Summations Only

Since the right wingers here wish to deny the presence of substantial racism within modern conservatism - and since it is off-topic on the thread where the issue was raised - it seems worth creating a new thread for the issue.I’ll begin with Laura Ingraham and her “demographic changes”. Ingraham is not explicit about the demographic changes she means - itself a red flag. Why not be clear about what you are objecting to ? But it isn’t hard to work out.Ingraham’s presentation appeared on Fox News, undoubtedly a conservative source.These demographic changes “which none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like” are strongly related to immigration. She claims that “In some parts of the country it does seem like the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore,”But what does she mean and what alternative was there to “foisting” these changes on the American people? Demographic changes are not generally under any string controls, being the outcome of many individual decisions.Given the focus on illegal immigration and Trump’s wall - illustrated by video of people scaling walls or slipping under fences - it seems quite clear to me that she thinks that there are far too many Latinos in the country. And that is racism. And if she doesn’t mean that then why doesn’t she say what “massive demographic changes” she did mean ?And I would like to see what she would have had the government do about it. The whole idea of controlling the numbers of any ethnic group seems to be racist in itself. Even racial quotas on immigration would be bad enough, and probably inadequate. Washington Times

In fairness I will look at Laura Ingraham’s defence. However, I cannot give her the benefit of the doubt on this. There is no doubt that she was intentionally vague and if she wasn’t willing to explicitly say what she meant then, there is no reason to think that she would admit to the truth.She claims that she was talking about “a shared sense of keeping America safe and her citizens safe and prosperous”. However that is certainly not a demographic change, nor does it offer any illumination on the demographic changes she meant. The fact that she followed up with more scaremongering about illegal immigrants reinforces the idea that it was all about race after all. Washington Times

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So now opposing open borders is racist?

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Who said anything about “open borders” ? What she is opposing is changes in the racial mix, reducing the proportion of Whites. And I am pretty sure that she would do so even if immigration was not a factor at all.

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Call people racists who have said nothing to justify the term, and then change the definition to make it fit when they point out a discrepancy.

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Nothing of the sort is going on.I note, in addition, that the case that Ingraham is racist remains untouched. We still have no other explanation of what she meant by “demographic changes”, nor do we have any reason why she has failed to explicitly say what they were. She’s a TV presenter - communicating is her job. If she leaves an important point like that vague it’s because she doesn’t want to openly say what she means.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

In the absence of any real defence I conclude that the evidence is unanswerable.Thus we already have one real example - and one that the conservatives here will not openly admit to, let alone criticise.

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I don't know if there is a racist component to Laura Ingraham's comments -- or Ann Coulter's either for that matter -- but I can easily enough read it as referring to culture

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I don’t think that culture is really a demographic, nor is it something easily visible.

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We want people who will appreciate and work to further the principles of this nation that made us the most prosperous on the earth and the beacon of freedom we've been known for

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And that certainly isn’t either. What’s more it includes illegal immigrants and refugees that you don’t want.

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...people who just come here willynilly hoping to benefit from our prosperity have NO ability to appreciate these things, and those who promote their coming here in great numbers have no such appreciation either, as has been made painfully clear in recent discussions at EvC,

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And that’s an outright lie, of course. You have no way of knowing what people you have never met do or do not appreciate.

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But isn't that meme essentially a throwback of what Laura is saying now? Are you saying that Native Americans in the 1600's were "racist" because they didn't want a horde of foreigners invading their lands and "changing their demographics?"

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Obviously it isn’t. It isn’t even talking about that.

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Was the revolting of French nationals against a Nazi German invasion and occupation premised on racial lines?

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Do you really think that legal immigration or simply having more kids than white folks is equivalent to a military invasion and occupation ? The very suggestion makes my point.

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Don't get me wrong, Laura more than likely harbors some racist tendencies, but that of course is designed to exemplify said racist tendencies of conservatives.

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It’s not meant to show a tendency, it’s intended to show the existence and acceptance of racism in current conservatism.And the way the defences avoid the truth helps my cause.

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The power in denouncing someone as a racist lies in the accusation... not the substantiation of facts.

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However, I am producing evidence rather than issuing denunciations.

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Sure it is. A bunch of people from a different cultural that speaks a different language came to North America to forever change the landscape of that native culture. How's that not the same?

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It says absolutely nothing about the reactions of the indigenous people to the newcomers - which was what you were saying.

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Okay, that's a fair objection, you're right. So lets look at the legal immigration of the Irish into America. The resentment obviously wasn't racially motivated but rather one of a culture shock.

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It obviously wasn’t based on today’s racial classifications - but why would it be ? So no, it isn’t obvious that it wasn't racially motivated.

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If you think that conservatism is automatically analogous to racism then you run the exact same risk of assuming qualities based on prejudice, which is precisely what makes racism so odious.

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Obviously I don’t think that and nothing I have said comes close to saying that.

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Its not evidence, its an accusation based on a single example. One can always find an example, but it doesn't de facto speak to an entire group.

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If you think that is the only evidence then you are blind. There is more to come. There are other examples in the thread I spun this out of. I’m just taking a more detailed look at each example.

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The face of an indigenous American with the caption speaking about not liking immigration and then saying, "splendid, when you do you leave" is not a reaction to European immigration into the America's? Maybe you can explain it then.

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I’m talking about the actual text of the post. And why would you think an image created recently and addressing a modern issue is about attitudes of centuries ago ?

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Europeans don't hate gypsies because of the amount of melanin in their skin... they loathe them because of their cultural beliefs on thievery.

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Racism is not just about melanin, and the Roma are largely hated because they are of an ethnic group considered to be “other”.

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Likewise, the people who who are against illegal immigration do not object to it on racial lines but rather the implications.

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If the “implication” they are concerned about is that there will be more people of a particular ethnic group (or groups) in the population then it almost certainly is racism

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I'm simply offering the caveat that people throwing around the catch-all term of "racist" is an aspersion thrown around rather loosely.. by doing so it waters down what racism actually is.

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It seems to me that you are trying to muddy the waters to hide the racism.

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So which it? Is Republicanism analogous to racism or not

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The fact that there is racism within modern Republicanism does not “make Republicanism analogous to racism”. If you think otherwise you are insane.

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Yes we are very aware that the option given by the new fascist Stalinist mentality of La Gauche marxiste requires us to go out of business when we refuse to obey those new fascist Stalinist dictates, even if we've been making wedding cakes for decades. Have you got the gulag ready for us?

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Poor little bigots. Lying to try to deny gay couples the secular rights given by the the legal status of marriage doesn’t work. Lying that it’s “God’s Law” doesn’t work either. So now you try claiming that anti-discrimination laws are “Stalinist” tyranny - an even more ridiculous lie. Especially when you are fine with similar laws forcing other Evangelical “Christians” to go against their silly ideas about “God’s Law”.And of course you’ll claim that my pointing this out is “persecution” - which is yet another lie.

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We go by what WE know to be God's Laws

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Even the ones you made up.

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We get punished for following them which ought to be evidence that we take them as from God.

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Plenty of people break the law for their bigotry. And you know, showing such contempt for God hardly makes me believe that you care about what God wants at all.

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It would be a lot easier if there was no such law and we could just obey the new ruling and avoid the punishment

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Generally speaking bigots find it easier when there aren’t laws against bigotry. What makes you any differently.

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Keep up the llyng propaganda against us, keep up the character assassination, and soon you WILL be sending us to the gulag.

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Says Faith engaging in lying propaganda and character assassination. I’d hardly be surprised if you wanted me sent to the gulag either. It’s in line with your hate and love of tyranny and injustice.

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The second goes to a page in a book, and if you scroll down a few paragraphs you'll find a reference to a document in the Argentine archives reporting that the Pope was behind the Ratlines.

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No, it doesn’t claim that. The letter - if it exists, and if it is genuine and if it was correctly described was written by “Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini“. If I have identified the man correctly the conversation must have taken place somewhere in the years 1959-63 when Giovanni Battista Montini was a Cardinal. He was not at the time the letter was supposedly written, although he was a senior aide to the Pope.The letter, is described as being in the Pope’s name and supposedly asks the Argentine government to take in people suspected of aiding the Nazi cause. We do not have the text of the letter but this would be an odd way to describe high-ranking Nazis.As the author admits “...in itself this document alone would not confirm the ratline thesis”

I am saying that a paper within the book says that if the letter was confirmed to say what was claimed then it should be considered sufficient evidence of Vatican involvement to require further investigation.Given that there is no more information on the letter - by my estimation more than 50 years since it was mentioned - I don’t think we can be certain that it even existed.We don’t know who it was meant to cover either. People suspected of collaboration with the Nazis would fit the description well - and may indeed have been in real fear for their lives.

If your claim of innocence comes down to the fact that Protestantism is divided into many Churches, it isn’t much.