PLEASE calm down everyone!
I never intended for this thread to become a shouting match nor an opportunity for vulgar name calling.
It seems that many people have very strong views.
That's just fine with me.
Let's attempt to be respectful (polite) with others, even if their views differ from our own.
Thank you,
DTS

Previously you said that if you were black you would not have been given the offers that came your way during your life. How do you know that? Based on what you just said above there were no applicants for the science positions from ethnic groups so it couldn't have been racial favoritism that won you the position versus the other non-ethnic applicants.

To me the question is why were there no ethnic candidates. Same with the president or corporate america examples you gave. Where are the candidates?
I think the answers are complex and are not simply answered by claiming that we have a society that is biased towards white males.

Ahhhh, the hatred.

So many crosses to burn, so very little time.

How do you manage it all?

Take off the hood and walk toward the light.

You are not going to win over any hearts or minds if all you can offer is this kind of BS. Very nice post if your only intention is to incite and inflame. If you are at all serious about what you wrote I feel sorry for you.

Ok here we go. Where are the candidates? Where are the young up and comers from other ethnic groups, especially blacks in the cases I have mentioned? I dont think it is going very deep into a question as you have stated.
And I keep with my initial claim. It gets very interesting now. If I stick to what I am saying, something is happening at an earlier age than you are looking at. What is it? And I am not trying to be Socrates, what is it?

In fact I would ask everyone on the board if a person of color has an equal chance of being successful, all other things being equal, in their personal areas of employment. Kev, the golf pro. I cannot see a black female golf pro rubbing it up with all the fellas after a few rounds. Oracle, still the same accessebility to owners (from the get go, without already establishing onself) and trainers? I have already stated there is a dearth of black science teachers in my realm. All you guys in the horse business... if you where black and female, equal opportunity from the get go? None of this if you work hard and establish your credibility... from the beginning... getting in the door.

It is possible to be hawkish without being hateful. You, lamentably, skipped that chapter of life's lessons as well as the chapter which teaches the value of understanding others' point of view having value.

Have a pleasant, albeit hateful, life. Hopefully your daughter never brings home anyone whose heritage you disapprove. You would not want to risk opening your mind to the rest of the world.

Pgarden, I understand what you're saying about academics and would be really interested in continuing the discussion with you, but maybe in another thread or via email? This one's getting a little nasty for me. My husband spent awhile studying these issues and working with disadvantaged youth to try opening up access to higher institutions, and I have some experience and thoughts myself on the matter. Anyway, if you're interested, let me know. Not sure I can provide any huge insight, but it's something that troubles me a lot, precisely because the roots are so embedded in so many socioeconomic factors that solutions seem difficult to parse.

If you can't convince people of your position, if you can't win their hearts and minds, what is your solution, kill them or bomb them to the stone age? You just end up with a lot of hatred and dead people. There was an almost bloodless revolution that swept through eastern europe in the late eighties/early nineties. It didn't happen because of the massive firepower or terrorist tactics employed by the people of those countries. It happened finally because of the idea of freedom and the courage of people to stand up to the corrupt regimes.

Your last sentence is almost exactly where I am. I see a very vicious cycle that is firmly imbeddedd occuring. But very unsure how to solve it. It seems to me to start in the home situation... And then just gets passed on.

Oh, and I just skip the other stuff if it gets out of hand. It is rather interesting that some people can hate so deeply though. I guess we all could if we were personally really screwed over.

This is also what I come back to. At the core I think these problems trace back to the home. I think basically that in general we have slipped when it comes to holding high standards for our kids. We have taken the easy way on so many things. I feel once this process starts, of lower expectations and standards for yourself and your kids, it just cascades across society in many different ways and now we are paying the price.

Wow!

I go away for a few hours ... and WWIV breaks out.

Hey ... pgardn ... can you go back to my 10:41am post and reply to it? I was having all kinds of fun before this food fight broke out.

Hey, Dixie ... thanks for once again demonstrating that a certain other poster can hurl personal attacks and curses ... but can't take them ... as if we didn't already know that.

And he has the ignorance to call Dr. Thomas Sowell ... one of the world's most brilliant scholars ... a moron. I'm sure he has no idea who the man is ... but just hurls curses and attacks at anyone. Typical of his ilk.

I know how exceptionally accomplished your daughter is ... congratulations on raising such a beautiful, bright, and gracious young lady.

north korea...please make a mistake....
 

we need to send in the cleaners on this leader ..hes really lost it..public ex and starvation..he needs to pick a winner ..democracy in the 06th...million man army. and cant feed its people/..dumb ass..

No, wrong again. Sowell? lol. Townhall. LMAO... another esteemed columnist there is the renowned scholar cum film critic Michael Medved,not to mention the always balanced Bill Bennett (drunk gambler lost a couple mil playing slots... was John Daly out of town?). Say what you want, you never answered a couple questions I asked. Cowardly? hmmmm maybe, no, probably.

Your friendly other poster just hates for the sake of hating. You label others who disagree with you as haters of the Jewish people. Lame, weak, cowardly, stupid. The last thing people like you want is for conflict to resolve. Cede land (actually give it back, some would say)? No way. Single state? Oh, hell no, then they could vote. No, people like you want and need conflict so you can have the issue. Without it, what would you do? Learn to think on your own without consulting your beloved Sowell? No, you need the issue. After all, it's all you really have. And it's far easier for you than having to think for yourself.

Patrick you are completely off base although I know you probably don't mean to be. The thought that I ever had accessibility to anything is a joke. I don't come from a silver spoon upbringing, very far from it. As a kid I used to help out a paperboy in the neighborhood and do his route when he went on vacation. AFter I turned 12 and was old enough to get my own route, I did. Then I had a morning paper route to go with the one after school. Mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow(back before everyone owned a snow blower they would pay a kid like me 1 or 2 dollars to shovel their snow). Got a job(as a telemarketer, sucked) the day I turned 16 and could do that. Had a partial scholarship at college and hustled the rest. Drove wrecks of cars that sometimes were held together with duct tape around a broken electrical line. Nothing was handed to me, ever. I had "acess" because I met a guy who had heard I could really cap the ponies and needed a pik-6 connection in NY because he was a maverick that loved to play carryovers and back when I met him there wasnt account betting or simulcasting everywhere. You had to have a guy in that state that could the bet down and NY was a good carryover place. He'd wire me the money to make the bet on a carryover and we would talk over what we were playing and I would get 5%. Later on he became an eclipse winning owner and I got to meet trainers and players from being with him all the time. So you can't even say I caught a break there, I performed hard for the guy with hard work, thats the only reason I got there in the first place. Even after that it was a struggle for a long time. Business is ripe with old money and inherited money guys who frown upon people who didnt have their shrimp peeled for them when they were kids.
I really fail to see how a minority could have had it any tougher than I did, other than I didn't get called racial epithets but heck being from the sticks where I was bussed into school with many rich kids I was called things just as bad. You are off base heer Patrick and I think your generalization on teh whole matter regarding opportunity stinks.

More personal attacks and spewing of hatred ... not only against me ... but also against Thomas Sowell, Michael Medved, Bill Bennett, John Daly ... and our own beloved Dixie.

Does anyone still wonder why people some people get absolutely nowhere ... when they're completely consumed by hatred?

No, wrong again. You're just a robot. I don't hate. Just don't care for those who summarily wish harn on people who may not look or sound like him/her -- Dixie -- and those who offer up the sleaziest kind of bigotry possible -- that's you.

I'm well and fine and where I am is great.

My mind is open and your is closed shut.

No personal attacks. Just calling it like it is.

You can't stand people who reject you and your cowardly and unseemely reverse bigotry psychobbabling where you just repeat what others tell you to think.

Sad, true. Some day your mind will open and you will dicourse with others who do not share your views. Otherwise you miss so much life has to offer.

May (God) have mercy on you.

So ... all of the personal attacks and curses are examples of ... ?

No personal attacks. Sorry, but no.

You are a (reverse) bigot. That makes you a fool and a coward in my book.

Dixie would like to turn part of the Middle East population into dust. That's called hatred in my book.

Then again, you don't care about my book. Just the ones written by people who think like you and allow your mind to and life to move on cruise control.

Hmmm ... I'm trying to resolve the seeming conflict in the two highlighted sections above. Also you didn't address your long and extremely vituperative series of curses.

Please try to help us understand these apparent contradictions.

Oracle,
Thanks for sharing. I have a very similar background to yours.
I also shoveled snow, delivered newspapers, mowed lawns...
then "real" jobs like truck driver, deli manager...I could go on and on. I won't post my entire resume cause I think you know where I come from.
Anything that is earned with honest effort has a sweeter taste to the reward.


This thread took off to places I didn't envision. There have been insults, diversions, and some hateful things said. I'm just glad that some can vent on this thread rather than take out their anger on their wives, girlfriends, or kids.

Despite my modest upbringing, I've learned to do the following:
1) Dispute the "idea", not the person. Ask for reasonable answers without insults or name calling.
2) Think first, then think again. Then work hard to make the vision become.
3) Discuss your own views and respect those that differ. Don't use other's ideas to "mask" your own...speak for yourself.
4) A good debate sticks to the topic and is backed with facts. Diversion is easily seen.
5) Hate less. Others have equal or more difficult events within their lives.

Mike, I'm not attempting to give a sermon. You know what I'm talking about.
What I've said is not directed at you. However, if others see some sanity in my words...that might be the ones that need to hear.

6) Let's be polite and respectful to each other, as we would hope they would be back towards ourselves.

DTS

Play time is over son.

I speak in person the same as I write. You don't care for it, so what.

You never answered my questions. So, I will ask you once more.

1. Palestinians have any valid grievances ( those not against their own leaders)?
2. Single state or cede land?

Go ahead. Don't be a coward. If you choose not to make any meaningful response, that will be the end, you can call a couple friends and mistakenly tell them all about how you got over on me. Then you can go back to your precious Sowell

We all have our own stories. I was asking not about your childhood. I was asking about your current profession. Any child is going to find themselves at the bottom of the heap if put in the right neighborhood. How would it have been in your neighborhood if you where black? And you think my generalizations stink because its true. If you want to have the best chance of reaping the benefits of the American dream, one has the best PROBABILITY of realizing this dream, all other thing being equal, if you are white and male.
So where are the all the black owners, trainers and breeders?
And explain the dearth of science teachers.

I have some ideas as to why this has occured in my profession.

Oh yes. I did all the things you just mentioned as a child barring the snow stuff. All the kids I was around did. It made almost all of us realize that it was preferable to get into a profession that did not involve physical labor everyday. School was a bit more bearable after a summer full of labor in very hot weather.

BTW. I still love periodic hard physical labor. helps me clear my "way off base" head.

Mike you got the jobs in the first place. Thats how it would have been more difficult.

Oracle, I don't mean to pry, but did you have access to health care? Regular meals? A roof over your head?

You consequently were way ahead of the kids I worked with in shelters, who start out with addicted or imprisoned parents (who often were barely adults themselves), no support, no money and no home.

Most of the teenagers I knew from that shelter wound up in trouble or on the streets, too.

Some people have a lot farther to climb than others, and sometimes when they fall it actually isn't their faults. Hell, some never even get off the ground.

Good luck with that STS. He plays little writing games. Substance is not in his vocabulary. A meaningful discussion is fairly hopeless. Hes gonna throw his little stick and run away.
He did not anwer one of my questions. At least others have the intellect to respond in a meaningful manner.

Dixie and Bold Bkln,
Now that this thread has gone so far away from its initial intent, librarians, would either of you please take the time to respond to a question that I like to pose to right wing believers?

Here's the question...
Has the Bush-Cheney administration been more or less successful finding weapons of mass destruction as they have in finding Osama bin Laden?

Search the townhall.com site for the answer, as I didn't find it there.
Thanks for your anticipated response.
DTS

which is exactly what you're doing, regurgitating talking points, just on the other side of the spectrum.

I havent read much of the posts, but all I have to say is that no one person in America cant say they dont have a chance or were given the opportunities. Thats just straight up BS

regurgitating rightwing propaganda, nothing unique. rightwing propagandists are the biggest losers in this country. you do the exact same thing you criticize the leftists here of doing. unbelievable.

Interesting words..."little stick".
Reminds me of a time when I was asked, "How can you tell if the little stick is crooked?"
Expected responses.."Site down it." "Roll it."...all the carpenters had their suggestions. Too many to list.
So I said, "Give me a little straight one."
Then I layed them side by side.
It was very obvious after that. No more words were required.
DTS

I wish I could relate the life story of someone I know...but I can't for obvious reasons. Here's the thing...some kids are born addicted to drugs, some with severe brain damage, some with other tramatic physiological disorders; many of these same kids don't have what most here probably did (I know I did)...a stable and SAFE home environment with two loving parents. Some are physically abused, some sexually abused...many don't see a day go by where they don't witness, often experience first-hand, violence and crime. They grow up without adult guidance and love...they are taught by the streets and the lessons they learn are hate, greed, and self gratification at the expense of anyone weaker than them. By the time they reach their teens, their soul has been blackened and their view of the world is simple...screw the next guy before he screws you! They are poor, hungry, and worst of all...without hope or compassion! They feel helpless to impact their world...and they are right!! Equal opportunity??? That's useless rhetoric from well-to-do folks who want to feel good about living in their comfortable homes...the reality is that many kids never have a chance...NEVER!!!!!

I understand the situations you are talking about, but im talking about for the most part. Those people sometimes cant help the hand dealt to them in life. When you speak of many kids frost, give me the numbers and what "group" they come from. Like I said before majoring in both econ and sociology makes it difficult for me sometimes to prescribe to certain ideas taught by the two diciplines.

What day was your 10:41 am post? I see an Arljim 10:41 post.

The problem with this country is somehow the word "liberal" has somehow become an evil and bad word. People like Rush, Hannity, Bold Brooklynite, O'Reilly, Coulter, take your pick have used that word to such a negative connotation to endless insipid meaning is insane. Look up the definition of the word "liberal" in the dictionary and I don't see the hidden evil within it as it is somehow been mainstreamed in this country to mean. Somehow being liberal has changed from being a proponent of government programs and slightly more spending to being "God-hating, America-hating, femi-nazi, dictator-loving, terrorist-loving, baby killing, commie loving leftists" and whatever else need be inserted and that has happened with careful and contrived planning. It is quite sad really.

IN essence, being liberal is a good thing. Being conservative is a good thing. There is truly a need for both and always has been and always will be. Reading townhall and Thomas Sowell will not make me a genius any more than reading Paul Krugman. It is what it is. Both sides have their points and both have their morons as well. Is it a black and white world or several shades of grey. To each their own I guess. Politics is a pile of crap nowadays.

Seattle. cmon. HOw many white baby crack addicts born compared to hispanic and black. Not even close. You know better than this. White kids get adopted so quickly compared to black and hispanic kids... not even close.

Jerry,
Your original statement was, "no one person..." I gave you examples extracted from hundreds of thousands of cases! Economics is about numbers and bottom lines, sociology is about people...apples and oranges! Both are valid fields but you can't apply economic principles to human suffering...unless you are part of the power elite that run this country that is!

on one hand I understand the people who have had it rough, on the other i look back at my family and their situation when they immigrated here. They flourished and so did millions of other immigrants, so why did they make it? What happened to the Americans already here who are living in poverty and deplorable conditions?

I did answer your question ... twice ... the first time being on July 4 at 12:42pm. You can scroll back to read it ... or read it again here ...

"Yes ... they most certainly do.

Their 'leaders' have been suppressing their freedom and stealing their meagre resources for centuries. I hope some day the decent folk among the Palestinians are able to unburden themselves from these murderers and thieves ... and able to enjoy the life and liberty that all humans deserve."

That was my answer ... and it's still my answer ... Palestinians ... like all human beings ... including Israelis ... deserve to live in freedom and pursue happiness ... but they've been deprived of this by murderers and thieves who preach hatred, steal their money, and kill them if they dissent. I hope and pray that the Palestinian people can free themselves from the tyrants who have been brutalizing them ... and live in peace, freedom, and prosperity.

But you still haven't answered my questions about why you attack people and curse at them ... and then claim you didn't. How can you write that you don't engage in personal attacks in one sentence ... then curse and call someone an idiot and a coward in the next sentence?