Mexican Flag flies over US Flag

[Mephisto]

Whining is Tokie's stock in trade. He has that passive-aggressive streak, offending people and then feigning surprise when they respond in kind. He claims not to be a bigot, but speaks the language of bigotry, the vocabulary of bigotry, with the tone of bigotry. If he is unaware of this, he's a bigger fool than even I would have taken him for, and that's a stretch.

Whether or not he actually harbors racist notions or just is guilty of swallowing the sloppy thought and loaded language of other bigots, Tokie is a bigot in the more basic sense of the word. He judges people and their opinions preemptively, according to the assumed characteristics of perceived membership in groups or classes. His posts are larded with snidely phrased innuendoes, in which he makes clear his prejudicial disrespect for any idea that he feels is characteristic of a group he opposes, and his basic notion that that releases him from any need to engage in rational discourse in a respectful way.

Yes, Tokie, I'm talking about you, who lard your posts with gratuitous sniping at groups and ideologies whether they're applicable or not, who think it's clever to misspell "Mexico" purposely, to show your arrogant disdain (or are you really suggesting that the nasty little beaners don't know how properly to pronounce the "x?"), and who meet opposition with the characteristic "RAAAAAACIIIIIISTTTT!" whether the word has been used or not, thinking that criticism will be disarmed by your insinuation that any disagreement with your ideas is extravagant, and implicitly characterized by a strident scream.

Yes, Tokie, your posts give every appearance of being made by a bigot. If you are truly unaware of this, then you should really stop and consider the way that your extremely bad choice of language and style has led you to be misunderstood and misconstrued.

Beautifully written! If it looks like a bigot, behaves like a bigot, smells like a bigot and talks like a bigot, do you really need to taste it after stepping in it to make sure?

 

[volatile]

Nice.

So, in your world the Federal prosecutors (with their jobs in jeopardy) are making it up and the college professor (with little to lose) is correct?

Despite the illogical presupposition, that is 100% beside the point anyway. If you have any evidence that "Hispanics are routinely murdering blacks", present it.

TokenConservative cited this article as his "evidence", even though it says the exact opposite. I sense this might explain his reticence to back up his repeated claims on numerous issues...

 

[Tokenconservative]

First, stop whining.

Second, how would you even pronounce those words? I get why you put a bunch of As and Is in "racist," but why all the Ts? That's going to sound pretty weird if you try to pronounce it. And all the Es at the end of "xenophobe"? The normal one is silent - are all the others too, or do you say them? So strange.

Oh, I think phonetically, it's pretty easy. Now, I don't remember the linguists symbols for this, so let's try it without them (you seem like you might know, so maybe you can help?)

Ray-cisssss-tttttttttttttttttttttt-- as in the opening sound of say...."titmouse," but drawn out.

Zen-o-fhob-eeeeeeee--the final sound taking a sort of "ah" sound.

Try these in front of a mirror before using them in public.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Whining is Tokie's stock in trade. He has that passive-aggressive streak, offending people and then feigning surprise when they respond in kind. He claims not to be a bigot, but speaks the language of bigotry, the vocabulary of bigotry, with the tone of bigotry. If he is unaware of this, he's a bigger fool than even I would have taken him for, and that's a stretch.

Whether or not he actually harbors racist notions or just is guilty of swallowing the sloppy thought and loaded language of other bigots, Tokie is a bigot in the more basic sense of the word. He judges people and their opinions preemptively, according to the assumed characteristics of perceived membership in groups or classes. His posts are larded with snidely phrased innuendoes, in which he makes clear his prejudicial disrespect for any idea that he feels is characteristic of a group he opposes, and his basic notion that that releases him from any need to engage in rational discourse in a respectful way.

Yes, Tokie, I'm talking about you, who lard your posts with gratuitous sniping at groups and ideologies whether they're applicable or not, who think it's clever to misspell "Mexico" purposely, to show your arrogant disdain (or are you really suggesting that the nasty little beaners don't know how properly to pronounce the "x?"), and who meet opposition with the characteristic "RAAAAAACIIIIIISTTTT!" whether the word has been used or not, thinking that criticism will be disarmed by your insinuation that any disagreement with your ideas is extravagant, and implicitly characterized by a strident scream.

Yes, Tokie, your posts give every appearance of being made by a bigot. If you are truly unaware of this, then you should really stop and consider the way that your extremely bad choice of language and style has led you to be misunderstood and misconstrued.

1. I really like the way you write.

B: yeah...pointing up the truth in our PC culture is always percieved as "racist" (sexist, xenophobic, homophobic...whatever) by those so thoroughly inclucated in and mindlessly accepting of political correctness that they are unable to do otherwise. This is, yes, part 'n parcel of a particular socio-political ideology, by the way, in that you cannot be a member in good standing on "that side" of the political fence (American version, here) without fully adopting these attitudes, no matter how counter-intellectual, anti-logical and just plain dumb they are.

So, if you are say, a black woman and I call you a "water buffalo!" that's because I am a bigot, not because I hail from a culture where that's the same as calling someone a "rude a-hole," right? Why? Well, because water buffalo are of course, normally, black in color. So I therefore MUST be making a racial statement!
4. Yeah...I kinda got the feeling you wuz talkin' 'bout me by the fact that you pepper this smartly-worded diatribe with "Tokie" this and "Tokie" that. I'da had a tougher time figgerin' it out, had you called me TC, as some in here do.

IIV. Since when did Spanish (the language, or the nationality for that matter) become a race? This is the telling point. A left-liberal racist must look at this entirely non-racial issue from this perspective because he/she is so thouroughly inculcated with leftist doublespeak and permissible thinking, that he/she has become unable to look at it any other way. To you, because (in your belief...do you have a picture of me?) those invading my country are of a "different skin color" from me, my complaint MUST be "racist," in the same way that I cannot work agains an African AMERICAN in my state working to raise my taxes, say. If I do...I MUST be racist in the left-liberal, PC hivemind.

Conclusion: The difference between MY kind of racism (I was raised by racists in a very racist time) and YOUR kind, is that I've struggled my whole life to beat down my natural and cultural tendencies toward racism, while you on the other hand have embraced both, but simply call it "political correctness" to excuse it, and tell yourself that your racism is actually not racism in the best Orwellian form. When I have racist thoughts (and I haven't uttered a racist word in decades..but I can man up to the reality of my own racism whereas you cannot) I feel badly about that and chide myself and remind myself not to engage in same. When YOU do that, you feel it's just and laud yourself and try to find someplace where you can shout your racism from the rooftops.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Beautifully written! If it looks like a bigot, behaves like a bigot, smells like a bigot and talks like a bigot, do you really need to taste it after stepping in it to make sure?

Or...if it looks like a stalker, smells like a stalker and has some of those rilly nifty highpower nightvision binoculars like a stalker....

Tokie

 

[Dan Beaird]

For a start the monks are trying to gainf reedom, wheras this theif and vandal was tryign to restrict someone else right to free sepeech.

And did he succeed or did he just bring more attention to it? Frankly, the guy's and idiot and I suspect he's not even a vet. If he were, chances are he was some sort of REMF. They don't issue Marine bowie knives in the Army and that one looked like some cheesy commemorative you'd pick up in a surplus store along with all your survival supplies and racist jokes.

The monks are facing politcal opression, this guy thought that he (and/or his nation) was being insulted.
Can you not see the distinction?

Yes, I see the distinction, and I think it's based on what we are seeing as right/wrong and not simply as a political or criminal activity. This man's actions are reprehensible not simply because he committed a small crime, but because he used that crime to make a politically motivated petty insult when provoked by another. Cops and civilians tore flags from the hands of civil rights protesters, others have torn flags from the hands of KKK marchers; is one act right and the other wrong because of the political landscape?

They are fighting to execrsie their rights, he hates the fact that other people are allowed to exercise theirs, and so breaks the law to stop them.

Does it occur to you that he might be motivated by genuine love for his country? Unfortunately he just made his country look stupid. He ain't the first and he ain't the last.

 

[Dan Beaird]

Well, if you really can't tell the difference or realize that it is a substantive one in addition to a matter of degree, I'm not sure anything I say can change that, but to begin with, it's not just a matter of "following the rules." The civil rights demonstrators and the Myanmar monks were both opposing government policies that deprived people of rights they considered fundamental. Not that I'm all that much in favor of monks or anyone else flinging molotov cocktails, either. I don't know why that comes into the argument at all. The civil rights activists accepted arrest, acknowledging that they were purposely breaking laws that were unjust, and challenging the laws themselves, on the ground not only that the laws themselves were unjust but that to abide by them was inherently unjust, and that conscience required them to reject complicity with them. The guy who tore down the flag was protesting just what, and against whom? He committed an offense against an individual, not a government, in response to a perceived offense to his own patriotic sensibilities: a breach of etiquette. That really is all. He certainly cannot have been contending that laws protecting private property are themselves are criminal. I do not believe that any reasonable person could stretch the idea of civil disobedience to cover that.

You make my argument for me here. The monks, the civil rights protesters and this guy (seemingly) were motivated by their sensibilities. Outraged at their circumstances, they take action to change society in violation of the rules freely accepting, in fact inviting, the consequences.

I've thought about this some over the weekend and I changed my mind about the Chief of Police doing nothing. If I were there I'd have (off camera) taken the vet aside, confiscated his amazingly dull knife, explained the principles of the free society he was defending and walked him back into the restaurant to return the flag, pay for the damages and explain himself. Get people talking instead of yelling.

Anyway, I go along with old Norman Thomas (I think he was the one who said it, anyway....): If you want a really meaningful gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.

That works for me...or stop hiding behind the damn flags and talk to people. There's a huge similarity between current events and the immigration situation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Today flags are being torn down in Arizona, California and Texas instead of New York and Chicago. People are supposed to learn from history.

 

[brodski]

And did he succeed or did he just bring more attention to it?

he succeeded it that act, he took the flag didn't he?

Cops and civilians tore flags from the hands of civil rights protesters, others have torn flags from the hands of KKK marchers; is one act right and the other wrong because of the political landscape?

no, both are wrong, and both are attempts to limit free speech in an unreasonable manner. Perhaps you can show me where I have defended one whilst condemning the other?

Does it occur to you that he might be motivated by genuine love for his country? Unfortunately he just made his country look stupid. He ain't the first and he ain't the last.

So eh wants to show love for his country by going against it's founding principles?
he can love his country all eh wants, but he expressed it by preventing people from exercising their rights.
I can't see how what eh did can be defended.

 

[bruto]

1. I really like the way you write.

B: yeah...pointing up the truth in our PC culture is always percieved as "racist" (sexist, xenophobic, homophobic...whatever) by those so thoroughly inclucated in and mindlessly accepting of political correctness that they are unable to do otherwise. This is, yes, part 'n parcel of a particular socio-political ideology, by the way, in that you cannot be a member in good standing on "that side" of the political fence (American version, here) without fully adopting these attitudes, no matter how counter-intellectual, anti-logical and just plain dumb they are.

So, if you are say, a black woman and I call you a "water buffalo!" that's because I am a bigot, not because I hail from a culture where that's the same as calling someone a "rude a-hole," right? Why? Well, because water buffalo are of course, normally, black in color. So I therefore MUST be making a racial statement!
4. Yeah...I kinda got the feeling you wuz talkin' 'bout me by the fact that you pepper this smartly-worded diatribe with "Tokie" this and "Tokie" that. I'da had a tougher time figgerin' it out, had you called me TC, as some in here do.

IIV. Since when did Spanish (the language, or the nationality for that matter) become a race? This is the telling point. A left-liberal racist must look at this entirely non-racial issue from this perspective because he/she is so thouroughly inculcated with leftist doublespeak and permissible thinking, that he/she has become unable to look at it any other way. To you, because (in your belief...do you have a picture of me?) those invading my country are of a "different skin color" from me, my complaint MUST be "racist," in the same way that I cannot work agains an African AMERICAN in my state working to raise my taxes, say. If I do...I MUST be racist in the left-liberal, PC hivemind.

Conclusion: The difference between MY kind of racism (I was raised by racists in a very racist time) and YOUR kind, is that I've struggled my whole life to beat down my natural and cultural tendencies toward racism, while you on the other hand have embraced both, but simply call it "political correctness" to excuse it, and tell yourself that your racism is actually not racism in the best Orwellian form. When I have racist thoughts (and I haven't uttered a racist word in decades..but I can man up to the reality of my own racism whereas you cannot) I feel badly about that and chide myself and remind myself not to engage in same. When YOU do that, you feel it's just and laud yourself and try to find someplace where you can shout your racism from the rooftops.

Tokie

Note, please, that I was careful not to call you a racist, for the very reason that I have not seen particular evidence of racial bigotry in your posts. Race is not the only basis for bigotry. It is you who continually deflect the discussion back to racism. It's a common and inappropriate tactic in argument to respond to a charge by taking umbrage over a more serious charge that never occurred, as if your innocence of the greater offense erases the lesser. It does not.

Your response, especially the last paragraph, makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about me and my attitudes, and strays once again into your usual tendency to dismiss and attack on the basis of presumed ideology and hot-button phrases.

I absolutely agree that "hispanic" is not a race. It's a tender issue in my immediate family, for obvious reasons, since my wife is hispanic. I am glad we can agree on this, but it's not to the point.

I have never used "political correctness" as a justification for anything. I despise both the concept and the phrase, and the anti-rational pseudo-liberal new-left ideology from which it arises. Your preconceived notions about a category to which you presume I belong are leading you to jump to conclusions about things I have not done or said. I address you as an individual on the basis of what you say, without regard to your politics, but you cannot decouple your response from your customary irrelevant attack on some political or cultural category to which you presume I belong. And that, sir, is what bigotry is.

 

[Dan Beaird]

Here's the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nal3RP9il3A

Knives are also one of the most primitive weapons available to man, you can't deny that. As a matter of fact he DID brandish the weapon (look at the video around time mark 1:11 - 1:30) and even made it a point to make it an US versus THEM issue (around that time also). He CLEARLY was looking for a confrontation otherwise he could have brought a pair of scissors to "rescue" the flag.

I've seen better brandishing at Benihana. We don't know if he had scissors with him; if he had he really should have used them. We do know that his knife was so dull it took him forever to cut a piece of maybe 1/8" cotton clothes line. I could do better than that with blunty kindergarten scissors.

You claim to have these excellent mind-reading capabilities, ever consider the MDC?

He also mentions being an Army veteran, but also states that his knife "was from the United States Army." Well the K-Bar knife (the kind the guy was brandishing) is specific to the Marine Corps and better yet, the knife the guy was waving is a commemorative version and NOT government issue!

Agreed. (except for the brandishing part...call it a matter of opinion). When I first saw the video I thought "what kind of POS has he got there?". I'm sure it got as dull as it is by having to cut through miles of jungle, clear VC tunnels, deflect AK bullets and hack through Charlie bones in brutal hand-to-hand combat. The man's clearly not firing on all cylinders, so does it really help anything to twist him into some crazed monster?

Also, for your information:

brandish

noun
1. the act of waving [syn: flourish]

verb
1. move or swing back and forth; "She waved her gun"
2. exhibit aggressively; "brandish a sword"
3. To display ostentatiously.

Hey! You didn't source that! You expect me to just take your word for it? Don't bother...I'll look up my own definitions in an American dictionary and you can go push your propaganda elsewhere.

Ha! You're a real joke! You get upset because I said I would return the favor if you spit on me! You know what I would REALLY enjoy? You pulling a knife on me and threatening me aggressively. We could solve this discussion mano a mano (that means hand to hand to all you "English should be the official language" xenophobes!). I'd give anything to hear you explain to the ER doctor how your knife got where it was

Upset? At you? You know...I hate to burst your balloon, but I didn't just spend my weekend worrying about the sound thrashing Mephisto would give me when he read my latest post. Try having a normal conversation for a change. Your mad internets skillz don't frighten or impress anyone. Ok? Ok.

 

[Dan Beaird]

he succeeded it that act, he took the flag didn't he?

Well, yes but he managed to turn the shop owner into a victim and himself into a bigot in front of the nation. Do you think that was his intention?

no, both are wrong, and both are attempts to limit free speech in an unreasonable manner. Perhaps you can show me where I have defended one whilst condemning the other?

I never said you did. We see it the same way.

So eh wants to show love for his country by going against it's founding principles?
he can love his country all eh wants, but he expressed it by preventing people from exercising their rights.
I can't see how what eh did can be defended.

Idiots can be patriotic...they don't even have to stop being idiots to do it. We can't all be Patrick Henry. I see this as much ado about nothing. An idiot made an idiotic decision for all the wrong reasons. Call it what it is, an inept political statement, and leave it at that. He did his cause more harm than good.

 

[brodski]

I've seen better brandishing at Benihana. We don't know if he had scissors with him; if he had he really should have used them. We do know that his knife was so dull it took him forever to cut a piece of maybe 1/8" cotton clothes line. I could do better than that with blunty kindergarten scissors.

You claim to have these excellent mind-reading capabilities, ever consider the MDC?
.

Or he could have just watched the next youtube clip down, which has an interview with this moron.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Px1PTsEdC1Y

He specifically chose to use his "Iraqi freedom" k-bar because he thought is was symbolic. I guess he doesn't do irony...

Also, he was clearly looking for confromntation as he was saying "I want someone to fight me"...

 

[Tokenconservative]

Note, please, that I was careful not to call you a racist, for the very reason that I have not seen particular evidence of racial bigotry in your posts. Race is not the only basis for bigotry. It is you who continually deflect the discussion back to racism. It's a common and inappropriate tactic in argument to respond to a charge by taking umbrage over a more serious charge that never occurred, as if your innocence of the greater offense erases the lesser. It does not.

Your response, especially the last paragraph, makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about me and my attitudes, and strays once again into your usual tendency to dismiss and attack on the basis of presumed ideology and hot-button phrases.

I absolutely agree that "hispanic" is not a race. It's a tender issue in my immediate family, for obvious reasons, since my wife is hispanic. I am glad we can agree on this, but it's not to the point.

I have never used "political correctness" as a justification for anything. I despise both the concept and the phrase, and the anti-rational pseudo-liberal new-left ideology from which it arises. Your preconceived notions about a category to which you presume I belong are leading you to jump to conclusions about things I have not done or said. I address you as an individual on the basis of what you say, without regard to your politics, but you cannot decouple your response from your customary irrelevant attack on some political or cultural category to which you presume I belong. And that, sir, is what bigotry is.

In my experience, anyone who believe he/she/other has somehow, alone amongst all other humans escaped all bigotry is either a fool, deranged or a liar.

Same with prejudice and that includes the natural racism we all feel to one extent or another; the natural fear/loathing and mistrust of the archetypical "other." Now, as civilized folk, we try (or should, anyway) to overcome that. Some of us do, some of us do not; I am happy to report that over my lifetime, I've seen the sort of casual, institutional a prevailing racism I grew up with completely disappear. Despite the mindless, rote shrieking about it being "worse than ever!" from the left, in fact, it's pretty hard to find these days...unless you look at say, the Latin culture invading America or among the race pimps like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, et al.

I don't "deflect" the argument to racism, I respond to the shrieking insistence that my dislike of my nation's being invaded by foreigners, because the assumption is made they are of a different skin pigment than I, I therefore MUST be RAAACCCIIISTTTTTTTTT!!!

And again I ask: since when is "Mexican," or "Guatemalan," or "Salvadoran," or for that matter "Canadian," or "German," or "Chinese" a race, and more particularly when did the Spanish language become a race?

And I address you, based upon what YOU say...I don't make the automatic assumption that you are X-"race" (what does "race" even mean these days? Is Obama "black"? Is Halle Berry? Is Ricardo Montalban "Hispanic"? I had to be TOLD that Halle Berry is black and if you did not hear him speak, and put Montalban alongside me, you'd probably pick me as the more "ethnic" looking...)

I am not a college kid. I've been around a while and it's my experience that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's likely not a Steller's jay, no matter how much it waddles around quacking that it is. In my experience, it is a common, leftist-Playbook tactic to shriek "don't label me!!! I'm no lefty!!!" when in fact, your words indicate just the opposite.

One of the most worn tools in the lefty toolbelt is to shriek "RAAACCIIIISTTTTTT!!!!" whenever anyone points up truths such as "most of those coming into America illegally are MEXICANs"--please note that I said nothing about race, did not mention rail cars, gas chambers and ovens. I simply noted the TRUTH and that truth is that MOST of those coming into American illegally are not, in fact, Chinese, Canadian or German, but Mexican. Mexican, again, is not a race. It's a national identity, and so, by your reasoning ("Mexican" is a racial slur) I would be justified calling YOU a racist were you to say, "many AMERICANS visit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on vacation."

Your response to this last, by the by, will go far in cementing in my mind (not that that should matter to you) whether you really are a lefty or not.

Tokie

 

[Mephisto]

Or he could have just watched the next youtube clip down, which has an interview with this moron.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Px1PTsEdC1Y

He specifically chose to use his "Iraqi freedom" k-bar because he thought is was symbolic. I guess he doesn't do irony...

Also, he was clearly looking for confromntation as he was saying "I want someone to fight me"...

Bingo! Of course most conservatives are so busy applauding this idiot's actions that they don't stop to look at the man with a little more skepticism.

A. He said he got the knife he used to cut down the flag in the U.S. Army and he's a Vietnam veteran.

B. The knife is a K-bar and NOT issued to Army personnel.

C. The knife he used was a commemorative version, specifically commemorating "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

D. He states that he served in the Army from 1972 to 1973 (one year?).

E. How was he, an Army veteran, issued a commemorative version of a USMC knife commemorating a war that didn't start until 31 years later?

Of course his actions were applauded by his interviewer as being patriotic, but if you'll check out the interviewer's websiye you'll clearly see he's a low-budget version of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

http://mikeonline.com/

And for those who questioned my sources:

American Heritage Dictionary

bran·dish (brān'dĭsh) Pronunciation Key
tr.v. bran·dished, bran·dish·ing, bran·dish·es

1. To wave or flourish (a weapon, for example) menacingly.
2. To display ostentatiously. See Synonyms at flourish.

And to help you further:

American Heritage Dictionary

os·ten·ta·tious (ŏs'těn-tā'shəs, -tən-) Pronunciation Key
adj. Characterized by or given to ostentation; pretentious.

___________________

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

os·ten·ta·tious /ˌɒstɛnˈteɪʃəs, -tən-/

Pronunciation[os-ten-tey-shuhs, -tuhn-]
–adjective
1. characterized by or given to pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others: an ostentatious dresser.
2. (of actions, manner, qualities exhibited, etc.) intended to attract notice: Lady Bountiful's ostentatious charity.

dictionary.com

 

[Mephisto]

One of the most worn tools in the lefty toolbelt is to shriek "RAAACCIIIISTTTTTT!!!!" whenever anyone points up truths such as "most of those coming into America illegally are MEXICANs"

How do you feel about those who claim racism when you equate Hispanics with illegal immigrants as you did here in this laughingly erroneous claim?

What's curious about this, is that while "Hispanics" (illegals) have declared open war on African AMERICANs in LA as they attempt the reconquista via race war, people like the rights Revs Al and Jesse are...ignoring it.

Can you imagine the righteous outrage if some group of crackers Declared parts of Atlanta "off limits" to N###ers as "Hispanics" (illegals) have declared large parts of LA off limits to African AMERICANs?

 

[Adrian Lopez]

The SC has upheld flag desecration convictions (1989 Texas v Johnson) when statute outlaws it, so I'd agree that flag burning is not an explicitly protected free-speech activity.

Really? Wikipedia* suggests exactly the opposite: "Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989)[1], was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag in force in 48 of the 50 states. Justice William Brennan wrote for a five-justice majority in holding that the defendant's act of flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Johnson was represented by attorneys David D. Cole and William Kunstler."

* I'd link to the article, but apparently the JREF thinks it's a good idea to require me to make at least 15 posts before I'm allowed to link to my sources.

 

[linusrichard]

Really? Wikipedia* suggests exactly the opposite

You are right and Dan is wrong. Not wanting to rely on Wikipedia, I looked up the real case, and the conviction was indeed reversed:

Johnson was convicted for engaging in expressive conduct. The State's interest in preventing breaches of the peace does not support his conviction because Johnson's conduct did not threaten to disturb the peace. Nor does the State's interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity justify his criminal conviction for engaging in political expression. The judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals [reversing Johnson's conviction] is therefore

Affirmed.

 

[bruto]

In my experience, anyone who believe he/she/other has somehow, alone amongst all other humans escaped all bigotry is either a fool, deranged or a liar.

Same with prejudice and that includes the natural racism we all feel to one extent or another; the natural fear/loathing and mistrust of the archetypical "other." Now, as civilized folk, we try (or should, anyway) to overcome that. Some of us do, some of us do not; I am happy to report that over my lifetime, I've seen the sort of casual, institutional a prevailing racism I grew up with completely disappear. Despite the mindless, rote shrieking about it being "worse than ever!" from the left, in fact, it's pretty hard to find these days...unless you look at say, the Latin culture invading America or among the race pimps like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, et al.

I don't "deflect" the argument to racism, I respond to the shrieking insistence that my dislike of my nation's being invaded by foreigners, because the assumption is made they are of a different skin pigment than I, I therefore MUST be RAAACCCIIISTTTTTTTTT!!!

And again I ask: since when is "Mexican," or "Guatemalan," or "Salvadoran," or for that matter "Canadian," or "German," or "Chinese" a race, and more particularly when did the Spanish language become a race?

And I address you, based upon what YOU say...I don't make the automatic assumption that you are X-"race" (what does "race" even mean these days? Is Obama "black"? Is Halle Berry? Is Ricardo Montalban "Hispanic"? I had to be TOLD that Halle Berry is black and if you did not hear him speak, and put Montalban alongside me, you'd probably pick me as the more "ethnic" looking...)

I am not a college kid. I've been around a while and it's my experience that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's likely not a Steller's jay, no matter how much it waddles around quacking that it is. In my experience, it is a common, leftist-Playbook tactic to shriek "don't label me!!! I'm no lefty!!!" when in fact, your words indicate just the opposite.

One of the most worn tools in the lefty toolbelt is to shriek "RAAACCIIIISTTTTTT!!!!" whenever anyone points up truths such as "most of those coming into America illegally are MEXICANs"--please note that I said nothing about race, did not mention rail cars, gas chambers and ovens. I simply noted the TRUTH and that truth is that MOST of those coming into American illegally are not, in fact, Chinese, Canadian or German, but Mexican. Mexican, again, is not a race. It's a national identity, and so, by your reasoning ("Mexican" is a racial slur) I would be justified calling YOU a racist were you to say, "many AMERICANS visit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on vacation."

Your response to this last, by the by, will go far in cementing in my mind (not that that should matter to you) whether you really are a lefty or not.

Tokie

Where have I ever suggested that "Mexican" is a racial slur, or that you meant it as such? To whose posts are you responding? What "rote shrieking" here?

Nor have I ever said that I have entirely escaped from racism or bigotry. I wish I had, but I know as well as you that it lurks, even when it's unwelcome. Part of what it means to be a moral person is the recognition of this, and the conscious effort to overcome it; on this we are entirely in agreement.

But I'm responding not to the person you take yourself to be, nor to the person I might take you to be, but to your posts, and the opinions you've presented, and most especially to the language and style that you choose to use, and here you go, using it again, with your exaggerated images of shrieking lefties calling you a racist or intimating that you might be some sort of Nazi. Where or when might I ever have suggested that racism or anything else is worse than ever? I certainly agree that the prevailing institutional racism I grew up seeing, that my older sister got herself beaten up and thrown in jail for defying, has largely disappeared. Nobody who visits the deep south these days, for example, could fail to appreciate the vast difference, no matter how one might evaluate the need for further improvement. I don't know whose shrieks you're listening to there, but whoever is doing the shrieking, I hold in disesteem as you also do. I doubt I have any better opinion of Al Sharpton than you do, even though I undoubtedly am a "lefty" in relation to you (who the hell isn't). In this thread and this conversation I believe I have been pretty careful not to introduce gratuitous political issues and positions in a discussion that, to me at least, is not about being liberal or conservative or anything else with a group label. Nor do you have to reassure us that you're not talking about boxcars and ovens. I never even remotely suggested you were, and to bring that up at all suggests once again that you are trying to deflect what I am saying by pretending it was something much worse, which you can then instantly and indignantly deny.

This thread, at least as I see it, is about whether or not it's reasonable for a person to take the law into his own hands and to violate laws when his patriotic sensibilites are offended; and in relation to your posting on this thread, in addition to that, I have commented on whether it's reasonable to assume, as you report you did, that a person who appears to be Mexican, wearing a sombrero, is not only an illegal alien, but making a gesture that you can take as a personal affront, and whether it's appropriate to take action on the matter. I believe that you overreacted there. Not to put too fine a point on it, let's just say that on this issue, at least, if you were wearing a sombrero it would have to have holes for long ears.

All the rest of my responses to you are in regard not to the issue of the thread, nor to the politics involved, but to what I take to be your inappropriate style of argument, which bespeaks an attitude of bigotry, a mindset predisposed to dismiss ideas for the wrong reasons and to address them to the wrong opponents, and a belligerent tone-deafness that almost guarantees that your ideas will be given short shrift whether they are unreasonable or not. Even here while you are trying so hard to justify your position and disarm the charge of bigotry, you cannot avoid generalized jabs at the "left," complete with snarky adjectives and loaded rhetoric, and cannot take care even to distinguish between the question of illegal immigration (one on which you might find you had considerable agreement in various quarters), and the "latin culture invading America." (and that in the same post in which you point out that to call ourselves "Americans" when we visit Mexico could be construed as racist?). Jeezum Crow, Tokie, don't you even read your own posts? If you really cannot understand why people find your utterances offensive, then you have a real problem.

 

[brodski]

* I'd link to the article, but apparently the JREF thinks it's a good idea to require me to make at least 15 posts before I'm allowed to link to my sources.

We've had a problem with commercial spam int eh past, the 15 posts rule, whilst annoying seems to have stopped it.
If you w ant to post the URL without HTTP and www, and with spaces where the dots should be, I'll edit it into a proper link.

Or just keep posting

 

[volatile]

So, no comment on why you claimed Newsweek said that "Hispanics are routinely murdering black Americans", when they, umm, didn't (and in fact said the exact opposite), Tokie?

Why the shyness all of a sudden?