[shooz]

This is a pointless thread anyway.
I already told you Chinese labor unions were begining to see their worth.
Even the mod poked fun at me.
The only free market is a garage sale and that's taxed.
ALL other markets are manipulated.
Even in Somalia.

[jeffkrol]

In fact, if you lot can find your way out of the pub we'd all be surprised...

Do you REALLY have to stereotype....

[justinr]

But Ireland never was or has been an international power with global interests...

Is that a good or a bad thing?

In fact, if you lot can find your way out of the pub we'd all be surprised...

Something of an unfortunate belief that is hardly credible today.

---------- Post added 07-11-10 at 01:31 AM ----------

This is a pointless thread anyway.

Most are. We would probably all be better off if we posted a lot less and read books a great deal more.

[GingeM]

Jeff:

Do you REALLY have to stereotype....

Do you REALLY have no sense of humour???? See the little emoticon thingy... It's a person winking... It is there to imply a joke was just made in the absence of being able to see the expression on my face.

Justin:

Is that a good or a bad thing?

It doesn't matter... But it does make a huge difference with regard to your previous point.

As to the "unfortunate belief". Stereotypes come out of existing patterns. If the Irish, (maybe of old but I think, maybe, you are just putting on airs and graces), hadn't demonstrated a propensity for booze then they wouldn't have got themselves a name for being boozers would they? It makes one wonder how they got stereotyped as stupid doesn't it?

[Ratmagiclady]

Jeff:

As to the "unfortunate belief". Stereotypes come out of existing patterns. If the Irish, (maybe of old but I think, maybe, you are just putting on airs and graces), hadn't demonstrated a propensity for booze then they wouldn't have got themselves a name for being boozers would they? It makes one wonder how they got stereotyped as stupid doesn't it?

Bigot.

As if the English who wanted to rationalize that prejudice to dehumanize people they were committing injustices upon weren't drinking like fish, themselves. If you knew the history, you'd see the active campaign to dehumanize people.

Plenty of groups 'get a name' for things they don't do or particularly do.' Black people 'got a name' for a lot of things that weren't true, and people tell us LGBT people 'have a name' for things bigots *insist* we're about.

Stereotypes come about because people say 'This is a characteristic of X group,' and then see nothing else when they look at people.

[shooz]

So then, Mr Gringe, are you a comedian, a pundit, or a bigot?
I notice you skip over all kinds of facts and questions just to continue on with your rant of the moment.........which usually includes a dig at somebody.
Why would anyone want to "Forward into the Past", with that kind of ideology.

[GingeM]

Stereotypes come about because people say 'This is a characteristic of X group,' and then see nothing else when they look at people.

So the stereotype that Asians tend to be more academically adept than other races is a bad thing then. Stereotypes aren't all bad... It's just you people on the left that have tried to make them that way.

[shooz]

How is that a stereotype?

[Ratmagiclady]

So the stereotype that Asians tend to be more academically adept than other races is a bad thing then. Stereotypes aren't all bad... It's just you people on the left that have tried to make them that way.

If you say that's an innate characteristic of being Asian, so they don't need education, or that you can call them 'eggheads' or not believe it when an Asian says he's clueless with math and doesn't know kung fu, then, or claim an Asian is constitutionally-incapable of athletics or driving, then yeah. You're still taking someone's humanity away and substituting your own label. Sure, different cultures emphasize certain things. Maybe yours has specialized in snobbery and an unjustified sense of superiority and knowing everything better than the rest of the world about their own lives, or something. You're certainly stereotypically, if atavistically, playing the class-snob, coming here telling us what to do while disdaining actually being *part* of this country. Oh, right, that's not being British, that's being *colonialist.*

It also doesn't mean you didn't just make bigoted remarks about Irish people. "You're (only) good for fighting and being police and firefighters," may sound like a 'positive stereotype,' but even if it happens to be true of a lot of people, it doesn't mean you're treating them as human: you're treating them as a label.

You could reasonably cast me as stereotypically-Irish, myself: I'm scrappy, good with words and the law, mystical, poetic, and I do like a Guinness and a whiskey more than most: but you couldn't say so much for most of my family, or say I breed like rabbits, am a slave to the Catholic Church, am lazy or have a short temper or don't understand Special Relativity just fine, thanks very much.

So, I can't carry a tune in a bucket, there must be something *terribly* wrong with that Irish chick, eh? She must be just not trying. Lazy Irish.

I grew up scarcely knowing what a drunken person was *like,* for all the good that did me. So how far does your stereotype go?


Chalk it up to mixed ancestry, maybe.

See where that goes?

Mixing in compliments doesn't make a bigoted statement right, either, Ginge.


Another aspect of this is to say, "I'm not drunk! That's Irish people, or black people, or native Americans, or whoever..."

Or "My view of marriage isn't totally-messed up and untenable! It's the gays giving conservative Christians the highest divorce and domestic abuse rates in the nation! My identity is virtuous! Theirs is where to put the scorn! Preachers and conservative pols can't keep it in their pants, but it's all 'the gays' undermining marriage! They're the promiscuous ones, and it's all about me, me, me, me! So what if over eighty percent of gay sex scandals are about Republicans! It's the other party that is insufficiently homophobic! Gay-lovers! That's all they are! Places to dump what I can't face about my own identity and failed ideas! Filthy, shameful, aggressive gays trying to force their 'lifestyle' on us by not letting us force ours on them! So what if slave-owners used black women for personal harems! It's the black men, they're always after the white women! The Jews are after our children! That's why we have to take their children away and Christianize them! To stop them from being Jew child-stealers! The Catholic clergy doesn't molest kids, homosexuals do! Those savage native peoples! They'll exterminate us, or burn us over a fire while reciting strange incantations to appease some sacrifice-demanding God! How bloody are they!"

And on and on. Stereotypes are where people place all of their own shame and insecurity.

The thing about saying, "Well, Asians are good at math," kind of has that back-end of "I'm white, so I can be anti-intellectual: they can be the 'geeks.' Being a 'geek' is at best equivocal as regards my sense of masculinity and dominance."

[GingeM]

You're still taking someone's humanity away

Quite to the contrary my dear. I'm recognizing their human strengths and human weaknesses. I see the human in them - you see them as an amorphous blob of cells. I know which they prefer...

[Ratmagiclady]

Quite to the contrary my dear. I'm recognizing their human strengths and human weaknesses. I see the human in them - you see them as an amorphous blob of cells. I know which they prefer...

Another stereotype, to so arrogantly characterize my own beliefs that way, (as well as those of atheists: I'm not one, if you recall, but that's not them, either, nor are all liberals either *one* of those groups you'd like to label and then define. Wrong, wrong, and wrong, Ginge.)

It's not seeing a 'human' so to do, whatever you claim to be doing: you can't even *pay attention enough to have a rational conversation,* so blinding are the stereotypings you defend.

But that doesn't matter, does it? You already know *all about* 'the strengths and weaknesses' before you even open your eyes, right? Why bother even talking? Send us a postcard.

[justinr]

What is an Irishman anyway? Merely somebody who conforms to your view of what an Irishman should be or perhaps something a little deeper and rounded that that. I'm as English as they come BTW, one line of the family from Cornwall and the other from East London but I still feel slightly put out when my adopted countrymen are reduced to a two dimensional cartoon image that everyone believes they should look like. It's taken me several years just to begin to appreciate the difference between the two cultures and there is still an awful lot to learn, half an hour watching a Simpson's episode is a poor substitute for immersing yourself in the real thing.

Anyway, shall I move on to the various American stereotypes I and many others keep to hand? None of them are particularly flattering so it's probably best that I don't.

Now, back to free markets. I wonder at precisely what point a market can be considered free rather than constrained by government, what exactly is it that you free market champions are seeking?

[deadwolfbones]

Ginge is a pretty reprehensible human being, huh?

[GingeM]

Ginge is a pretty reprehensible human being, huh?

Yes I am... I believe that people are responsible for themselves and their own actions. I believe that no-one deserves to live at the expense of others. I believe that government is inherently corrupt and self serving and, as such, needs to have it's power minimized and it's influence restrained because only when government has excessive power and influence can it be used by corporations to further their own ends. If things like that makes me reprehensible then so be it.

Justin:

If you don't understand the principles of nationality then everything else is of no use discussing.

RML:

As usual you go off on some incomprehensible rant... It's quite simple. You want everyone to be equal and the same, no stereotypes, everyone paid the same, treated the same etc. I, on the other hand, see reality. People are not equal, (except in the eyes of the law). Some groups display tendencies that can serve to identify them - that's ok... No harm done. It's only the small minded that take offense to stereotypes anyway and, like everyone else, the small minded reap what they sow...

[jeffkrol]

. You want everyone to be equal and the same, no stereotypes, everyone paid the same, treated the same etc. I, on the other hand, see reality. People are not equal, (except in the eyes of the law).

Why stop w/ one "exception" let's just get rid of that as well.... seems out of place.
your a pretty big talker for someone who has one foot in 2 governments...
And your right.......... eventually "nationalism" will be dead... either the "old school" way... colonization (economic) of the world like the old British empire (how's that working for you) or people will be forced to get along...... Of course that could take a few generations......

An April 2009 Rasmussen Reports poll, conducted during the Financial crisis of 2007–2010, suggested that there had been a growth of support for socialism in the United States. The poll results stated that 53% of American adults thought capitalism was better than socialism, and that "Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided". The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism, allowing for the possibility of confusing socialism with regulated capitalism or authoritarian communism.[116]

I have to check into this more, it is interesting.......

To sum up, the Yugoslav "self-managing" experiment was neither sufficiently integral nor sufficiently organically tied to the masses. Still, it was the most comprehensive long-term attempt to establish popular self-government in history. As such, its analysis is a very useful starting point for the future.

http://www.zcommunications.org/sources-of-the-democratic-deficit-in-the-yugo...dan-jakopovich
http://development.thinkaboutit.eu/think3/post/capitalism_vs._socialism/
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-46.pdf