(12-20-2020, 07:24 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(12-19-2020, 01:07 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: Good to know. What did you study?

Also, facts are facts. When we are talking about being spoon fed information, that's pretty much what happens at the University. I didn't start diversifying my knowledge until a few years after graduation. It's not so much a rabbit hole as much as it's a slow accumulation of knowledge that starts to challenge other bits of knowledge that I accepted without question.

I studied mostly American history and Ancient history.  

My original comment was, ordinary liberals, not far-left radicals, but the mass of liberals just to the left of center, are not racists and the policies they espouse are not racist, even though we may not like those policies.  

Personally, I think a lot of the policies liberals espouse are discriminatory, and for that reason very bad policy.  But racism and discrimination are not the same thing, because the policies they espouse are not based on the belief that one group is superior or inferior to the other; the policies they espouse are based on the belief that one group needs help to overcome external disadvantages and achieve equality.  

Then somehow, we went down a rabbit hole about whether LBJ was a racist and whether the Civil Rights Act was supported by racists, and whether the Democratic Party is historically more racist than the Republican Party, which is so far off topic from what I was talking about, that I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, because I don't think it's relevant, and it's a waste of my energy.  

That's like a lot of discussions on this political message board- people argue smaller and smaller points and go way off track from the original thing they were discussing.  And eventually it gets into name-calling and personal attacks as the participants get frustrated with being unable to "win."

I can agree with you that there is a difference between racism and discrimination. I am a personal believer that most forms of "racism" are discrimination biases that stem from cultural differences. I also can agree that many liberals are not racists. Where I disagree, is that there is a phenomenon that comes primarily out of the left that treats blacks like they need a white savior, because they are incapable of holding themselves to a "white" standard. You can see this same exact sentiment in the 60's and 70's when you watch the welfare debates. That's racism. 

To my specific points about the minimum wage laws, blacks were getting ahead because they were willing to work for less wages. Unions workers wanted companies to stop hiring the non-union blacks, but compromised on a law that would impose a minimum wage to all races. While it may have been a form of discrimination rooted in self-interest, it relied on a racist sentiment to pass and, more importantly, only worked because of racial animus: If an employer had to choose between a white or black at a higher wage, they took the white. That was by design. These laws decimated black railroad workers, farmers, and construction workers. How can you not say that law is rooted in racism? 

The Civil Rights Act that was passed by LBJ also relied on catering to the racist tendencies of Southern Democrats to pass. Everything LBJ said in private that was recorded or repeated indicates that he was a racist. So, the question I'd like you to answer is why would a racist implement a law that would help the people he saw as inferior? Either he believed they couldn't do it on their own OR he felt like it would ultimately keep them down. 

Now, there was a group that did make this about poverty over race, but a lot of those folks were being influenced by communist philosophy. Not all, but a lot of the elites and upper class in the democratic party were toying with the idea since the early 1900s. The result: laws that disproportionately affected blacks by making them permanently dependent on the government. We are seeing how government dependence keeps people from achieving their full potential. 

Some folks like to say that blacks are disadvantaged because they started behind whites. I believe they are disadvantaged because they are ahead of whites. If you want to see how this "Utopia" plays out, look at the impoverished black community. Blacks who have a nuclear family, graduate high school, and work a full time job have no problems entering the middle class.

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