Ron Paul 2012 Support.

I doubt there's much to explain. I assume Will's just deciding, for whatever reason, that not being discriminated against is a basic right, but choosing who you hire and why is not. Everything you say in response is completely correct, though. People should have the right to be wrong about race or sex or religion if they want, and for their bigotry they will lag behind firms that hire based on merit.

That said, I think he's not so much making an argument as just listing something which sounds bad, politically, which he has often regarded as the same thing. I've had many discussions with Will where he appeared entirely uninterested in whether or not something was actually defensible on principled or policy grounds, but cared only about is political viability at the moment, or its susceptibility to demagoguery. So you might be wasting your time in trying to explain why something is technically wrong; it's not clear he cares.

This is some elitist, entitled horse **** right here. Actually, it's downright ignorant. Have you ever left the state you live in even once? Worldly, you are not. I'm from the west...but I live in the Northeast. I've traveled to most of the Southern states at this point in my life, and have met some of the nicest and smartest people I have ever met.

Shows what you know.

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Just don't talk to him about Perry. There is no profit in it. He cannot see the man straight.

If Perry were anything other than white, and Will were talking this way about his accent, he'd be shunned in an instant, but I guess it's okay to say bigoted things about him because he's just some Southern white guy, so it's all fair game.

This!

It's an extremely important distinction to understand that one can have certain personal views that don't necessarily jibe with their political stance and political actions. Mr. Paul understands that he has to protect the right to choose while having already made his choice.

Now, now, I appreciate the support Yoda-man, but lets try to avoid poo-slinging at one another. All's fair in giving him an opportunity to explain himself. Though I try to avoid political discussions, and haven't really been in one on here to see how Will presents himself in economical-philosophical-political debates. I'd still like to give him the benefit of the doubt. Nothing against either one of you, I just want a level playing field you know? We really need a referee in here...

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

I have given him the benefit of many doubts. I promise you, he has had a generous doubt-giving benefits package. On to the severance pay.

Who?

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I wasn't talking about Southerners or Southern accents. We have had Southern presidents. The last Bush and Clinton for example and a Texan named Lyndon Johnson who came from even more modest beginnings than Perry. None of them had that backwoods hick sound. People my age and older you hear that accent and you see George Wallace and Lester Maddox and all those Deep South Southern politicians who were racist demagogues during the Civil Rights era. It is a scary sound. In this age of television modifying regional accents (listen to fellow Texan Ron Paul) it is real jarring to hear such a throwback like Rick Perry, especially with him talking about states' rights more than any presidential candidate since George Wallace. It doesn't look like it is going to happen now, but can you imagine Rick Perry with that accent and yelling at one time about succession and obsessing on states rights and Confederate flags on Texas license plates and now NH Ranch over his head debating Obama?

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

You do realize that, often in the process of calling Perry ignorant, you misspell "secession" basically every single time?

Also, you're not really addressing with Seds said at all. The fact that you're making fun of a subsect of a Southern accent rather than Southern accents in general is irrelevant. You're talking about political optics, and it in no way defends your "trash" that comes "out of the gutter." That's just ugly.

A-Bump!

I make distinctions between political reality and morality. Sometimes I look at something from a political standpoint and sometimes from a moral standpoint.

And being opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is morally repugnant and also politically stupid to say you were opposed to it then and still are.

To say an employer has a right to discriminate against someone based on religion or skin color is wrong, to say he can refuse to serve or wait on a customer because of his color is wrong, or can make him sit at a separate counter is wrong, or prevent them from going to a private university. If this is the "freedom" conservatives or libertarians are really interested in, it is encroaching on the rights and freedom of others. It is a false, evil, and phony liberty. It isn't limiting liberty or freedom at all, anymore than going over the speed limit is limiting your freedom or yelling "fire" in a crowded building.

So I'm ignorant to, so what? I am not running for President.

Of course I was addressing what he said because he broadened the discussion to Southerners and Southern accents in general. The reality is Perry has chosen (and it is his choice) to keep a regional accent associated with the worst demagogues of the Civil Rights era and has compounded the connection by using their rhetoric by harping on states' rights to the exclusion of practically else. All the Southern presidents post the sixties including Bush were said to represent a different era, the New South, and had a less harsh sound. And here comes old style Southerner Rick Perry talking about states' rights the way Wallace did (Wallace never mentioned blacks when he ran for president).

You're missing the point entirely. What is the antithesis to "choice"? No choice right? The markets give people a "choice" to choose for themselves who they support with their dollar, (democracy in the form of currency). Think of a business as a political candidate, if you will, is it wise of a business to discriminate against a certain group of people? No, it's not! They loose not votes, but money! This is how racism was indeed being defeated prior to, and during the formation of, the Civil Rights Act. So again, Ron Paul feels it wasn't necessary, much like he feels the Civil War wasn't necessary, because, (like much of the rest of the world), people were giving up slavery and racism through voluntary action. The results seem to be however, that since we in the country seem to "force" change without "choice" or "coercion" there seems to be lingering negative sentiment toward both sides afflicted rather than a gradual understanding of wrong doings made of the behalf of certain parties.

Ron Paul is an idiot and a racist if he thinks the Civl War was unecessary. It wasn't the North who started the Civil War, it was the South simply because Lincoln was elected whose only intent was to not allow any more territory to become states as slave states. That would have altered the South's power and that is why they separated from the Union so they could perpetuate slavery.

Of course it's wrong, that's not the issue. Lying to your family is wrong. Sleeping with your best friend's wife is wrong. And yes, using bigoted hiring practices is wrong. Not everything that is wrong necessitates a law.

The "phony" liberty is the idea that anyone is entitled to have anyone else serve them or hire them. No one is entitled to that, for any reason. It is absolutely morally repugnant to refuse something to someone because of their race, but it is not an encroachment on any base freedom, and certainly not to the degree that dictating how someone runs a business--even if that person is a bigot--is.

This explains a lot.

First off, the idea that he "chose" to keep an accent sounds flawed right from the get-go. That's not a choice in the way an ideological position is a choice. You can't just flip a switch, nor should you have to. Second, the idea that you can link him to legacy racism because it is "associated" with people decades ago who sounded the same is a joke. You might as well say someone is "associated" with Nazism because they're tall or blonde. If it dovetails with certain things well, that's a reflection of people's superficiality and ignorance, not an actual strike against the man.

Judging someone based on their accent is bigotry, period.

I assume this is some swipe at him disagreeing with you in the other thread. If so, it's way off base, and explains nothing. You know why? Because I'm not voting for Ron Paul and I agreed with him in that other thread. And Holden's a liberal. So so much for that.

Anyway, please restrict your disagreements with Seds about that thread to that thread. Thanks.

Rick Perry comes from a part of the country where segregation was legal pre 1965.

The justification for it by Southern politicians was states' rights.

That is practically all Perry talks about. That is his emphasis. No Republican presidential candidate has made state's right their central theme.

I certainly wouldn't equate being tall and blonde with being a Nazi because I can't think of any important tall, blonde Nazis. Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Himmler certainly didn't fit the Aryan mode of the master race. But some contemporary people who deny Nazi sympathies but talk about Jewish bankers controlling the world are suspect.

Many actors were born in the South deliberately lost or lessened the sound to make it in Hollywood. There is a great deal of variety in accents in Texas. Perry with his background and education certainly could have gotten the rural sound modulated. Many Texans have. The combination of angry attack dog speech, threatening to leave the Union, putting confederate flags on license plates, and screaming about states' right in an accent resembling deep South demagogues from the pre civil rights era presents a disturbing image for people who don't live in the South. Is it bigotry to be afraid of the bigots? And this is a man who has had a ranch with a racial slur with disputes when the sign was painted over, and who defended a political appointee who was accused of using the N'" word in a racist context and continued to defend him after he resigned because of the controversy.


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I'm speechless.

Not quite.

It should be legal to prevent a qualified person from getting a job or being watied on or keep from going to a university because of his color or religion? I guess we won't be seeing Yoda run for political office anytime soon. This is an extreme position even for the most conservative Republicans.