Comment by _h4xr
17 years ago
Amazing that these data are so upsetting to news.YC's audience. I wonder if one of the downvoters could articulate what it is about these facts that needs to be suppressed. It seems relevant to me that Obama sought such a radical preacher as his mentor, and it was only when one of his other spiritual mentors (http://www.volokh.com/posts/1207631070.shtml ) got in trouble that he finally left the church.
I enjoy the handling of downmodded items though. Where reddit hides it and thus makes unpopular views (especially really unpopular views) hidden, YC simply grays them out.
It'd be neat to somehow highlight really unpopular views while still being able to filter things out that are simply trash. YC doesn't have much of a problem with this right now, but it could help suppress the noise from the random waves of out-of-place comments.
Why are you so afraid of black people?
[Playing armchair psychiatrist]
Why? He has been victimized: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.liu.edu/cw...
Or this: So what does a man do? If you're of low intelligence and have a proclivity for violence, you become a skinhead. If you're Byrne, you have an above average intelligence, as he seems to, you get your ass out of dodge and read a few books to better inform yourself as to why what happened to you happened.
Again, as a black person I can't agree with his conclusions, but I empathize with him and he would have been within his rights as a human being to fire a pistol at his attackers.
If I mischaracterized him my apologies in advance.
A few other things: I should start by pointing out that your premise is flawed. I don't hate any ethnic group. I appreciate human diversity. Differences between human groups are real, and they appear to be somewhat genetic.
I was actually surprised to see how few race-y books I'd added to the wishlist. There's a sort of illicit thrill to buying something that you can't read in public.
By the way, if you're interested in the lynching issue you might give Thomas Sowell a read. He claims that there were more whites than blacks lynched prior to the Civil War. http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/...
Again, I really appreciate that you can keep an open mind about this. When I first got interested in this issue, I didn't know the ethnic background of the guy who was arguing against me -- if I encountered these views from someone who considered his ethnic group smarter than mine, I would not have been nearly so open.
If you're open to considering the idea further, I would recommend adding http://isteve.blogspot.com and http://gnxp.com to your reading list for a little while. You'll find, as I did, that they present a view of the world that's just more consistent than the one most Americans are raised with.
I appreciate your research. This is approximately correct, although I had definitely studied the issue before getting mugged.
Where did I mention that half of Obama's ancestry?
I wonder if one of the downvoters could articulate what it is about these facts that needs to be suppressed
Good luck. I was going to come up with an elaborate analysis, but it would be wasted. A quick analogy: If you write a post explaining why dell is cheaper than apple, given the same components, you will be severely downmodded. Even if apple is better in every other way, pointing out even a single disadvantage is an affront to people who've bought the whole package, even if they've bought that package because of a single detail.
In Obama's case, that single detail might be: 1) Iraq, 2) Net neutrality, 3) Telecom immunity, 4) Anything else.
ADDENDUM: I'm not going to look it up, but the only time I remember pg being dowmmodded severely was when he criticized (rather lamely, in fact) Ron Paul. So, it's not unusual.
I definitely think that these bitter Americans and non-Americans cling to social news sites and Obama. I just wish some of them would explain why, instead of downvoting factual information about their candidate. The guy has been a public figure for about four years, compared to maybe forty for John McCain, so I'd expect them to be desperate for new information, and thankful when it's provided. And yet, the more I tell people about Barack Hussein Obama, they madder they get at me!
"And yet, the more I tell people about Barack Hussein Obama, they madder they get at me!"
It's because you're a bigot.
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