I'm referring to in any particular use of the word "stone." For example: "Look at that pretty blue stone over there."

Furthermore, words are even more complicated because their use has to be evaluated in terms of the whole human act whereby the word occurs. Why is the agent using the sign or word? What is his end? What is he hoping to achieve?

It's one thing for you, TH, to kiss your wife.
It's another thing for Judas to kiss Christ.

I'm sorry, TH, but I don't think that your point is a good one, and I think that language is much more complicated than you would have it. :idunno:

If a slave owner calls his black slave a [n-word] in order to re-restablish his slave status, that's quite a different use of the word than if I tell my roommate, mostly for humor's sake, "there were [n-word]s at the apartment earlier!"

 

[Traditio]

TH, another example:

1. X is a neo-nazi who believes that all races other than caucasian are inferior to white people. He owns a grocery store, and a black man comes in wanting to buy something from him: "Get out of my store, [n-word], and go back to where you came from!"

2. I am driving through a parking lot and this black lady (as I recall it) is taking her good ole' time crossing the cross-walk (as black people tend to do...they tend not to walk very fast...especially when they have the opportunity to get in the way). I don't exactly remember the context, but my sister and maybe one or two other people are in the car, who (at least at the time) didn't use the n-word. I look straight at the woman (I'm in my car, mind you, with the windows rolled up...this was for the "benefit" of those in the car with me) and find myself saying, with a giant grin on my face, (again, I don't remember the context; this may or may not have been in the context of a sentence) "[n-word]!" It just so happened that, at that very moment, she happened to look straight at me, and I'm like: "Crap! She read my lips, didn't she...?"

Completely different cases.

 

[Granite]

Amazing what lengths some people will go to in order to justify speaking and thinking like a complete waste of skin.

 

[Traditio]

Amazing what lengths some people will go to in order to justify speaking and thinking like a complete waste of skin.

1. Who said that I'm justifying it? I'm just saying, not all uses of the word are created equal.

2. Your calling me "a complete waste of skin" likely is far more unjust and uncharitable than when I generically call people whom I don't know "[n-word]" because I find it amusing. You don't have much room to talk. :idunno:

 

[Granite]

1. Who said that I'm justifying it? I'm just saying, not all uses of the word are created equal.

2. Your calling me "a complete waste of skin" likely is far more unjust and uncharitable than when I generically call people whom I don't know "[n-word]" because I find it amusing. You don't have much room to talk. :idunno:

Why don't you grow up, you rotten, race-baiting punk? A stuffed shirt who drones at length on the reasons why he can and should use a racial slur. You're not a joke, anymore, Trad, but you're rapidly turning into a caricature of yourself.

Having been on the receiving end of racial slurs I know exactly what kind of people use them, and why. You're nothing original. Like every other racist out there you're bitter and boring.

Any white person who goes out of their way to use this word or defend its use isn't trustworthy or honest. You've got a whole language at your disposal, and this is one of your priorities? Get real.

 

[resurrected]

1. Who said that I'm justifying it? I'm just saying, not all uses of the word are created equal.

2. Your calling me "a complete waste of skin" likely is far more unjust and uncharitable than when I generically call people whom I don't know "[n-word]" because I find it amusing. You don't have much room to talk. :idunno:

you've been here long enough to know that Granite is an absolute mess who needs Christ's redemption more than anybody on this site.

Pity him.

Love him.

Understand that he is struggling with the blackness that he has chosen by rejecting Christ and that when he lashes out in anger it's not really directed at you, but at himself.

 

[Traditio]

Why don't you grow up, you rotten, race-baiting punk? A stuffed shirt who drones at length on the reasons why he can and should use a racial slur. You're not a joke, anymore, Trad, but you're rapidly turning into a caricature of yourself.

You may consider checking out ST II-II, q. 72. I don't deny that I am "rotten" or a "punk" or even a "joke" and a "caricature" of myself. I deserve these and worse reproaches.

But if you consider any of my deeds, words or thoughts blameworthy, then you shouldn't "sink to my level" or do bad things yourself. If you rightfully blame the evil words of others, then you should most of all gaurd against your own evil words, lest you become just as bad as those whom (perhaps even rightfully) you blame and censor.

Having been on the receiving end of racial slurs I know exactly what kind of people use them, and why. You're nothing original. Like every other racist out there you're bitter and boring.

Isn't this a sweeping overgeneralization? A stereotype?

 

[Granite]

But if you consider any of my deeds, words or thoughts blameworthy, then you shouldn't "sink to my level" or do bad things yourself.

Spare me the lecture.

Isn't this a sweeping overgeneralizing? A stereotype?

In my experience, not at all.

 

[Town Heretic]

Words (and signs in general) are extremely complicated.

Not really. This one was born in dehumanizing evil and has been used since to degrade and insult. When you use a word that is still being used by racists toward that end it isn't in any sense better than saying "Yeah, but when I say 'Dirty Jew' I'm not meaning the same thing." Words mean particular things. They carry historical weight with them often enough when they're strong enough. This one does and is.

As a rule, if you wouldn't say it in the light of day, in public and before the people you're referencing there's something wrong with your practice.

Words are very complicated signs. In the case of a word, you have to distinguish between:

1. Why the word initially was imposed to signify what it signifies.
2. What the word actually means (the public sense).
3. What the word actually signifies (the reference).

The word, as I noted, originates in something odious and is still used by that sort of person to that sort of end. It hasn't changed outside of a narrow confine within the black community, of which you aren't a member and in which there is a great deal of heated difference about that usage.

I'm sorry, TH, but I don't think that your point is a good one,

Said the fellow to one whose lexicon and practice doesn't change out of doors. I'm sorry, Trad, but you're trying to perfume a long dead fish.

and I think that language is much more complicated than you would have it. :idunno:

I think you're trying to hide something beneath you beneath the veneer of academic distinctions that don't really wash in this particular.

If a slave owner calls his black slave a [n-word] in order to re-restablish his slave status, that's quite a different use of the word than if I tell my roommate, mostly for humor's sake, "there were [n-word]s at the apartment earlier!"

Your intent is, at the root, no different. It rests on an ugly foundation or it's meaningless. What makes the usage funny else? Outside of it's shock value which relies on that derogatory understanding it's just a sound you make.

You aren't fooling anyone with this except, possibly, yourself.

 

[resurrected]

Your intent is, at the root, no different.

What do you believe Trad's intent is?

 

[Angel4Truth]

I have no problem with anyone including Mexicans or anyone else from any other country who wants to come to this one to have a better life, provided they do it legally.

Illegal entry is what i am opposed to.

 

[Rusha]

I have no problem with anyone including Mexicans or anyone else from any other country who wants to come to this one to have a better life, provided they do it legally.

Illegal entry is what i am opposed to.

Agreed ... illegal entry should not be tolerated.