Elizabeth Warren Ancestry Thread Part 2

Belz... said:
<snip the part where Belz ducks question>
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Alas, nothing left.

You don't need to delve into the Rachel D specifics. You can think of this as a fictional scenario. Consider a white person who fooled the world into thinking they're African-American. She's a committed activist for African-American causes, and even achieved a leadership position at an NAACP chapter. There are influential African-Americans activists who supported her even after she was outed. She feels an overwhelming affinity for the people and culture. She lives, works, and plays among 'fellow' African-Americans. While there's zero evidence of her being African-American, we can't rule out the remote possibility of a distant African-American ancestor.

Can we safely call her a liar when she claims her race is African-American?

If you say yes, I'll have a follow-up and I'll toss it out now for you to consider: Imagine that she takes a DNA test that shows, surprise, she's 1/10000 African. What then?
 
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The Elizabeth Warren/Native American is a classic example of the now standard rightwing Republican attack strategy to undermine those they fear the most. Research every aspect of an opponent's history and life. Find something. anything that can be knowingly twisted, mis-repreesented or distorted to serve as "a button to sew a vest on" until you artfully, artificially, and deceitfully created an apparently embarrassing event in your opponent's history. Blow it way of of proportion; outright lying is fully permitted in this process. Amusingly the very process ensures that the more trivial the item they are forced to use as the button the more likely the other parts of of that person's life are relatively clean. Count on the initial lies and distortions being distributed and amplified by Fox News, conservative talking heads, and the Republican "leadership" as a common and relentless talking point. Also count on the actual facts not being corrected until long after many in the public have been pwned by this initial assault. Also continue to state the lies even after the real facts become evident.

IMO Post 3360 by The Strike represents an excellent summary of the actual facts.
 
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varwoche said:
Alas, nothing left.

You don't need to delve into the Rachel D specifics. You can think of this as a fictional scenario. Consider a white person who fooled the world into thinking they're African-American. She's a committed activist for African-American causes, and even achieved a leadership position at an NAACP chapter. There are influential African-Americans activists who supported her even after she was outed. She feels an overwhelming affinity for the people and culture. She lives, works, and plays among 'fellow' African-Americans. While there's zero evidence of her being African-American, we can't rule out the remote possibility of a distant African-American ancestor.

Can we safely call her a liar when she claims her race is African-American?

If you say yes, I'll have a follow-up and I'll toss it out now for you to consider: Imagine that she takes a DNA test that shows, surprise, she's 1/10000 African. What then?
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It won't. Anything beyond 0.01% is generally disregarded as 'noise'.
 
varwoche said:
Alas, nothing left.

You don't need to delve into the Rachel D specifics. You can think of this as a fictional scenario. Consider a white person who fooled the world into thinking they're African-American. She's a committed activist for African-American causes, and even achieved a leadership position at an NAACP chapter. There are influential African-Americans activists who supported her even after she was outed. She feels an overwhelming affinity for the people and culture. She lives, works, and plays among 'fellow' African-Americans. While there's zero evidence of her being African-American, we can't rule out the remote possibility of a distant African-American ancestor.

Can we safely call her a liar when she claims her race is African-American?

If you say yes, I'll have a follow-up and I'll toss it out now for you to consider: Imagine that she takes a DNA test that shows, surprise, she's 1/10000 African. What then?
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I know people who are strong advocates for Maori and Pacific Island people - they have not a drop of Polynesian or Melanesian blood.

I know people who are strong advocates for prison reform, who have never been to prison and are not lawyers.

I know people who are strong advocates for women's rights, who are not women (and no, they never have been)

I know people who are strong advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, who are 100% heterosexual.

How strongly you believe in advocacy for something, and how willing you are to act as an advocate for it is not measured by how much of that something you are, or now much it applies to you.
 
smartcooky said:
I know people who are strong advocates for Maori and Pacific Island people - they have not a drop of Polynesian or Melanesian blood.

I know people who are strong advocates for prison reform, who have never been to prison and are not lawyers.

I know people who are strong advocates for women's rights, who are not women (and no, they never have been)

I know people who are strong advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, who are 100% heterosexual.

How strongly you believe in advocacy for something, and how willing you are to act as an advocate for it is not measured by how much of that something you are, or now much it applies to you.
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Obviously so. This is 200 proof non sequitur.
 
Belz... said:
Did she intend to deceive? That's what a lie is. I see no evidence that Warren did, which is the crucial difference.
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But don't you see: Deception was her only intent because 30 years later she'd find out she didn't have a plurality of NA ancestry. The impact of this revelation hit her, so hard, that it bled over into the 1980s, changing the course of history, and causing her to lie on that form.

What if she had never learned the details of her ethnicity? Once upon a time (before the Warren DNA test) we actually knew. The time warp of the DNA test has destroyed that past and whatever her intentions back then may have been, they are now irretrievable to us in 2019.

Sometimes you can't go back.

LOL!
 
A brief review. Many of the arguments put forward here that challenge my assertion that Warren lied don't pass the giggle test. For instance, it's been proposed that we can't call her lie a lie because...

* 1/32 NA (Warren's approximate misunderstanding) might actually be her plurality ethnicity

* Warren may have thought at the time that 1/32 NA was her plurality ethnicity.

* The word "untruthful" doesn't apply when no harm is caused.

* Wearing green on St Patrick's Day is somehow analogous.

* Magical thinking. If someone feels passionate about something, and clicks their heels three times or whatever, they can rightfully re-define the facts of their existence. I look forward one day to Presidential Candidate Fairy Princess.

I occasionally wonder if I wandered into the Paranormal sub forum.
 
varwoche said:
A brief review. Many of the arguments put forward here that challenge my assertion that Warren lied don't pass the giggle test. For instance, it's been proposed that we can't call her lie a lie because...

* 1/32 NA (Warren's approximate misunderstanding) might actually be her plurality ethnicity

* Warren may have thought at the time that 1/32 NA was her plurality ethnicity.

* The word "untruthful" doesn't apply when no harm is caused.

* Wearing green on St Patrick's Day is somehow analogous.

* Magical thinking. If someone feels passionate about something, and clicks their heels three times or whatever, they can rightfully re-define the facts of their existence. I look forward one day to Presidential Candidate Fairy Princess.

I occasionally wonder if I wandered into the Paranormal sub forum.
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Wait. What is it that you think Warren claimed and how is it a lie?
 
Cabbage said:
But don't you see: Deception was her only intent because 30 years later she'd find out she didn't have a plurality of NA ancestry. The impact of this revelation hit her, so hard, that it bled over into the 1980s, changing the course of history, and causing her to lie on that form.

What if she had never learned the details of her ethnicity? Once upon a time (before the Warren DNA test) we actually knew. The time warp of the DNA test has destroyed that past and whatever her intentions back then may have been, they are now irretrievable to us in 2019.

Sometimes you can't go back.

LOL!
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It all makes sense now! Warren is a time traveler from the future whose Texas Bar Association card accidentally altered the past (her past; our present) in a butterfly-effect cascade of small but critical coincidences. That's why we seem to have veered off into this evil mirror universe where everyone is suddenly yay fascism, and why she's running for President; to correct her mistake.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
It all makes sense now! Warren is a time traveler from the future whose Texas Bar Association card accidentally altered the past (her past; our present) in a butterfly-effect cascade of small but critical coincidences. That's why we seem to have veered off into this evil mirror universe where everyone is suddenly yay fascism, and why she's running for President; to correct her mistake.
Click to expand...

Omg it makes sense! Warren's a Time Lord, and Trump is a Slitheen she's come to defeat!
 
varwoche said:
A brief review. Many of the arguments put forward here that challenge my assertion that Warren lied don't pass the giggle test. For instance, it's been proposed that we can't call her lie a lie because...

* 1/32 NA (Warren's approximate misunderstanding) might actually be her plurality ethnicity

* Warren may have thought at the time that 1/32 NA was her plurality ethnicity.

* The word "untruthful" doesn't apply when no harm is caused.

* Wearing green on St Patrick's Day is somehow analogous.

* Magical thinking. If someone feels passionate about something, and clicks their heels three times or whatever, they can rightfully re-define the facts of their existence. I look forward one day to Presidential Candidate Fairy Princess.

I occasionally wonder if I wandered into the Paranormal sub forum.
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I don't think the plurality bit is important. Can someone who has a black and a white parent not be white and black at once?

The question is only whether she believed that what she wrote was true.
 
Upchurch said:
Wait. What is it that you think Warren claimed and how is it a lie?
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On a form she filled out for the Texas Bar:

RACE: American Indian

While I enjoyed the movie Groundhog Day a great deal, wash-rinse-repeat isn't as much fun in real life. In other words, it would help if you could please catch up with the thread.
 
varwoche said:
On a form she filled out for the Texas Bar:

RACE: American Indian

While I enjoyed the movie Groundhog Day a great deal, wash-rinse-repeat isn't as much fun in real life. In other words, it would help if you could please catch up with the thread.
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Varwoche, you do realise that in order to establish something to be a lie you must do more than to show that the statement is factually incorrect, right?
 
varwoche said:
On a form she filled out for the Texas Bar:

RACE: American Indian

While I enjoyed the movie Groundhog Day a great deal, wash-rinse-repeat isn't as much fun in real life. In other words, it would help if you could please catch up with the thread.
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Sure, sure. How's that a lie? I mean, she had other, perhaps better, options, but it's not really a lie.
 
It seems to me that we've come to a point where folks are so sure of their position, they aren't actually going through the steps of how the facts can only reach their conclusion.

I think that we're conflating two different understandings of what the word "race" mean. On the one hand, there is race a social construct which has more to do with how you look and how it positions you in society. On the other hand, there is race as short-hand for ancestral lineage.

It seems pretty clear to me that Warren has only ever used her Native American claim as the latter. For her own reasons, she is proud of that ancestry, just as one might be, for instance, proud of having an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. Whereas her critics are using the claim, sometimes exclusively, as the former.

Ultimately, if one is to judge her words, they should be judged in the context in which she meant them. To do anything else is to create a straw-man argument.
 
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Upchurch said:
Sure, sure. How's that a lie? I mean, she had other, perhaps better, options, but it's not really a lie.
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Moreover, with all this hand-wringing, has anyone asked the question, what is the Texas Bar guidelines for race? I mean, BtC has given his opinion, as have others, but these are all irrelevant to the issue, since it was the Texas Bar that wanted to know her race. Has the Texas Bar claimed that it was wrong?

I will admit that I don't know what the Texas Bar considers to be acceptable, but I will venture to assert that neither does anyone else in this thread. As such, it's all IGNORANT hand-wringing, literally.

I'm perfectly happy not knowing what the Texas Bar considers to be acceptable, because I really don't care that much.
 
I can't imagine this hasn't been pointed out before, but it seems to me that varwoche is being pretty loose with his definition of "lie".

Varwoche, you do realize that if tell you I am a Star Trek Romulan and I truly believe a Star Trek Romulan..........well, it doesn't mean I'm actually a Romulan, but it does mean I did not lie.

You claim she lied. That's a pretty heavy burden of proof: You have to establish that you know exactly what was in her head at the time.

You have failed to do that on every level.
 
Cabbage said:
I can't imagine this hasn't been pointed out before, but it seems to me that varwoche is being pretty loose with his definition of "lie".

Varwoche, you do realize that if tell you I am a Star Trek Romulan and I truly believe a Star Trek Romulan..........well, it doesn't mean I'm actually a Romulan, but it does mean I did not lie.

You claim she lied. That's a pretty heavy burden of proof: You have to establish that you know exactly what was in her head at the time.

You have failed to do that on every level.
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I'm not sure how concluding that 31/32 Caucasian = "Native American" is anything other than delusion or dishonesty.

I'm open to arguments that Warren is actually delusional, but I doubt that's the case. I think it's much more reasonable to conclude that labeling herself "Native American" was nothing more than a little white lie.
 
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