1) Racism is everywhere. In this country and throughout the world. It is not in any way "abnormal" to be a racist.
In this context, I'm taking "racist" to mean "really racist" or "overtly racist," not racist in the sense that all of us harbor innate prejudices towards anyone different from ourselves, even if only on a subconscious level. Monkeypunch used the phrase "incredibly racist," so I think it's clear he wasn't talking about these sorts of built-in, hazy prejudices.
1.i) Denying the existence of racism (the source of these ideas) leads to a rationalization of certain ideas among non-racists in the manner you just committed. The popularity of these statements ultimately becomes the victory of racism since it perpetuates inequality (now among presidents).
1.ii) It's just better to accept that people are racist and take the comments as they are.
Unless they're not rationalizations and are, in fact, accurate. These points are logical, but they presuppose that the first point (that the motivation is largely racist) is true.
1.iii) Some racism is not necessarily itself "unjustified" on a purely practical level to the racists themselves. Racism against Mexicans for example is a function of their immediately negative effect on local communities. Racism against blacks is a result of a large proportion of blacks living below the poverty line. The latter is a function of past racism creating the situation for present racism. It's racism that recreates the conditions for its own re-realization.
Yes, absolutely. This is true in every direction, as well: a minority can rightly resent racism and become more hostile to an oppressive majority, thus giving the majority more valid reasons for being racist because they're now being resented. This is particularly true if some of the people in the majority were not racist before, but were nevertheless treated with the same suspicion. It flies in every direction and self-reinforces all the time.
It is also, I think, as often based in misinformation or generalization as it is sheer prejudice. If I really believed, for example, that Mexican people were coming across the border, cashing welfare checks, and then going back, I probably wouldn't like most of them very much. I don't, however. I think a lot of people seem racist for reasons like this, when in reality their error is a factual one.
2) It's not in any way "abnormal" to think that Clinton-Bush seriously under-reacted to the long known threat from Al Qaeda before 9/11. Also, I hate polls in general, because a phrase like "knowing about" 9/11 before it happened seems like a pretty open phrase. Everyone already "knew" that the WTC itself was a prime target for an attack, and that attacks were imminent since they'd been ongoing for at least a decade before 9/11.
Agreed, but that's exactly why I cited the poll: not to suggest that lots of people necessarily believe in a conspiracy, but to point out that the polls about the number of people (or Republicans, specifically) who bought into Birtherism were always silly and flawed and in all likelihood dramatically overstated the ideas popularity. There are other reasons for this, too, but I won't get into them now.
2.i) Again, Al Qaeda and 9/11 can be seen as (partly... or to a large degree) a function of United States intervention in Afghanistan during the Cold War.
Oh dear, straying terribly close to "chickens coming home to roost" territory here. Regardless, I think you can make a very good case that the things which offended Al Qaeda become inevitable (at some speed) once we abandon the idea of isolationism. The things that anti-war protesters were often suggesting we do to contain Saddam Hussein, for example, rather than invade, were some of the same things directly instigating Al Qaeda. Get involved at all and you're going to find yourself in some no-win scenarios, I'm afraid.
3) So what exactly are people articulating when they make these statements which are so easily dismissed as "crazy" by the normal, liberal, tolerant general public? Exactly what they mean, it seems.
I'm confused by this. It sounds like you're saying we should take the claims about citizenship at face value and
not read racism into them.
4) In just about every post in this thread, somebody is calling somebody else "crazy", "nuts", or "loony". I also hear it being said on the news every single day about people on both sides but mostly at the Tea Party and "redneck", "racist" southerners.
4.i) The desire to exclude opinions---to render them moot with the word "crazy" is really the problem here. When someone's opinion is called "crazy", they are in a sense not even wrong. Their opinion doesn't even obtain the status of being a statement which can be evaluated as such. It is simply dismissed entirely from the discourse.
Agree completely; it's very upsetting. Not that people think other people are crazy, but that these labels are increasingly accepted as a substitute for argument. I think about 75% of The Daily Show is based around this idea these days: just show a big dumb Republican saying something and cut to a shot of Jon Stewart's eyes bulging in disbelief. <Applause>
Granted, this is a fine line. There are things like, say, Holocaust denial, that shouldn't be engaged. It's not always clear when people need to be taken seriously and corrected, and when they simply need to be dismissed, though even then I'd say ignoring them is probably better.
5) Racism is an attitude towards reality, an opinion. 9/11 "conspiracy theorists" is another attitude or opinion. Neither of which are even close to being unreasonable as I tried generally to show. The problem arises when they are dismissed as being non-opinions. This is anti-thought and anti-democracy at its purest.
The fact that 9/11 truthers actually possess an opinion does not make it just like other opinions. Not all attitudes and opinions are created equal. Some are based in sound reasoning, others are based in emotion and paranoia. I categorically reject the idea that an opinion always deserves any base level of respect or engagement simply by virtue of it being held by someone.