Secret bigoted agendas - not as good at hiding as you might think.

The Tea Party is said to have a secret agenda to screw over the poor and elderly, despite the good proportion of working-class and overwhelming proportion of people over fifty in its ranks. See, they're dupes.

Anti-abortion advocates are supposed to be anti-woman despite having a fairly equal gender proportion. Again: dupes.

But, see, when you get a real bigot, they can't restrain themselves to the reasonable argument. A bigot is an inherently unreasonable person. Their crazy will show.

Orson Scott Card tries to hew to the argument that A Child Needs A Mother And A Father, but he often slips up: oh no, the county clerk will be forced to sign the paperwork for gay marriage even if he disagrees with it! Let's hold a revolution, even though I never argued that we should do that on account of single parents!

Tom Tancredo... god, just listen to any given speech he makes and tell me he's seriously hiding being a rabid xenophobe.

Anti-Israel folks at Berkeley often say that they're anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic per se. Which is of course why they keep slinging around talking points from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and doing a find-and-replace search on old blood libels by using the term "banksters."

And so forth.

Hang around people for any amount of time, and you'll know when they're being crypto-bigoted. If you don't hang around said people, it's very easy to hear dog whistles that aren't there. And that's where most of the unfounded accusations seem to come from.

A hard denial is often taken as proof.

At least honest bigots are honest. Who would lie about that?

OTOH, people are often smart enough to hide their true agenda. Or even worse, self-deceptive enough to think they've got good reasons, and really aren't doing anything bad, and how awful of you to accuse them of it!

edited 25th Jul '11 8:45:58 AM by blueharp

Wait- you think somebody's going to admit they're an anti-semite when they're not?

A denial means that someone accused you. Nothing more and nothing less.

Nope. But if you tote around a sign reading "SMASH THE JEWISH STATE", an admission isn't necessary.

edited 25th Jul '11 8:46:57 AM by DomaDoma

I'm no bigot, but [espouse idea that just so happens to have a negative effect on a minority].

You'll note I said "hard denial" not just a denial.

I did clarify more, but the point is the reaction of a guilty party is the same as an innocent on some levels, but sometimes there are tells that come with it.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,_methinks. Wow]], it is an article.

edited 25th Jul '11 8:49:43 AM by blueharp

"I don't mean to be rude-"

"-yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often. Best not to say anything at all, my dear man."

Yep, Karkadinn, that's a pretty good sign of bigotry.

"I'm not racist but..."

"I don't hate Pakistanis! I like curry!"

That second one's my favorite.

Now, saying that people genuinely think they aren't bigoted when really their id totally is... that's kind of a carte-blanche for the bigotry card. You can say that in any circumstance.

Eh, I think the movement conservatives think they can control it so everybody else loses and they win, economically. Or they lose less than everybody else so they win. It's the danger of a focus on competitive gain. It's not too bad when things are good, and it becomes about winning more. It's very dangerous when things are bad and it becomes about losing less.

In any case, it's not so much about bigoted agendas usually. I actually disagree with that idea. They're simply new forms of the culture wars. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm actually extremely cynical about abortion, as an example, as I basically think that generally speaking when people toss around words like "murder" they don't mean what they're saying. It's more about being a good place to fight (for a variety of reasons) than the issue itself.

I see the stuff over the last few years as mostly being the adoption of the culture war mentality to basically everything mostly. The culture war, in and of itself is a form of bigotry I think, but whatever.

Things can sometimes hit close to home. People who may be inclined towards a view, but objectively know it to be wrong, can hate it all the more because it taps into something they fear. Sort of like You Are What You Hate, only instead of being what you hate, you've successfully staved it off and are now all the more wary about it. Someone who is inclined towards nationalism is alarmed by it all the more because it sets off internal warning klaxons.

Economics isn't a zero-sum game unless you play poker for a living. Everyone gets something out of trade, even if it's just the other guy's cigarette rations in the concentration camp.

Okay you need to back your shit up here. How does complaining about the crappy treatment of palestinians equal a freaking blood libel?

When it rests on false claims, like Mohammed al-Durah.

I like to think that the best way to discuss this sort of thing with people is to be 100 percent honest, and extremely specific.

You can totally hate Israel and not hate jews, you just have to explicitly say "The Israeli Government is a horrible regime that has perpetrated horrible things. I want to see them dismantled."

I feel honesty is always the best policy in this regard. Give your unedited personal opinion in as frank a way as possible, and state why you think that to the best of your abilities, then realize that sometimes you're just going to hit a brick wall and a debate will become a fruitless argument.

edited 25th Jul '11 8:58:47 AM by Barkey

You might want to be even more specific, and say what you want to be implemented instead.

Covering that would seem to be important.

edited 25th Jul '11 9:01:10 AM by blueharp

This. So often people complain about things but don't say what they'd do instead.

True, but I guess that would beg the question of the person you are talking to to say "Well, you have a better idea than they do on how to fix the region?"

I don't, personally, I was just giving an example. I'm pretty neutral on the whole Israel thing.

* warms up google *

@Barkey And if you want to be recognized as being nuanced, even though it can be a pain, you need to add the nuance in pretty much every communication on the topic.

@Doma Sure. Trade isn't zero sum. However, I do think that we can enact policies and companies can act in a way that are actually negative sum, where on the whole we're all worse off. Like trying to tackle a debt/deficit via austerity instead of via maintaining full employment.

The thing is though, some people do honestly believe what they say in those cases.

I do honestly think a good deal of the tea party's fanbase is ridiculously underinformed. Frankly, yes, I don't think a lot of working class people understand how to work in their own best interests. because that information is either obscured, or outright not covered in pre-college formats in a lot of the midwest.

Similarly, I don't hate Jews as a race, I just think the nation of Israel has a horrifying tendency to antagonize palestinians, then turn around and play the victim card the second anyone calls them on it. And that certainly doesnt do anything to defuse palestinian extremists.

edited 25th Jul '11 9:13:04 AM by Midgetsnowman

How are austerity and employment mutually exclusive? Eh, never mind, we've got another thread for that.

Its simple. A lot of programs that'd be slashed or defunded under austerity measures employ people. Putting more people on unemployment means even less people supplying aggregate demand. Less Aggregate demand leads to less need to create supply, which leads to less need for workers. And the cycle repeats.

Thumped for offtopic.

edited 25th Jul '11 9:17:51 AM by GameChainsaw

WE HAVE GOT ANOTHER THREAD FOR THAT.