Comments on: White Supremacist Kills Guard At U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

By: The Continuum of Right Wing Extremism - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:50:35 +0000

[...] Violence committed by right wing extremists is the more serious problem but a similar, even if less violent, mind set can be seen in the recent conservative fatwa against David Letterman. Despite agreement from Letterman that he should not have told a joke which was clearly about Bristol Palin, and despite the fact that Bristol Palin has been the target of jokes from multiple comedians largely because of the manner in which Sarah Palin has intentionally placed her children in the public spotlight for political gain, conservatives continue to attack with outright lies as to what Letterman actually said. [...]

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:32:38 +0000

Fritz,

We are talking generalities when taking race into account in medical decisions. Often we have to make a decision before we have much data and go with what has the best odds, and then adjust as we have more information. Race sometimes gives some reason to sometimes go in one direction but there are many exceptions. I’m not sure off hand if this is any worse in Africans as opposed to others. The ultimate goal is to be able to do genetic testing to better adjust to the individual (due to the “myth” of race as Mike might argue).

By: Fritz

Fritz — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:52:01 +0000

Ron — I keep hearing that, because of the very small groups that left Africa and formed the non-African human populations, Africans have far more genetic variability than people of non-African descent. It would seem to me that a direct corollary of that would be that non-African race would be a factor in drug reactions, but that you would have far less predictive power if the patient is of African descent. Do you know if that is true?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:35:57 +0000

I bet, if there was a parallel world where no one cared at all about the color of one’s skin but instead were obsessed about height, short people thinking they were superior and refusing to marry or live in tall people’s neighborhoods, ect. that height would end up being as significant a medical difference and consideration as you see in race today. In fact, that would be race in that world, you would have a tall race and a short race.

By: Stoking The Flames of Extremist Violence - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:30:11 +0000

[...] shootings at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has raised more attention towards the problem of right wing extremism and has verified the [...]

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:20:00 +0000

I wouldn’t say that race being a myth is true or false. Race exists. It is a consideration for me on a daily basis, such as in considering racial differences in susceptibility to certain diseases and responses to certain drugs. You are right that races are not pure so from that perspective you could say that race is a myth.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:16:22 +0000

…race is a myth but racism and anti-Semitism are not myths. Did we just agree? Or where you saying the existence of racism disproves the premise of race being a myth? There is no doubt that racism exists and is a problem. But suppose you had a large group of people that all openly admitted to hating rich people. Suppose they even went so far as committing acts of violence against those they considered rich. There still would be lacking enough definition of rich to know who was or wasn’t in the group. If I could vote for the funniest skit of the last 10 years , I would say it was David Chappell’s “blind racist”. (I don’t know what he actually calls it.) Of course my belief that there really is no such thing as a white race or a black race probably makes me as odd or more odd than people who believe in Bigfoot.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:32:25 +0000

Mike,

You might want to say that race is a myth but racism and anti-Semitism are not myths. Violence such as this shows they are very real problems which cannot be ignored.

My answer is far more than saying that is always how it has been classified. As we found out more about the shooter it confirmed my argument based upon the connections between white supremacists and other right wing groups. His writings clearly demonstrate that he is on the far right.

Even arguments based upon how things have always been classified are also valid and should not be casually dismissed as you have. Classification along the left right spectrum is largely a matter of definition and tradition. Communism is classified on the far left and Nazism is classified on the far right. As is common with right wing extremists, the shooter turned out to have connections to neo-Nazi and Holocaust denial groups along with being a white supremacist.

Whether or not you want to deny it, racism is a defining characteristic of this wing of the extreme right. It is not a case of the right being classified as racist by their opponents. This developed because of the prevalence of racism on the right.

By: u.s. holocaust memorial museum | Latest Trends

u.s. holocaust memorial museum | Latest Trends — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:51:37 +0000

[...] Read more at http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=8802 [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:53:15 +0000

My son was born in Puerto Rico, we have a birth certificate to prove it. He can claim he is Puerto Rican even though he doesn’t speak Spanish nor much of a connection to the culture of that island. Because of the fortune of apparently meticulous record keeping by Dutch traders, my son can also trace his lineage back to an African slave that was brought on a ship to the island of Tortola, British Virgin Islands. He thus has evidence of being African, why in the world that play a part in if he gets a job with a particular fire department? If a business denies hiring him just by how he looks, I’m all for a major lawsuit to smack who ever did it. But this affirmative action junk is all about classifying people, and IMO that is wrong, that issue is not owned by conservatives, it is liberals who advocate affirmative action.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:36:37 +0000

My perspective is this, race is a myth, really, I’m not trying to be flippant, I’m serious, I’m not just saying cliches like: “If cut, don’t we all bleed red?” and stuff. Racial terms, by their nature, are ambiguous. The terms “black” and “white” when used to describe someone are as vague as terms “rich” or “tall”. For example, very few would dispute that NBA basketball star Shaquille O’Neil is both tall and rich. But how much money do you have to have to be rich? Exactly what height is tall? Trying to define the meaning of a racial term and then trying to match that with a specific person can be daunting. What is a white person? How black does one have to be to be a black person? Yet you connected a political ideology to one specific type of bias.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:21:43 +0000

Your answer is you connect the two because…you didn’t come up with it? That is just how it “..has always been classified..” I humbly say there isn’t much depth to that post. Perhaps you have a trove of research that you just weren’t up to digging up tonight and you were gratifying me with a little more of an instant feedback response than a long dissertation. Ok, I’ll try to be patient and understanding on this. But my “brainwashed from talk radio” perspective is that right wing has been always linked to racism simply because that is the way their opponents have always “classified” them.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:07:20 +0000

Besides, we even have the report from Fox News (posted above) as well as the DHL report by a Bush appointee which classify people such as white supremacists as being right wing terrorists. Are you going to argue with Fox News and with a report from a Bush appointee

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:52:29 +0000

This is hardly my classification or a connection I came up with. White supremacist groups have always been classified on the far right. While they are far more extreme and violent, racism is strongly associated with the American right (which is not to say that everyone on the right is racist). This includes right wing groups through out history such as the KKK on the extreme end to the southern strategy of the GOP on the less extreme spectrum of the right.

White supremacist groups also tend to have associations with other right wing groups and, beyond their racism, tend to promote the same beliefs as far right wing groups.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:38:51 +0000

The pro life agenda can clearly be labeled as a right-wing conservative issue. Killing Tiller (unless one were to uncover some bizzare twist that some sicko did it just to make the right look bad) if categorized would fit IMO under “right wing terrorist act” . As wicked a crime as it was and as counter-productive to the aims of pro-life as it was, I have to call it, albeit single and rare, a right wing extremist terrorist action. The White Supremacist action I can in no way connect to right wing or conservative agenda, in fact when you look at who wants to keep labeling people by what race they are, like affirmative action, I believe I could argue that the left is more concerned about what race people are than the right. Ron, I’d like you to answer …why…and how…. do you connect White supremacy to right wing, and/or conservatism?