# Race during the colapse



## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

As people of my race seem to have to do every time they begin a discussion of race I will preface this with the disclosure that: I AM NOT A RACIST.

Really, I'm not. I grew up with friends, Cubans and Hatians, who were black as the night and were racists though.... they disliked American black people. These friendships taught me to understand that that the issue for most people today in the US is not race but culture.

In Eastern Europe during the 1930s the word Jew became synonymous with Communist for many people not because all Jews were Communists but because a large minority of communists were Jews, and yet these Jews were only a small minority in the larger Jewish community. This fact set the Jewish community up for failure during the anti-communist scare of the 30s (that lead to Facism), and also ironically during the internecine fighting in Russia during the Leninist and Stalinist purges.

We are in a similar situation today. Not all people with Black skin view the world in terms of race and discrimination, and subscribe to the dependent anti-western culture, but a large portion who do are black. Of course I live in an area where I have the pleasure to see plenty of white people who fit this paradigm, and then there is a slightly different immigrant Hispanic paradigm. In general, generalizations are useful for thinking about the world so long as you are open to the possibility of outliers.

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All that being said I came across this article about the breakdown in a future civil war, which the author notes is based on his study of other civil wars in the past 100 years. The author HOPES that it never comes to a HOT civil war, but suggests that people make considerations EVEN if its just a COLD civil war that we experience. He assumes, as I do also, that the divisions in our society will continue whether it develops into a hot or cold war...

Here is the Article with an excerpt below. Prefacing this conversation with the hope that we can be mature about this conversation I wonder if you all think this is a valid point AND if you have taken racial demographics into consideration in prepping? Of course for those who plan to BO to the country, the demographics tend to corrispond to his analysis. This would be a "safe zone" (if your white). Personally, however, I think most (not all) people that have classically described as "white" (I consider myself a sort of bronze and ethnically diverse "European") are smart enough to see the non-sense of the pseudo-science of race. I'd like to think I judge men by the content of their hearts and the merits of their ideas, and I would like to think that minorities of good moral fiber would be perfectly safe in the country. In contrast, I do think he is right about urban areas; I believe that people who identify themselves as "black" are more likely to engage in racial violence, not because they are black, but because they tend to be more urban, poorer, and more a part of the entitlement culture.

So here is his consideration that might be useful to preppers in thinking about collapse if not outright civil war:


> To begin: you do not want to live as a trapped and cut-off minority in what might become "enemy territory." If you live amidst your civil war enemies, as defined and located within the CW2 Cube, you will be in mortal danger even if your immediate neighbors know, love and respect you. Those persons who have a stake in fanning the flames of CW2 (and their number shall be legion), will intentionally target those remaining "holdouts" who may be respected minority neighbors. (In this essay, minority means "the minority within a given group or area." Blacks are the majority in some areas, and whites are the minorities in others, and so on.)
> 
> Frequently in modern civil wars, roaming armed groups (in or out of uniform) will even force people to kill their own beloved and respected minority neighbors as an ultimate loyalty test. If they refuse, they may themselves be killed as "traitors." Besides pre-conflict racists and radicals, there will be an ever-increasing pool of persons attempting to expel minorities from their homes. Those embittered unfortunates who have already been ethnically cleansed will be seeking new living quarters, and the homes and property of "enemy" minorities still living in majority territory will be the first on the chopping block. (Not the auction block, because payment of any kind is rarely offered.) This process of minority eviction becomes self-perpetuating.


So what are your thoughts?


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

I think race is just the most convenient justification people use to take what they want. Committing a violent act on another human requires some sort of justification. You see it in war when we think of the enemy as less than to help make pulling the trigger easier. If it isnt race it will be the next most convenient justification. Geography, class, etc. This will always exist when people think that they must commit violence on another to take something they didnt or dont want to sweat for. Sad.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> I think race is just the most convenient justification people use to take what they want. Committing a violent act on another human requires some sort of justification. You see it in war when we think of the enemy as less than to help make pulling the trigger easier. If it isnt race it will be the next most convenient justification. Geography, class, etc. This will always exist when people think that they must commit violence on another to take something they didnt or dont want to sweat for. Sad.


I'd agree with that statement, but that being said, the fact that it is a convenient excuse and not a real difference (we are all humans and skin color really doesn't set us apart) however doesn't mean that its not a real issue in terms of security for your family and prepping.

The authors point isn't that its really us vs. them, but that as many perceive it this way in the history of modern civil wars the people that end up dead often are the people who like pretending that they and their neighbors are too civilize to engage in or worse to be caught up in, scapegoating violence.

It seems like a useful, if simplistic, way to evaluate your safety if the country fell into civil war or if the SHTF...

In my case, for instance, I am in a town where blacks and whites are probably at parity. Racial tensions at the moment are pretty low, and I am known and respected in the black community and their are many black folk who I know and respect and who are respected by the white community. There is however, a lower class black segment of our town, and an analogous white segment, as well as political animosities that divide alone several lines. Now my plan, notwithstanding these division, is to bug out. As I have said before this is because of the population density and the proximity to several atomic reactors, BUT even if this wasn't the case, is the author correct that the divisions in my community along racial, economic, and political lines reason enough to leave town. I'd like to say no, because I really do like my neighbors, but he got me thinking.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Padre said:


> In general, generalizations are useful for thinking about the world so long as you are open to the possibility of outliers.


Very insightful. As is usually the case, leftists have corrupted the body of knowledge surrounding stereotyping because they saw the negative effects associated with stereotyping and wanted to mitigate those effects. The problem was that they didn't care much about whether stereotypes were used responsibly nor whether they were mostly accurate, they just focused on the effects. Well, it turns out that a lot of research is now validating the fact that a.) stereotypes are based on observable data, b.) stereotypes persist because they're useful (a false stereotype when used as the basis for a decision will yield wrong answers and lead to worse outcomes) and improve the decision making of the person using the stereotype, and c.) researchers are having a very, very difficult time actually finding people who believe that stereotypes ALWAYS apply, rather they find that when people develop information on the particular (person, thing, action) that contradicts the stereotype that they abandon relying on the stereotype.

So, in a sense what you're actually saying is what people actually do but which the conventional wisdom says people never do, in that the conventional wisdom that we've all been taught is that stereotyping is bad, stereotyping is inaccurate and stereotypes are false.



> He assumes, as I do also, that the divisions in our society will continue whether it develops into a hot or cold war...


I think that this is a wise way to look at issues that are unfolding and at the fundamental elements of society, our people.



> I wonder if you all think this is a valid point AND if you have taken racial demographics into consideration in prepping?


I believe that you'd have to be a Pollyanna to be willfully blind to racial demographics in a survival situation.



> Personally, however, I think most (not all) people that have classically described as "white" (I consider myself a sort of bronze and ethnically diverse "European") are smart enough to see the non-sense of* the pseudo-science of race.*


This is a load of codswallop. This is an ideological position which trumps scientific data. A computer program, think about this, a set of coded instructions, can analyze people's DNA, look at various "sign posts" or "markers" in the DNA and sort people in continental races using a broad filter and then down into sub-continental races using finer filters, all the while taking into account admixture between two or more racial groups and come out with a 1 in a 1,000 error rate based on people's self-reported racial classification.

Data is now pretty solid that every person who is of non-African descent carries within them about 5% of the DNA of Neanderthal. Those people who derive from African ancestral stock do not carry this admixture. People in the region of Papua New Guinea, in addition to carrying Neanderthal admixture also carry in their DNA the genetic heritage of another archaic human population, the Denisovans.

That is the genetics of race. There is no pseudoscience here. If you are European, Asian, Native American then you carry in your DNA the genetic inheritance of the long dead Neanderthal line and black people DO NOT.

The genetics of race impacts in all sorts of ways in the workings of society but this is ignored because people have been brainwashed into believing a creationist viewpoint, be it religious creationism or a liberal creationism, that all of humanity is equal in birth and that any differences which result are the product of environmental influence.

One last point, as with the ideological scholarship on stereotyping, here too ideology corrupted our very understanding of race. Ideologues set up a strawman version of race which to knock down. The strawman consists of "pure" racial groups. If you belong to race A, THEN YOU MUST POSSESS the following characteristics, B, C, D, so to draw an inflammatory example, if you are a black man, then YOU MUST be a criminal. If you see a black man, wearing a doctor's jacket and carrying a stethoscope, then he must be a criminal who stole the doctor's paraphernalia. That is a bogus view of race, but just like with stereotypes, it's very, very hard to find people who hold this view of race, that if A, then B MUST follow.



> I'd like to think I judge men by the content of their hearts and the merits of their ideas, and I would like to think that minorities of good moral fiber would be perfectly safe in the country.


This follows because the Civil Rights laws could not have come into being if the population was unwilling to abide by them. Laws cannot stand if everyone, or even a sizable minority, reject them as unjust. The laws didn't force people to modify behavior and belief, the people were willing to, or already had, modified behavior and belief and hence they supported laws which aligned with those beliefs. If you doubt this try to imagine a law passing which forced people to marry their siblings. Would people comply just because a law told them to do so?

So to your point, people would be, I think, not prone to racial attack if there was no danger sensed, and with view to stereotypes, if people were put in positions of gathering particular information, the more information that they had about a particular person who was a minority, the safer would be the minority member IF HE HAD NO BAD INTENT.

Secondly, a single person will be treated differently than a group of people and gender here will play a role too. If a single black man or black woman straggles into town, they'd likely be viewed as a non-threat upon sighting. However, if a group of 20 black men are seen approaching a small town, that would be seen as a cause for concern, a concern that would be more real than a similar situation of a group of 20 white men approaching the same time, because while individuals vary, the larger the groups we examine the more sure we can be that, at the group level, behavior will tend towards stereotype. Ask a cop who has to deal with teen drinking. Come across one teenager who is drunk an you could have a peaceful cooperative drunk or a sexually promiscuous drunk or a violent drunk, etc and you can't really tell beforehand what you're going to encounter. However, get 100 drunk teenagers together and at the group level you can pretty much bank on destruction and fighting arising from within that group even though some individual members are sitting peacefully in their drunken haze and trying to avoid all of the mayhem.



> In contrast, I do think he is right about urban areas; I believe that people who identify themselves as "black" are more likely to engage in racial violence, not because they are black, but because they tend to be more urban, poorer, and more a part of the entitlement culture.


I disagree. Your reasoning falls back on a creationist basis of one sort of the other. The behavior we witness is a result of being black. Of course not every black person acts in that way, but most do. The environmental behavior modifiers don't really work all that well at explaining differing social outcomes. In another thread there was mention of Prince Georges County being the wealthiest black county in the entire US and how damed screwed up things are there.

We see that poverty doesn't explain black social and academic dysfunction by looking at how race and poverty affect SAT scores. White children born to the poorest parents outscore black children born to the parents of lawyers, doctors, scientists and other high income earning blacks in the highest income categories. If poverty had such a disastrous effect on academic performance and intelligence, then we should expect that the poor white children would have lower SAT scores than the privileged black children of wealthy parents.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Padre said:


> I'd agree with that statement, but that being said, the fact that it is a convenient excuse and not a real difference (we are all humans and skin color really doesn't set us apart) however doesn't mean that its not a real issue in terms of security for your family and prepping.


On the contrary, the differences are real, skin color (as a proxy for a wide variety of other traits which tend to cluster together) is a meaningful signal marker, and while we're all human, we're not all built of the same genetic stock.



> . . is the author correct that the divisions in my community along racial, economic, and political lines reason enough to leave town. I'd like to say no, because I really do like my neighbors, but he got me thinking.


The author is correct. At no time in history at no place around the globe has a multicultural society been a better performing society with less social strife than that seen in monocultural societies. It should not be a surprise that the Nordic social welfare models of society which are characterized by a high degree of community sharing and a high degree of citizen support were established in societies which were very tightly bound in terms of race, ethnicity, religion etc.

Our multiculturalism is the lit fuse which is leading us to dissolve as a society - too many viewpoints, fewer and fewer common bridges binding us all together and most incendiary of all, the forced redistribution of wealth along racial and ethnic lines. When social disparity aligns alongside visible racial signs, then all sorts of grief results which is held in check when the very same social disparity happens within a single racial group. When society begins to dissolve, one will be looking for a safe haven, a place to rebuild, and one is unlikely to want to invite in the very dynamic which will lead to social strife within the new society which is emerging.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

While not particularly relevant in the US except in New Mexico and Arizona (Hopi/Zuni/Navaho areas), tribalism is rampant in Africa and a basis for genocide and repression.
What you will likely see in another CW in the US is a rural vs urban divide since food is produced in rural areas. Most rural folks make a point of knowing their neighbors so any 'outsiders' will be viewed with suspicion.
In the cities, there will also likely be a divide upon racial and economic lines since too many urbanites don't even know their neighbors. I also foresee a divide along gang lines in urban areas.
I figure most suburbanites will attempt to flee into rural areas where most will be viewed as outsiders.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

So, are you a Blood or a Crip ?


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## rhrobert (Apr 27, 2009)

While it would be better if it was "us" against "them" (patriots vs corrupt government) it ain't gonna happen that way. Too many groups want it all for themselves. Even the fence sitters are going to have to pick a side, or their own will turn on them. 

IF there is anther uncivil war, it will be hell for everyone, not a cakewalk to be looked forward to. It will start in the cities, and spread from there, the only question is when will it all break down....IF it does, can it be contained?


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## Jimthewagontraveler (Feb 8, 2012)

Ok I'm one of those people who live way out.
And I will be the first to admit proudly I'm a racist!
If I see anything bigger than my hand and it has 6 or more
legs or eyestalks or green glowing slimy skin that's it.
Bring on the rain!
BUT then comes the really tough part how in the he¿¿
do you cook something like that???
I mean do you remove the eyestalks or is that a delicacy?


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

BillM said:


> So, are you a Blood or a Crip ?


I'm an OG Blood (*******.)


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Padre said:


> I'd agree with that statement, but that being said, the fact that it is a convenient excuse and not a real difference (we are all humans and skin color really doesn't set us apart) however doesn't mean that its not a real issue in terms of security for your family and prepping.
> 
> The authors point isn't that its really us vs. them, but that as many perceive it this way in the history of modern civil wars the people that end up dead often are the people who like pretending that they and their neighbors are too civilize to engage in or worse to be caught up in, scapegoating violence.
> 
> ...


I can certainly see racial strife being a proponent of post shtf violence. Those that havent prepared and also would be likely to form gangs of looters will most likely gather with those that are similar for strength and safety at first. After a while it will just be the strong and the weak or hunter/prey if you prefer.


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## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

My first reaction would be to say that a SHTF scenario would bring out the worst in people, so yes, a racially/ethnically divided area (city) would end up being a powderkeg. People always tend to identify themselves with like groups, whether thats race/class/physical proximity/whatever. They will band together along those lines. Those with less will try to take from those with more. We see it every day. Think of what that will mean in a bad situation?

I will stand behind that 100% with the one caveat basically being my signature. (Its from Gustav Le Bons 'The Crowd') A person is smart, people are dumb panicky animals (from MIB). Totally true. People are easily manipulated, and prone to follow the crowd, especially when they are desperate and scared and hungry. There would be no sense of community in Boston when the flag goes up. While race is essentially irrelevant but since thats how society segregates itself for whatever reason (the why is irrelevant) then it will be a 'natural' division. Easier to pick out the 'enemy' that way, even if your best buddy is not one of your racial group. In essence, the reason this is a caveat is because its not really race thats the issue, its 'us vs them' whoever 'us' and 'them' are.
While 'you' may be part of 'our' group, any perceived difference (and certainly race is an obvious one) will be held against you, especially when the SHTF.
The fact that our prez is black notwithstanding, I think there is a lot of racism in the US by all groups, but it has been pushed out of peoples general conscience for a lot of reasons (the most obvious being that it makes no logical sense) but when society breaks down, I think it would come back with a vengeance.
But Im a pessimist. Maybe one day we will all get over it.
When the majority of humanity is some conglomeration of all the races.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Immolatus said:


> My first reaction would be to say that a SHTF scenario would bring out the worst in people, so yes, a racially/ethnically divided area (city) would end up being a powderkeg.


I agree.



> People are easily manipulated, and prone to follow the crowd, especially when they are desperate and scared and hungry.


I don't think you have to even go that far, simply make things convenient for them. Let media and opinion "originators" do the original thinking and then have the sheeple adopt what is the "approved line of thinking" for their group. Applies to liberals, conservatives, religious, areligious, and especially to people who fashion themselves as "free thinkers" (best example is rebellious teenagers who conform to nonconformist fashions), etc.

Make it simple for them and they'll follow. No need for people being scared or hungry.



> While race is essentially irrelevant but since thats how society segregates itself for whatever reason (the why is irrelevant) then it will be a 'natural' division.


I don't know in what society you live but race is hugely relevant in the West. Look at how parents mortgage their souls to buy houses in better school districts when the same size of house can be purchased in another section of town where there just happen to be a higher proportion of minorities living, hence worse schools. Challenge parents on this and they never point to race and always point to the quality of schools and they leave unmentioned the fact that better schools correlate very strongly with lower minority presence.

You seem to be declaring race as irrelevant because of people's outward declarations that it is irrelevant, that is their expressed preference, while ignoring their revealed preferences, or to put it another way, you're listening to what they say and not observing what they do. The schools and quality of education is simply one metric of many that I could point to where revealed preferences on race are hugely important, in fact, I'd be comfortable staking out the following position - race issues are probably at the heart of most decisions in life - schooling, neighborhood, marital relationships, sexual relationships, friends of children, friends of adults, cultural values, companies to work for, neighborhoods to walk through, or not, at night, quality of government, quality of policing, and so on. Liberals flock to Portland because of it's "progressive politics" and it's no mystery that this extreme progressivity can only flourish in a basically all-white city. These liberals are not flocking to Detroit in order to create their grand experiment in progressive living. If race was irrelevant then we wouldn't be seeing self-segregation in housing markets, we'd be seeing the quality of government being equal all across the land, etc.



> While 'you' may be part of 'our' group, any perceived difference (and certainly race is an obvious one) will be held against you, especially when the SHTF.


You're making racial differences out to be imaginary and of no consequence. The evidence on the ground clearly shows that the differences are real and consequential. You having a friend who is black and of the same social and educational class as you doesn't mean that differences don't play out on a larger canvas. If your friend lives in the same neighborhood as you, you might think that great because, after all, you're both pretty simpatico with each other, you guys click on many levels, you have a great friendship based on many points of similarity, and yet if his presence leads to other blacks of the same cloth in terms of demeanor, education, income etc moving into the neighborhood to the extent that the neighborhood becomes 50% black, then the environment of that neighborhood will change. There are statistics galore on this phenomenon of equally mixed neighborhoods which experience a deleterious slide in quality of life compared to the predominantly white control group neighborhoods. I could go into the reasons behind this phenomenon but they're beside the point here - suffice it to say that evidence shows that the social consequences of race have very real impact on how we all interact with the world.



> The fact that our prez is black notwithstanding, I think there is a lot of *racism* in the US by all groups, but it has been pushed out of peoples general conscience for a lot of reasons (*the most obvious being that it makes no logical sense*) but when society breaks down, I think it would come back with a vengeance.


You're saying that "racism" makes no sense. For this statement to convey meaning you have to actually define what you mean by racism. Do you mean cross burning type of racism? Yeah, it's hard to make sense of that. Do you mean a white family not wanting to enroll their children in a school with 90% black enrollment? If that's defined as racism, then that certainly is a very defensible and very logical position.



> When the majority of humanity is some conglomeration of all the races.


Huh? You hate diversity so much that you want to eradicate it from the face of the Earth?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Immolatus said:


> When the majority of humanity is some conglomeration of all the races.


Just as a side point of interest. This will never happen. Twins show the way.

Exhibit #1:










Exhibit #2:


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## kejmack (May 17, 2011)

I believe we have more in common with each other than don't.

I believe that the powers that be will use race when necessary to divide us and pit us against each other. If we are busy opposing each other, they are free to do their will. Race is a "distraction".


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

As a human race we are only 1-2 dna percentage points away from chimpanzees. Our differences are so miniscule its laughable that people still try and differentiate "races" with science in my opinion. The gov will use anything they can to distract us from whats going on. Sad that it will probably work.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

I would think that post-collapse everyone would spend so much of their time just trying to stay alive that they would not have time to worry about what color the next guy is. I freely admit I could be wrong but that is my belief.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

kejmack said:


> I believe that the powers that be will use race when necessary to divide us and pit us against each other.


...and the whole time vehemently denying they are doing it!!


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

hiwall said:


> I would think that post-collapse everyone would spend so much of their time just trying to stay alive that they would not have time to worry about what color the next guy is.


The city in Texas near where I live is about 50% White, 35% Hispanic and 15% Black. They tend to live in the same areas, and there are regular clashes between groups.

If grocery stores emptied and fast food joints closed, the next 30 days would be hell, and race would play a part as groups form up. You would not see this so much in rural areas, as you would in the cities.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Race does matter. Each culture has it's own set of values, morals, beliefs, & norms; all of which matter greatly & effect everything we do or don't do. It would make sense that people would likely stay with their own race in a SHTF senerio, simply because it's normal & comfortable to them. I highly doubt if a SHTF situation would bring about racial harmony, it may very well bring the opposite.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

hiwall said:


> I would think that post-collapse everyone would spend so much of their time just trying to stay alive that they would not have time to worry about what color the next guy is. I freely admit I could be wrong but that is my belief.


I'd like to believe that, but I doubt it. I think, with society stressed out and living on the edge, people will be even more afraid of anything 'different' from them. Look at how much people all have in common, and yet even in 'good times' there is racism. I think the psychological stress of s SHTF world will make people more suspicious of each other, and race is a visually identifiable mark of 'other.'

I wish that weren't the case. Lord knows we will ALL need each other. But then, I don't like that there's racism now, either.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

This American experiment did'nt work long,did it?Seems we started off wrong.How can you have a nation protecting individual rights and freedoms while enslaving others at the same time? After you get your freedom,then using it to destroy your nation?Both are insane,imo.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Meerkat said:


> This American experiment did'nt work long,did it?Seems we started off wrong.How can you have a nation protecting individual rights and freedoms while enslaving others at the same time? After you get your freedom,then using it to destroy your nation?Both are insane,imo.


The founders had no choice but to legalize slavery. There wouldnt have been a nation without it because all the states where slaves were property and directly supported the agrarian economy would not have chosen to be a part. They did however lay the fabulous ground work that allowed our society to make huge strides in this area in less than 350 years. Seems like a long time but social change doesnt happen overnight. Especially when dealing with issues that have plagued all societies (slavery, racism, exploitation, sexism) since the beginning. Im proud of how far our nation and society has come on these isuues even if it still isnt perfect. Maybe instead of pointing out flaws we could point out the positives, be proud of them, and work to make them better. I get tired of hearing about all the mistakes we've made instead of the huge leaps and bounds we've made in the right direction.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> As a human race we are only 1-2 dna percentage points away from chimpanzees.


There is a 96% DNA similarity. This is at the coarse level, the building block level. When the "building blocks" are assembled so that they can perform functions in the body, we see that there is only 29% of genes code for amino sequences in both humans and chimps.

Think of it this way - the alphabet that the human and chimp genomes use is 96% similar. Here is the Spanish Alphabet:










Notice that it has 29 letters compared to the 26 letters in the English alphabet, or in other words, we share 90% of the same alphabet.

Does it follow then that English and Spanish are virtually identical? No, it doesn't. The letters in the alphabet have to be arranged into words in order to convey information, just like the DNA base pairs have to be arranged into genes and code for proteins.

Now take all of the words that comprise the Spanish language and compare them to all of the words that comprise the English language and pick out the IDENTICAL words. When you find those identical words, then you can make an argument on closeness and similarity.

Next up, scale.

3,000,000,0000 base pairs = 100%
120,000,000 base pairs = 4%

How much influence can ONE mutation have?

Cystic fibrosis = the CFTR gene is 230,000 base pairs and CF develops when 3 nucleotides are deleted. This mutation results in the loss of the amino acid phenylalanine and bingo-presto, the person whose genome is host to this mutation process is now suffering from Cystic Fibrosis.

Let's put that into perspective - 3 base pair deletions from the 120,000,000 which distinguish us from chimps and look at how severe the outcome from simply removing 3 base pairs.

So, the point here is that even with the 4% base pair variance between Chimps and Humans the range of effect is VAST.



> Our differences are so miniscule its laughable that people still try and differentiate "races" with science in my opinion.


Heart medication which works spectacularly well for black people and doesn't do much at all for non-black people. Black women are at an extremely high risk for developing a particular type of breast cancer which is very difficult to treat compared to the type of breast cancer most commonly found in women of other races, a form of cancer which is easier to treat. I could spend all day here listing the hugely significant differences which arise due to genetics.

As I noted, the liberals have been pretty damn successful in pushing their propaganda of creationism and a lot of people have accepted the propaganda that genes don't matter to health and to behavior. You appear to be one of those people.


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## Dawgbone (Sep 18, 2012)

I'm from TX and could care less about race...

rather honesty, ethics, hard work and not being a cupcake takes one far in my book


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> There is a 96% DNA similarity. This is at the coarse level, the building block level. When the "building blocks" are assembled so that they can perform functions in the body, we see that there is only 29% of genes code for amino sequences in both humans and chimps.
> 
> Think of it this way - the alphabet that the human and chimp genomes use is 96% similar. Here is the Spanish Alphabet:
> 
> ...


If you are trying to convince me science backs up different races we will have to agree to disagree. There are minor differences between all humans. Some meds work better for some than others. That is true even among people with the same background. How you came to the conclusion that I am a liberal creationist from my post baffles me. Thats okay though. No skin off my back.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> How you came to the conclusion that I am a liberal creationist from my post baffles me.


Why are you baffled? Your own writing labels you a liberal creationist. Even in this very comment, see below:



> If you are trying to convince me science backs up different races we will have to agree to disagree.


You reject science and you cling to faith, be it a liberal-inspired faith. That my friend is you clinging to a liberal creationist viewpoint - all of humanity is virtually identical and genetics can have NO effect at the population level.

Here is science:

The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent. . . .

For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location.

*Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves*, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. *This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group*.​


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## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

Bob- My point was that in a communal sense, as in your community or sphere of friends/associates, or more to the point of the OP, your prepper group, the fact that there are a few people of a different color is irrelevant. That doesnt mean that people wont still fall back on the fact that 'they are different than me', but I was trying to frame it in the above communal sense. In a large group of disassociated peoples with no sense of 'community', as in residents of a large city, obviously race is a huge factor. But if you boil it down to your small group of like minded people, race becomes irrelevant.
This forum is a perfect example. In the strictest sense, the fact that someone is of a different color makes no difference.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> Why are you baffled? Your own writing labels you a liberal creationist. Even in this very comment, see below:
> 
> You reject science and you cling to faith, be it a liberal-inspired faith. That my friend is you clinging to a liberal creationist viewpoint - all of humanity is virtually identical and genetics can have NO effect at the population level.
> 
> ...


I never said there was no difference in people. I said the differences were so miniscule as to be laughable. Certainly not enough to seperate out races within humanity. If your opinion differs thats fine. I dont agree. I also do not think science backs up your point. All your quotes just showed very miniscule variations within humanity. This really isnt important. I can tell you will not be moved and I know you are incorrect in assuming humans are different races due to minor variations. Therefore, lets agree to disagree, have a scotch and enjoy the evening.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Immolatus said:


> Bob- My point was that in a communal sense, as in your community or sphere of friends/associates, or more to the point of the OP, your prepper group, the fact that there are a few people of a different color is irrelevant.


It could be irrelevant, it could be mostly irrelevant, it could be slightly irrelevant and it could be totally relevant. This situation is highly context dependent.

Me and my black friend, holed up in my BOL, makes race totally irrelevant.

In a small community, say like a small liberal arts college campus, it could become totally relevant. The self-segregation according to race is well known on these self-isolated liberal communities. There is a black-only section in the dining hall, not by official decree but by self-selection.

If a small survivor community forms in the aftermath of a SHTF event and there are sufficient numbers of people who come from different racial groups, then I would expect traditional behavior patterns from present society to transfer into this future society and one of the things I'd expect to see would be voluntary self-segregation. To me that is poison being injected into a fresh start.

So, I've sketched out two extreme positions, and from my point of view the racial issue really is context dependent. On a one-to-one situation, I'm dealing with an individual, so I either get along with him or not and neither his race nor mine brings much into the relationship. One a group level, race will be a factor that will work to divide us. Now, please don't go all leftist on me and argue that events in the future will change human behavior patterns and people will simply ignore race and we'll all band together into one community for this type of wishful thinking can't be taken seriously unless it is backed by evidence and all the evidence I see points to voluntary self-segregation because that is what makes people happier.



> But if you boil it down to your small group of like minded people, race becomes irrelevant.


I agree that in a city of strangers, racial groupings can serve as a first-cut method by which to sort people.

However, even in smaller groups, race is still relevant. See the example above - small liberal arts colleges where the students intermingle all day long, all night long, with no outside attractions, no students living off campus, living in the same dorms, going to the same classes, going to the same gym and library, and yet that cafeteria phenomenon is very wide spread and very well known.



> This forum is a perfect example. In the strictest sense, the fact that someone is of a different color makes no difference.


Absolutely agree. We're here dealing with each other on a one-to-one basis and race is irrelevant to our discussions with each other. However, we're not in dire circumstances, we're not mutually dependent on each other, we're not forming a community in the sense of our well-being resting on how well the community functions. We're basically pen-pals, a low investment, a low involvement type of friendship.


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## Startingout-Blair (Aug 28, 2012)

One of my best and most trusted friends is of Indian (India) descent. I trust him as family. He is strong, intelligent, and capable of being a great addition to my community when SHTF. If forced to make a decision, I would rather go down with a hot barreled rifle in my hands than give him up to save myself. I don't care that he is racially different or that he even has a different religious belief. When I accept someone as family, they are just that. Nothing changes that.


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## pandamonium (Feb 6, 2011)

I personally don't give a hoot what color a persons skin is. If you're an A-hole you're an A-hole, and I could give a shit about you're well being. That said, post SHTF, I will accept anyone who would be a benefit, and not a drain, to the group, regardless of skin color. 

I would also avoid areas like the "projects", not because they are largely minority, but because I know these areas to contain many who do not abide by the laws now, let alone AFTER, when there is no law enforcement. 

First impressions mean a lot, if I, or anyone in my group got bad vibes about someone or a group of someones, then I doubt I/we could let him/them join, whatever the reason for those bad vibes.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> I never said there was no difference in people. I said the differences were so miniscule as to be laughable.


1.) Minuscule compared to what standard? 
2.) If you're implying that the differences are minuscule in terms of effect, um, prove it. Evidence of effect is clearly against you, so now your argument rests on the size of the effect.



> Certainly not enough to seperate out races within humanity.


You can keeping spouting faith, like those people who claim that the Earth is flat even when they are shown pictures of Earth from orbit which clearly shows that the Earth is a sphere, but your faith-based position is not defensible. I just linked to a study which showed you that a computer program can sort through DNA samples and categorize people into racial groupings which identify with their own self-described racial group. This means that there is a mighty powerful overlap between the genetic reality and distinctiveness of race and the social understanding that we assign to race. Directly to your point, you're wrong that we can't separate out racial groups within humanity, we can, I showed you evidence that we can, and yet you still come forth with a Flat-Earth type of mantra in the face of evidence.



> If your opinion differs thats fine. I dont agree.


This isn't a topic like "which tastes better, chocolate or vanilla" in which differing opinions are based on subjective standards and to which there can exist no correct answer. You can't make up your own facts and you can't ignore facts that you don't like and then hide behind the claim that you have a different opinion. This is a topic where you are either right or wrong. Is the Earth flat or is it a sphere. There is no opinion on this, the Earth is either flat or a sphere. One can argue that the Earth is flat and that this is one's opinion but when one does so, then one is completely wrong and therefore their opinion is valueless because it ignores inconvenient evidence.



> I also do not think science backs up your point.


The science backs up my point completely and it backs it up so much that academic associations are deciding to actually abandon science as part of their mission statements so that they don't have to address the uncomfortable implications of science, to wit, the American Association of Anthropology has decided to remove science from their mission:

Anthropologists have been thrown into turmoil about the nature and future of their profession after a decision by the American Anthropological Association at its recent annual meeting *to strip the word "science" from a statement of its long-range plan.*

The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines - including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists - and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and *see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights. *​


> All your quotes just showed very miniscule variations within humanity.


Again, minuscule by what standard? If I inject you with a minuscule amount of Ebola or HIV infected blood, the minuscule amount of infected matter that is now coursing through your bloodstream can have large effect. Will you take comfort from the fact that I tell you "Don't worry about that Ebola I injected you with, I only injected you with a minuscule amount compared to your body mass!



> This really isnt important.


This topic is hugely important because we deal with the consequences of racial variation intersecting our social world in all aspects of life. The consequences influence taxes, public safety, sense of community, education curricula, education mission statements, justice, family formation, you name it, race is highly likely to play some part in the topic.



> I can tell you will not be moved and I know you are incorrect in assuming humans are different races due to minor variations.


You know based on faith, not on evidence. Secondly, if there are no differences then there can exist no "diversity" for diversity is defined by differences.



> Therefore, lets agree to disagree, have a scotch and enjoy the evening.


I'm fine with that. You can claim against all evidence that the world is flat, I will claim that all evidence indicates that the world is a sphere, I'll be right, you'll be wrong, and we can leave it at that. If you want to actually claim that your faith based position is correct, then no, I can't allow you to claim fiction as reality without challenging you and showing you that you are wrong to accept fiction as fact.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

pandamonium said:


> I would also avoid areas like the "projects", not because they are largely minority, but because I know these areas to contain many who do not abide by the laws now, let alone AFTER, when there is no law enforcement.


What's the difference in your mind? You're still judging ALL individuals within the group by the standard you apply to the group. Why is it wrong in your mind to judge all people of one race by the knowledge one has of the behavior that strongly characterizes their group but it's completely all right to judge all those who live within an area by the knowledge of the behavior that characterizes that section of the city? If it's unfair to judge a person by their race, then shouldn't it also be wrong to judge a person by the reputation of their neighborhood?


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## pandamonium (Feb 6, 2011)

Bobbb said:


> What's the difference in your mind? You're still judging ALL individuals within the group by the standard you apply to the group. Why is it wrong in your mind to judge all people of one race by the knowledge one has of the behavior that strongly characterizes their group but it's completely all right to judge all those who live within an area by the knowledge of the behavior that characterizes that section of the city? If it's unfair to judge a person by their race, then shouldn't it also be wrong to judge a person by the reputation of their neighborhood?


Not judging the "person by the reputation of their neighborhood", I am judging the odds of my survival. In a SHTF time, my goal will be to stay alive. Going to places that I know are not safe is not conducive to that end.

I don't judge people, or try not to anyway, I try to let their actions define them. This may sound contradictory to what I said in my previous sentence, but I have learned to trust my gut, bad vibes from a first impression can put me on alert until a persons actions prove them A-hole or non-A-hole. Hell, I actually have a problem with giving people the benefit of the doubt even after they have proved themselves to be A-holes!! That is something I have to work on.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

Can't we all just get along ?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

pandamonium said:


> Not judging the "person by the reputation of their neighborhood", I am judging the odds of my survival. In a SHTF time, my goal will be to stay alive. Going to places that I know are not safe is not conducive to that end.


Check. I understand you now. My goal is to stay alive too and that's why stereotypes are useful and they're useful today just as they will be tomorrow. Here's what I infer from your statement - in the absence of specific information about a person, a place or an event you're going to run with the best information that is available to you and if that information is concerning the reputation of a neighborhood, then acting on that information, even if it unfairly characterizes some good individuals within that community, is going to make your life better and safer than the alternative of ignoring that information. Is that a fair assessment?


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## pandamonium (Feb 6, 2011)

Bobbb said:


> Check. I understand you now. My goal is to stay alive too and that's why stereotypes are useful and they're useful today just as they will be tomorrow. Here's what I infer from your statement - in the absence of specific information about a person, a place or an event you're going to run with the best information that is available to you and if that information is concerning the reputation of a neighborhood, then acting on that information, even if it unfairly characterizes some good individuals within that community, is going to make your life better and safer than the alternative of ignoring that information. Is that a fair assessment?


Exactly. Like the Bee Gees sang... Stayin Alive Stayin Alive oooh oooh oooh oooh Stayin Aliiiiive!! 

I know damned well that there are very GOOD people who live in that area. I may not know them personally, but I know that just because you live in a place where some BAD people live, doesn't make YOU a bad person.

There always has been and always will be "racism". I think it is human nature to be dis-trustful of "different". Call it a survival mechanism if you like. People just don't like what they don't know, or if it is different from what the feel safe with. Folks just plain LIKE to feel safe. Animals do the same thing, if something different comes along, they react, people do too.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Yes, I believe culture is more important than race. I don't hate anybody but I'm aware that others can hate me based on my race. There aren't a lot of low-income black people where I live but there is a low-income housing area across from where we used to live. There's a mentality there that transcends race. My stepson had a white friend whose mother had 3 kids by 3 different men. They used to knock out one of the street lights so after our car stereo was stolen we always left our outside light on.

I don't see America ever having a race war. Yugoslavia was a country made up of separate nations with separate languages and cultures that was forced together. Not only that, but black gangs fight among themselves. I don't see them uniting after the collapse.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Startingout-Blair said:


> One of my best and most trusted friends is of Indian (India) descent. I trust him as family. I don't care that he is racially different or that he even has a different religious belief.


I don't think you read this thread through very thoroughly... It is pretty well common knowledge that dealing with one person is far easier than dealing with a group.

In Texas, it is a interesting scenario. White people generally regard Hispanics as being hard-working, conservative and possess good family values, and the groups tend to interact healthily between each other. However, I can recall instances where a Hispanic person committed a crime against a white person, and the "blood is thicker than water" concept comes in... meaning even if the parents of the criminal know what he did was wrong, they still protect and stand behind him because he is family. That is an interesting dynamic to be aware of.

Another "interesting dynamic" I have listened to my Hispanic friends discuss is how much they dislike black people. Generally, I think the white population does have a minor amount of unwarranted "guilt" from the slavery portion of American History, and are somewhat tolerant of aspects of black culture that they don't relate to.

Even if that "guilt" concept doesn't apply, whites tend to overlook and "not make a big deal of" various offenses (loud music, improper dress, rudeness, angry public outbursts) that a lot of black people get stereotyped with.

It is different with the Hispanics in this area; they never owned slaves (well, neither did my ancestors who immigrated in the very late 1800's) and they don't have ANY GUILT at all... and black culture does NOT in any way overlap with Hispanic culture (whereas white culture will overlap a little bit with either of these).

In Texas, at least, I foresee a greater amount of friction between these two groups. The black people in this part of Texas tend to be very un-trusting of white people, due to stigma handed down through the generations - and they tend to self-segregate away from whites due to this. I predict fewer alliances between black people and other races occurring in a wide scale emergency event. I do not foresee near as many problems between whites and Hispanics occurring.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Meerkat said:


> This American experiment did'nt work long,did it?Seems we started off wrong.How can you have a nation protecting individual rights and freedoms while enslaving others at the same time? After you get your freedom,then using it to destroy your nation?Both are insane,imo.


The American experiment worked very well for the first 175 years of its existence. Yes, America had slavery. So did the whole western world in 1792. For at least 75 years America was the richest, most powerful, and freest country in the world. America was a light to the world. A role model for other countries to follow. That's what makes America's decline and coming destruction so tragic. Not only is our economy collapsing but we're going to be living in a police state after the collapse.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

Race will only be an issue to small minded people who can not think for themselves.

I believe the inablity they have to change and think for themselves will lead to their own demise in a new world.

God made us all and my Bible tells me he looks on the heart not the skin.

When I was born again, I was given the ability to rise above my own nature and to become as God.

This requires me to look on my fellow man as Gods creation and to look into his heart.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

BillS said:


> The American experiment worked very well for the first 175 years of its existence. Yes, America had slavery. So did the whole western world in 1792. For at least 75 years America was the richest, most powerful, and freest country in the world. America was a light to the world. A role model for other countries to follow. That's what makes America's decline and coming destruction so tragic. Not only is our economy collapsing but we're going to be living in a police state after the collapse.


 What I meant was it has been used against us for generations.I still say it was evil but so was the ones who sold them to us.They were black slave masters who are never mentioned.Ironically,owned by the same muslims who enslaved them to begin with,the same ones who they are joining back up with now. 
Why can't people just be truthful about history,then they would'nt be so mad.We did'nt invent slavery but we abolished it.
I won't trust anyone much less a minority with a victimhood complex.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

BillM said:


> Race will only be an issue to small minded people who can not think for themselves.


I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. From where I stand the people who can think for themselves are the ones who are most prepared and willing to think differently from the propaganda views on race that we are all firehosed with. As with most aspects of life, the small minded are the ones who are most willing to go along with the consensus viewpoint because they don't want to invest time and energy in looking and thinking things over and instead take the easier path of going along with the crowd. Race doesn't matter, race is only a social construction, yadda yadda yadda is the road taken by the small minded who simply regurgitate approved viewpoint.



> I believe the inablity they have to change and think for themselves will lead to their own demise in a new world.


I agree. If people can't adapt to new situations then they will pay a price.



> God made us all and my Bible tells me he looks on the heart not the skin.


God loves to play tricks though. He leads you to believe that he created man in his own image and yet he put down on this Earth men and women who are hugely different in regards to abilities and temperaments. What God said to all of his believers and what he actually did are two wholly different matters. Which will you believe, what he told you or what he did?


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> God loves to play tricks though. He leads you to believe that he created man in his own image and yet he put down on this Earth men and women who are hugely different in regards to abilities and temperaments.


God never said he was going to create a bunch of clones of himself on this Earth. Only that man was created in his own image. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/image


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## Resto (Sep 7, 2012)

kejmack said:


> I believe we have more in common with each other than don't.
> 
> I believe that the powers that be will use race when necessary to divide us and pit us against each other. If we are busy opposing each other, they are free to do their will. Race is a "distraction".


I agree just look at the election campains. I would have thought New York of all places during the 911 attacks would have been a powder keg. But it wasnt. 
However in Syria thier Civil War is breaking down to tribal sects as in Lybia.


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## GrinnanBarrett (Aug 31, 2012)

A total collapse of society gives people free reign to let their fear and hate take over. People want someone to blame for their mistakes and wrongs done to them. 

I fear that really hard times will bring about purging of areas along racial, religious or ethnic lines. I have seen it happen before. We have to remember that we can only change ourselves. There are good white people and bad white people. The same applies to blacks, Asians, Baptists, Jews and whatever tag we want to put on people.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

BillM said:


> Race will only be an issue to small minded people who can not think for themselves.


So... for at least 50% of Americans you think??


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## cengasser (Mar 12, 2012)

Padre said:


> So... for at least 50% of Americans you think??


You're being a bit generous, no?


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

Bobbb said:


> God loves to play tricks though...


As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: 


> "What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true."​


If God is not truthful, then Kant and Hagel were right about our ability to know reality and all science is a fraud....

Words symbolize meanings, which change based on context and usage, and so you can't make an assumption that you understand a word, that you find problematic, correctly!

Image means pattern. In God there are no accidental characteristics, all of his characteristic coincide with what He is, His Essence, in philosophic language, which is perfection. As St. Augustine explains that we are in the image of God that we are FREE to be TRUE, GOOD, BEAUTIFUL (spiritually), etc., we are in His LIKENESS insofar as we actualize this potential. As God is not material, His likeness can not involve physical realities, which are transitory, entropic, and thus by definition imperfect. So while we may have physical, emotional, or mental limitations on our animal nature, our spiritual nature, is absolutely free to seek perfection, which can not be wholly limited by the physical.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

cengasser said:


> You're being a bit generous, no?


Yes, I am, I was making reference to Romney's 47%, however I would dare say that its probably closer to Obama's 99%


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

Padre said:


> As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:
> 
> If God is not truthful, then Kant and Hagel were right about our ability to know reality and all science is a fraud....
> 
> ...


 Angels have a pysical body,they wrestle with man ,lucifer was a beautiful,talented angel and perfect until uniquity was found in him.
It was the angels in whoms image we were made in,the little gods,not the all powerful one.
Gen.1;26 Let'us'make man in'our'image'after 'our' likeness.Its written in hebrew,so its hard to understand.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

*I think*



Padre said:


> So... for at least 50% of Americans you think??


I think if TSHTF like I think it will, people who prioritize race as a divideing line between them selves aqnd other people will quickly place them selves in the 90% that won't make it through the first year.

There will be enough triggers for violence and fear without injecting skin color into the mix.

Right now there are probably 50 % who think race , religion or creed is very important but when you need the services or charity of other human beings , it will pale in importance.

As for myself, you can drink from my cup or marry my daughter. I don't care what your race is as long as you don't break my cup or beat my daughter.

:kiss:


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

BillM said:


> I think if TSHTF like I think it will, people who prioritize race as a divideing line between them selves aqnd other people will quickly place them selves in the 90% that won't make it through the first year.
> 
> There will be enough triggers for violence and fear without injecting skin color into the mix.


I'm guessing that what you wrote makes some semblance of sense to you but, if so, then you must of left out a whole whack of reasoning in support of this position because it comes across as just wishful thinking.

Sorting by race will immensely help in reducing conflict, misunderstanding, aid in putting people on the same page because of the increased points of commonality in terms of culture, perspective, attitudes, politics, religion, family values, and so on. Race intersects with all of the above and creates differences on all of those metrics and on plenty of other unspecified metrics.

In a post-SHTF world, your position is akin to asking the Amish to start taking in Atheists and Pagans and Devil Worshipers just as they would fellow Amish. Why on Earth would they purposely set out to destroy a culture and way of life and shared attitudes which work so well for them?

We already know from the social science data that people tend to go with the flow and they mouth the platitudes about how wonderful diversity and multiculturalism is for society, usually meaning that they like to go to ethnic restaurants once in a while, but when the data looks at where they live, where they send their kids to school, who they are friends with, who they date and marry, well then, suddenly multculturalism isn't so damn grand.

Other social science is reporting that when people are confronted with diversity that they can't escape from they react by cocooning and withdrawing from society. How the hell is that outcome a better one than simply engaging with folks of your own community?

You've probably heard the question of how to define an idiot or a liberal? The answer is to find those people who believe that if they keep doing the same thing over and over and over again that eventually it will work out differently than all other times.

Why on Earth would people in a post-SHTF world purposely set out to infect their new society with the cancer that is destroying this one?

The dynamics of the cancer cannot be circumvented if the reborn society wishes to govern itself as a Republic or Democracy in that, as at present, there will come to exist differences in wealth, education, health, crime, and all other social metrics and those people who end up with the short straw, invariably minorities, are going to use the power of their vote, as they do today, to take from those who are doing better in order to benefit themselves via redistribution.

I can't see blind idealism to a unachievable philosophical point actually trumping common sense and the desire to survive and survive absent one point of never ending low-level conflict.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

*Blind idealism*



Bobbb said:


> I'm guessing that what you wrote makes some semblance of sense to you but, if so, then you must of left out a whole whack of reasoning in support of this position because it comes across as just wishful thinking.
> 
> Sorting by race will immensely help in reducing conflict, misunderstanding, aid in putting people on the same page because of the increased points of commonality in terms of culture, perspective, attitudes, politics, religion, family values, and so on. Race intersects with all of the above and creates differences on all of those metrics and on plenty of other unspecified metrics.
> 
> ...


The statement I made relects what I think will happen if people are cast into a survival situation such as would exist in a post SHTF world.

During the late sixtys in Veit Nam black and white troops were cast together and while they were in combat they didn't shoot each other. Given the level of racial hatred then, one can only assume that it was because they had a common enemy that was trying to kill any American in country regardless of his race.

In a post SHTF world, following the initial meltdown and die off, cooperation will be the only thing that will promise survival.

Philosophy, is a luxuary of the well fed.


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> I'm guessing that what you wrote makes some semblance of sense to you but, if so, then you must of left out a whole whack of reasoning in support of this position because it comes across as just wishful thinking.
> 
> Sorting by race will immensely help in reducing conflict, misunderstanding, aid in putting people on the same page because of the increased points of commonality in terms of culture, perspective, attitudes, politics, religion, family values, and so on. Race intersects with all of the above and creates differences on all of those metrics and on plenty of other unspecified metrics.
> 
> ...


I'll give you this, Bobbb- you are incredibly eloquent at defending (your) racism, although your argument that mixing races post-shtf would be akin to "asking the Amish to start taking in Atheists and Pagans and Devil Worshipers" is a little disingenuous, don't you think? Religion is a choice. Race, not so much.

I harbor no illusions that, as a white man, I wouldn't be safe in South Central during a riot, but I will be proud and honored to have AJ and Woody (two of my black friends, and some of the sweetest guys you'll ever meet) watching my back should things go sideways. But that's just me.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> I'll give you this, Bobbb- you are incredibly eloquent at defending (your) racism, although your argument that mixing races post-shtf would be akin to "asking the Amish to start taking in Atheists and Pagans and Devil Worshipers" is a little disingenuous, don't you think? Religion is a choice. Race, not so much.


My racism? You're pretty quick with that charge. Let's see if you're willing to put your "non-racism" to a test. I don't much care what "You Say" about your "non-racist" beliefs, rather I'm more interested in how "You Live" your "non-racist" beliefs therefore if you'd be willing to play along by giving me your zip code what I'll do is I'll produce a Census derived map and post it here and then we can examine the racial makeup of your near vicinity. If you're not living your beliefs, only spouting empty phrases in order to make yourself feel superior, then you really haven't contributed much to this debate other than showing everyone here that you can strut around like a peacock and make empty proclamations about your enlightened "non-racism" which you buy with absolutely no cost to yourself.


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> My racism? You're pretty quick with that charge. Let's see if you're willing to put your "non-racism" to a test. I don't much care what "You Say" about your "non-racist" beliefs, rather I'm more interested in how "You Live" your "non-racist" beliefs therefore if you'd be willing to play along by giving me your zip code what I'll do is I'll produce a Census derived map and post it here and then we can examine the racial makeup of your near vicinity. If you're not living your beliefs, only spouting empty phrases in order to make yourself feel superior, then you really haven't contributed much to this debate other than showing everyone here that you can strut around like a peacock and make empty proclamations about your enlightened "non-racism" which you buy with absolutely no cost to yourself.


Wow. Struck a nerve, didn't I?

How will my zip code (I'm not too much into OpSec, but c'mon) and racial makeup of my neighborhood be any proof how I live my life?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> Wow. Struck a nerve, didn't I?


Don't flatter yourself. You didn't strike a nerve, you simply pulled out the old leftist trick of calling someone a racist when they are trouncing you in an argument. You didn't refute any argument I advanced, you simply pointed at me and screamed "Witch. Burn the Witch." It's tiring. It's unoriginal. And it doesn't end debates any longer because the term "racist" now means anything and everything.



> How will my zip code (I'm not too much into OpSec, but c'mon) and racial makeup of my neighborhood be any proof how I live my life?


If someone is coming into a public forum and throwing around charges, then we, all those who are following the debate, should take a look at the moral position of the person throwing out the charge. If Saddam is accusing someone of being evil, we might want to take a look at Saddam's behavior with respect to evil acts before we consider his charge against his opponent.

Coming on to a forum and accusing people of racism and then posturing that one has reached a higher plane of existence really serves as a rhetorical masturbation device - you get to feel good about yourself by accusing someone else, you get to show off to everyone how you are a more enlightened person, and you earn these reputation points simply by talking a good game. I want to see if you live by your creed.

I'm curious to see if your neighborhood is fully racially integrated because, you know, a truly enlightened person as you profess to be would actively seek out a neighborhood in which their race was the minority so that they could enjoy the full flavor of diversity that infuses their neighborhood. They'd purposely seek out schools for their kids in which the white student body was a minority so that their kids could also enjoy the enriching experience of being exposed to diverse cultures and so that they could learn from the experiences of children of different races.

On the other hand, as we saw with the Obama election dynamic in 2008, there was a curious phenomenon of the white vote for Obama being higher in states where there was a lower black population as a proportion of the total population.










And I'm guessing that something like this is at work with a lot of people who like to feel morally superior about themselves by charging other people as racist. They talk a good game but they don't live true to what they profess.


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

Okay, dude-

There is just so much crazy here that I don't think I'll be able to get to all of it before I go to sleep. If I missed anything, hit me up tomorrow.

First off, I assumed from your earlier posts that you were admitting to be a racist. I even complimented you on your eloquence (although what I took for eloquence, I now think it's more of just a long-windedness with a nice vocabulary- but, whatever...). Also, and I'm not saying this is your steez or anything, but whenever I read about the ol' liberal standby of "calling someone a racist" when blah, blah, blah, it's usually written by some obvious racist who's back is against the wall. I'm not saying that's you, but it's an interesting coincidence.

I also don't recall claiming that I am above reproach without a racist bone in my body, or whatever. I'd like to think so, but I'm not quite there. I am seeing a theme here, though- throw words in my mouth, when my own aren't convenient enough for your argument....

I'm not going to follow you down that whole rabbit hole of mumbo jumbo in your last 20 paragraphs (plus graphs!), but really- you are saying that all non-racists gravitate towards areas that are a racial hodgepodge? None of them stay where they grew up, chase jobs, climate, etc.? Show me that graph, if you can find it.

As for your actual graph- um....so ****ing what? What were we talking about again?

Since I'm too lazy to work any harder at this, I'll just offer up my zip: 97217. Go ahead and flog me with your graphs and statistics. I'll talk at you tomorrow. Peace.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> Okay, dude-
> 
> There is just so much crazy here that I don't think I'll be able to get to all of it before I go to sleep. If I missed anything, hit me up tomorrow.


Missed anything? How about you missed everything. I don't see one damn refutation or even an attempt at a refutation of any point I made. If what I've written and the findings I've referenced are so damn crazy, shouldn't it be like shooting fish in a barrel to point out all of my errors?

You seem like a guy who likes to posture with empty gestures, here you gesture by claiming that "there is just so much crazy here" but you don't even identify one point of crazy and you don't even try to correct any point I've made. Simply masturbating with words, calling things crazy, doesn't, you know, make them crazy, but it sure enables you to act like you've encountered crazy.



> it's usually written by some obvious racist who's back is against the wall. I'm not saying that's you, but it's an interesting coincidence.


Bring it on. If you think my back is against a wall, here's my notification to moderators that I'm not bothered at all by any attempt that you wish to undertake to mercilessly hammer me into the wall by refuting everything, or for that matter, anything that I've written.



> I also don't recall claiming that I am above reproach without a racist bone in my body, or whatever. I'd like to think so, but I'm not quite there. I am seeing a theme here, though- throw words in my mouth, when my own aren't convenient enough for your argument....


Dude, that's your gambit? That's pitiful. Let's backtrack - here's your position:

I harbor no illusions that, as a white man, I wouldn't be safe in South Central during a riot, but I will be proud and honored to have AJ and Woody (two of my black friends, and some of the sweetest guys you'll ever meet) watching my back should things go sideways. But that's just me.​
You jump into the conversation and right off the bat accuse me of racism. Then you pose as a worldly man who acknowledges that the black people who dominate the area of South Central would be racist against you as you deigned to bestow your presence upon them during a riot. Then you claim that unlike the denizens of South Central you would have a diametrically opposite reaction and would feel honored to be associated with two black men of your acquaintance.

Now where exactly in that hagiography are readers supposed to infer that you are not as pure as the driven snow? You purposely called black people in South Central racist for either potentially threatening, attacking or killing you and you purposely set up that example so that you could contrast yourself as someone who would embrace associations with two black men during times of trouble, in fact, you chose to frame that association as feeling honored by such an association, one where everyone involved would recognize that you are a virtuous man for being associated with two black men.

Your whole comment was about you patting yourself on the back, first by attacking me, then by similarly characterizing others in a similar fashion and then by contrasting yourself against those you denounce.



> I'm not going to follow you down that whole rabbit hole of mumbo jumbo


Of course you're not because you've been called out on your vacuous posturing and you don't have a leg to stand on, so in keeping consistent with the argumentative technique you've thus far displayed, you pull another distraction card and conveniently absolve yourself of the need to address any points at all.



> As for your actual graph- um....so ****ing what? What were we talking about again?


We were talking about my hypothesis that you like to talk a good game but when it comes to walking that game you're nowhere to be found. Talk is cheap, action is valuable. As for the graph, it's a nice illustration of that dynamic - look at the high percentage of Obama voters in states where there is virtually no black population. It's a fair bet that a good many of those folks like to see themselves as you apparently see yourself, a committed anti-racist and they show their commitment by talking as you do, and in this example they deviate from the national vote dynamic by disproportionately voting for Obama. However, when it comes time to live true to their creed of anti-racism and celebrating diversity they somehow end up living in circumstances that one would think racists would seek to create for themselves. Odd huh?



> Since I'm too lazy to work any harder at this, I'll just offer up my zip: 97217.


This is too good to be true. Come on, be honest, are you playing with me by giving me that zip code?










Are you sure that you're not playing with me? The Dallas Morning News:

Portland, America's ultimate White City 

In fact, not one of these "progressive" cities even reaches the national average for percentage of African-Americans in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.

*The progressive paragon of Portland is the whitest on the list*, with an African-American population less than half the national average. It is America's ultimate White City. The contrast with other, supposedly less advanced cities is stark. . . .

The relative lack of diversity in places like Portland raises some tough questions the perennially PC urban boosters might not want to answer. For example, how can a city define itself as diverse or progressive while lacking in African-Americans, the traditional sine qua non of diversity, and often in immigrants as well?

Imagine a large corporation with a workforce whose African-American percentage far lagged its industry peers, sans any apparent concern, and without a credible action plan to remediate it. Would such a corporation be viewed as a progressive firm and employer? Could it defend its lack of doing so by retorting that it had lots of Asians on the payroll? The answer is obvious. Yet the same situation in major cities yields a different answer. Curious.

In fact, *lack of ethnic diversity may have much to do with what allows these places to be "progressive." It's easy to have Scandinavian policies if you have relatively Scandinavian demographics. *Minneapolis-St. Paul, of course, is notable in its Scandinavian heritage; Seattle and Portland received much of their initial migrants from the northern tier of America, which has always been heavily Germanic and Scandinavian.

In comparison to the great cities of the Rust Belt, the Northeast, California and Texas, these cities have relatively homogenous populations. *Lack of diversity in culture makes it far easier to implement "progressive" policies that cater to populations with similar values; much the same can be seen in such celebrated urban-model cultures in the Netherlands and Scandinavia.* Their relative wealth also leads to a natural adoption of the default strategy of the upscale suburb: the nicest stuff for the people with the most money. It is much more difficult when you have more racially and economically diverse populations with different needs, interests and desires to reconcile.​


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

BillM said:


> Race will only be an issue to small minded people who can not think for themselves. I believe the inability they have to change and think for themselves will lead to their own demise in a new world.


A good, honest study of Yugoslavia starting in the late eighties and going forward 10-15 years will make you think differently on this.

MILLIONS of Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians, and Albanians died for not much reason other than their racial background. YES - I will agree that religion did play a part, but when it gets right down to it, the fighting occurred between groups of people who "did not look like" each other.

One of my employees is Serbian (in his early 30's), so though I cannot type for him directly, I will relay the details of the discussions we have had. What surprised me the most was what he mentioned about how people still tell each other apart by LOOKING at them. 
I will grant you these people are all pretty much "white".... no Asians, Blacks or Arabs. The Muslims in the region are white. HOWEVER, they still hate each other to this day.

How is it again that "Race will only be an issue to small minded people who can not think for themselves"? What evidence can you present that supports that statement?


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> Missed anything? How about you missed everything. I don't see one damn refutation or even an attempt at a refutation of any point I made. If what I've written and the findings I've referenced are so damn crazy, shouldn't it be like shooting fish in a barrel to point out all of my errors?
> 
> You seem like a guy who likes to posture with empty gestures, here you gesture by claiming that "there is just so much crazy here" but you don't even identify one point of crazy and you don't even try to correct any point I've made. Simply masturbating with words, calling things crazy, doesn't, you know, make them crazy, but it sure enables you to act like you've encountered crazy.
> 
> ...


So, are you saying all those blue dots that are smack dab in the middle of my neighborhood don't actually represent black folks, as stated in the key? I assumed when you asked for my zip code you'd focus on that area, but instead, the preceding rant was made about Portland as a whole. If that was the case, why didn't you just ask what city I was in?


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

LincTex said:


> A good, honest study of Yugoslavia starting in the late eighties and going forward 10-15 years will make you think differently on this.
> 
> MILLIONS of Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians, and Albanians died for not much reason other than their racial background. YES - I will agree that religion did play a part, but when it gets right down to it, the fighting occurred between groups of people who "did not look like" each other.
> 
> ...


I have an Serbian friend. He will tell you the truth. In his late 20s and very mature.

When shtf we will ALL do the natural thing. I know what that will be and so does he.


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## zookeeper (Mar 6, 2011)

A lot of post SHTF behavior will come down to racial/ethnic groupings, and for various reasons. But I will look at it from a preppers view.
Which racial group of people are doing most of the prepping now? And I mean which race has the highest percentage of people getting ready for a serious social downturn? That would be white folks. Why? Several reasons, but the most obvious is whites as a whole are better off financially. And as we all know, prepping costs money. Also, many rural areas have a larger white population. 

And due to governmental policies over the past 50 years, minorities have become much more dependant on the Nanny State society, and have developed the mindset that Big Brother is supposed to be there for them and get them through everything.
So when the crap hits, you will see that it will mainly be white folks that have made the effort to deal with the resulting chaos. And if anyone thinks "That's racist"....well then I guess the facts are racist.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

About the original article:
It has some pretty astutue and accurate analysis that has been borne out by hisotry again and again.
it doesnt have to be a race thing. ethnicity vs ethnicty ( Rwanda) or of curs eour prime example Serbve vs Croat vs Muslime free for all in ex yugoslavia and civilized melting pot for decades before the fall.

As over population,fuel shortages, global warming and its inherent food shortages turn us all into savages without fail.
I only read the first 600 words or so, but so far he is spot on IMO, no matter how friendly and integrated we are.
I was recently inn course where one of my best buds was black and we jokingly ganged up (socially) on the only Asian guy, even though we were all socioeconomically as identical as can be...

As our minds evolve in an ever toguher environement the former jokes may beocme a cruel reality
Just like in yugoslavia where for deacdes whetehr u were corat or serbe or muslim was the soruce of good natured ribbing and nothing more..
Until it wa ssuddenly sufficient to tie entire families behind trucks and drag them to death for public entertainment as the "others".

Our cultural elitres deny the possibility here.
its because they have a crippled view of humanity limited to an affluent urban environement.

The cultural elites of sarajevo died just like the working class during the war....


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## zombieresponder (Aug 20, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> I agree.
> 
> I don't think you have to even go that far, simply make things convenient for them. Let media and opinion "originators" do the original thinking and then have the sheeple adopt what is the "approved line of thinking" for their group. Applies to liberals, conservatives, religious, areligious, and especially to people who fashion themselves as "free thinkers" (best example is rebellious teenagers who conform to nonconformist fashions), etc.
> 
> ...


I didn't read all of this, but what I did read is more an issue of subculture than race.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

zombieresponder said:


> I didn't read all of this, but what I did read is more an issue of subculture than race.


You have to be more specific about what it is exactly that you mean. What I take from your comment is you pointing to a distinction with no difference backing up the distinction.

Americans since before the Civil War have been trying to impart white ways onto African Americans. The Canadians and Australians went so far as to remove Native and Aboriginal children from the homes of their parents and placed them into residential boarding schools in order to break the cycle of acculturation that passed values and behaviors from parents to child.

You know what everyone has found out? Blacks like being blacks and not being whites, Natives like being Native and not white, Aborigines like being Aborigine and not white.

There are cultural beliefs and practices that ride alongside the genetics of race and these cultural practices are pretty set. No, they're not immune to change but they do have a lot of inertia backing them up. Liberals thought that the Civil Rights movement would attack the dysfunction of the black community by having blacks be fully integrated into the broader culture and that experiment went over like a lead balloon.

So, maybe I'm completely misreading your point but your point was very short and very cryptic. If the problems are due to specific subcultures and those cultural practices are only followed by people of Race X, then what exactly is the problem with specifying race as the identifying factor?


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

zombieresponder said:


> I didn't read all of this, but what I did read is more an issue of subculture than race.


:hmmm: the prevalence of certain subcultures amongst certain racial/ethnic groups, perhaps? :dunno:


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

*It's hard to be white*



The_Blob said:


> :hmmm: the prevalence of certain subcultures amongst certain racial/ethnic groups, perhaps? :dunno:


Do you know how hard it is to be a white man?

People just expect so damn much of us ! :rofl:


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

BillM said:


> Do you know how hard it is to be a white man?
> 
> People just expect so damn much of us ! :rofl:


White & Asian men- the only ones not in a "protected" group.


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## pbcteacher14 (Oct 1, 2012)

I cant wait to have Obama be our President for 4 more years......will the world go to crap???? nope


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

pbcteacher14 said:


> I cant wait to have Obama be our President for 4 more years......will the world go to crap???? nope


You are pretty optimistic. The world will continue to approach the crap line no matter who is president. In my opinion its a slower march with mitt/ryan. Just my opinion.


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

pbcteacher14 said:


> I cant wait to have Obama be our President for 4 more years......will the world go to crap???? nope


You gonna participate on the forum or troll? Your other post was a joke too.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

pbcteacher14 said:


> I cant wait to have Obama be our President for 4 more years......will the world go to crap???? nope


If you believe that then you really aren't very well informed.

The Fed has created trillions of dollars with nothing to back it up. A lot of it to fund Obama's massive wasteful spending. We're going to have a dollar collapse no matter who is president. I think it happens before the election. That's how precarious the dollar is right now.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> My racism? You're pretty quick with that charge. Let's see if you're willing to put your "non-racism" to a test. I don't much care what "You Say" about your "non-racist" beliefs, rather I'm more interested in how "You Live" your "non-racist" beliefs therefore if you'd be willing to play along by giving me your zip code what I'll do is I'll produce a Census derived map and post it here and then we can examine the racial makeup of your near vicinity. If you're not living your beliefs, only spouting empty phrases in order to make yourself feel superior, then you really haven't contributed much to this debate other than showing everyone here that you can strut around like a peacock and make empty proclamations about your enlightened "non-racism" which you buy with absolutely no cost to yourself.


That would be absurd request for me., I am not racist and i agree with the comments that race for me would not mean sh** after TSHTF because, if I need a doctor and his or she is of any other race, I wouldn't care, the same as I do now... My cardiologist is one of the best in the South and he is definitely not white. Great guy, nicest most caring doctor i have met and why i keep him as my dr. Or if the person has any skill we need, farming, fighting, black smithing, anything...

Furthermore, if my group had any problem with bring in someone of different race, I would not want them in my group. Meaning the person who is racist.

I also will further agree that as a race, and in regards to prepping, I believe the statement is correct that whites are prepping more, however, I also believe that individuals of other races who do follow financial trends and international news (aka not the 4x% Romney says will never vote for him) are starting to prep... They maybe behind the 8 ball, but anyone getting into will turn up the gears as they learn more.

I grew up in a small white farming community, went to a private university (mostly white at time), started my career my fist boss was black, i climbed the corporate ladder under his guidance, moved to Atlanta with that same company, and now I live in one of the priciest areas town. I have friends of different races, employees, and clients... I have never ever had a problem with someone based on the color of their skin. At a poker table, I will strike up a conversation with anyone. That is me in a nutshell. I am not left or right wing.

in my small neighborhood of 20 or so houses, there is a former Steelers Pro football player - black, at the front of the neighborhood is his parents house, across the street is the CIO of a decent size consulting firm, also black, there are 3 doctors and one CEO - 1 is Muslim, 3 are from India. The rest are white. Except for the Asian family across the street who just moved in, heard he was a lawyer with one of the top 10 in town (meaning he is a partner too). In the whole area of my zip code, I would harbor to guess that it is 60% white. When I bought this house, race never had a play in the purchase. It was value, eventual capital gain, best schools, open land, and the house itself that made my decision... Never ever race. And my former house, that neighborhood had 6 football players, 2 baseball players, all black... Who cares?!?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> When I bought this house, race never had a play in the purchase. It was value, eventual capital gain, best schools, open land, and the house itself that made my decision... *Never ever race.* And my former house, that neighborhood had 6 football players, 2 baseball players, all black... Who cares?!?


Tell yourself whatever fairy tales you want. What do you think determines school quality? What do you think determines neighborhood quality? I guarantee you that you can get more housing value for your dollar if you sell your present home and seek out a similarly sized house in a neighborhood that is 100% black. If you're true to your word that race has no bearing on your decision then you should be jumping at the chance to enhance your net worth so dramatically.

If race doesn't matter then you should be seeking to enhance your daughter's cultural experience by enrolling her in a highly "diverse" school which is predominantly black. Hey, to make it easy for you pick a school where black professionals send their children. To the degree that SAT measures the intellectual caliber of high school students your daughter would find herself in a more rigorous school environment where her classmates were comprised of white student born to High School graduates than she would if she were in a school of black children whose parents had all earned Graduate Degrees. Similarly, the quality of the school, as measured by how well the students perform academically, would be better if your daughter's school mates where white children who parents earned less than $10,000 (1995 dollars) per year than if her schoolmates were black children whose parents earned $70,000+ per year.



















It's this way - A influences B which in turn influences C. You coming in here and proclaiming that you don't pay any attention to A and all you care about is how B influences C is a huge con-job which insults people's intelligence, especially when B influencing C allows you not to pay direct attention to A when in fact it is A that is influencing C.


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

A question, Bobbb, because I must be missing something- How would Invision be increasing his net worth by selling his home and buying one in an area that is 100% black? I'm not getting your reasoning there.

Thanks in advance for your reply.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> A question, Bobbb, because I must be missing something- How would Invision be increasing his net worth by selling his home and buying one in an area that is 100% black? I'm not getting your reasoning there.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your reply.


Housing is an expense (and in many cases a rapidly depreciating asset) and not so much an investment these days, so buying the same amount of living space for less money and then investing the difference will increase your net worth while keeping your square footage the same. Further, if you're carrying a mortgage or paying property taxes based on market value or paying insurance premiums based on market value you'll decrease your expenses for maintaining the household. Money that you don't spend on property taxes is money that adds to your net worth. It doesn't even have to be a house, it could be lot size and then build the exact same house, exact floor plan, exact finishings, etc. If the racial composition of the neighborhood is so totally immaterial, then this should be a winning strategy - identical quality of housing for less money = WIN, WIN, WIN.

As I noted above, this doesn't have to be a class issue - move into a professional class neighborhood that is solidly black and you'll find that the school quality doesn't match up, that crime rates doesn't match up, etc. I'm not talking about these neighborhoods being on par with ravaged ghettos but decreases that are certainly noticeable. Look at those two graphs - the children of white HS graduates perform better academically than do the children of blacks with graduate degrees. There are reasons for this but they're beside the point here. The point is that when people are looking at neighborhoods with good schools, one of the best predictors of school quality is going to be the ratio of minority students and even better is the ratio of black students. Parental income in the neighborhood, or the school's catchment area, is actually not as powerful a predictive factor as race. John Ogbu wrote _"Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement"_ which deals with this precise topic. These kids are the children of black physicians, scientists, executives, lawyers, professors, businessmen, politicians, etc and they are being outperformed in school by the kids of white warehouse workers, dishwashers, maids, etc. When professional class and wealthy parents say "I don't consider race" and they buy a home in a black professional neighborhood, their children are going to be going to school with classmates who, in the aggregate, perform at levels lower than the children of white HS grads and this is going to affect the learning environment that their child is going to be enmeshed within.

The point here is that there is not some bloody conspiracy nor is it coincidence that good schools have low minority student ratios and that good schools increase property values, so claiming that one doesn't consider race but one looks strictly at school quality when considering which neighborhood to buy a home in is willfully delusional thinking.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> Tell yourself whatever fairy tales you want. What do you think determines school quality? What do you think determines neighborhood quality? I guarantee you that you can get more housing value for your dollar if you sell your present home and seek out a similarly sized house in a neighborhood that is 100% black. If you're true to your word that race has no bearing on your decision then you should be jumping at the chance to enhance your net worth so dramatically.
> 
> If race doesn't matter then you should be seeking to enhance your daughter's cultural experience by enrolling her in a highly "diverse" school which is predominantly black. Hey, to make it easy for you pick a school where black professionals send their children. To the degree that SAT measures the intellectual caliber of high school students your daughter would find herself in a more rigorous school environment where her classmates were comprised of white student born to High School graduates than she would if she were in a school of black children whose parents had all earned Graduate Degrees. Similarly, the quality of the school, as measured by how well the students perform academically, would be better if your daughter's school mates where white children who parents earned less than $10,000 (1995 dollars) per year than if her schoolmates were black children whose parents earned $70,000+ per year.
> 
> It's this way - A influences B which in turn influences C. You coming in here and proclaiming that you don't pay any attention to A and all you care about is how B influences C is a huge con-job which insults people's intelligence, especially when B influencing C allows you not to pay direct attention to A when in fact it is A that is influencing C.


What I think determines school quality is based solely on statistics, the high school she will be attending next year for example (and public btw).
Has student / teacher ratio of 20 to 1 with 2800+ students enrolled
All subjects tested has a 95% or higher that meets standards, with 80% exceeding standards.
Graduation rate of 97% or higher.
Considered one of the top 25 highest ranked high schools in all of Georgia.

Also, I guess I will point out, there is less than 6% on any type of school lunch program at her school, considering the average household income level for the 38,000 living in this area is more than 2X (closer to 3x) compared to US.

How does this compare to your area?

As for how my daughter would do in a nearly 100% all black school, she did attend one in elementary school while living in MS for her first two years of schooling. In comparison,all MS schools are about a year behind versus Georgia. However, being a solid AB student there, she remained a solid AB student there. She also had to push herself in 3rd grade to catch up. Her current test scores on all subjects are higher than 97% in all subjects, and 2 were at 99%. Also, she is only in 1 AP class, which is Spanish. She also has stated a desire starting her Sophomore year to finish out her remaining 3 years taking Chinese, since by the end of her freshman year she will have completed her requirements for foreign languages for college.

Getting back to having her attend a nearly all black school, no problem, if 1) I lived in that area 2) the school had the same statistics as above. See this leads to your next statement about building my house in similar neighborhood that is all black.

As for finding a similar size house in a 100% black neighborhood is a stupid statement, since you seem to think that whites have their neighborhoods and black have theirs. Which in inner-city areas, it is somewhat true. I live in Fulton County, so my property tax is extremely high, roughly $10,000 a year. Fulton county runs through all of metro atlanta, north up to Alpharetta, Roswell, Johns Creek, Milton, and Norcross. However, we live in a city and an area which is considered "fringe rural" even though we are in fulton county. In this city of 38,000 most of our houses are anywhere from 4200 sq ft on the small side to upwards of 25,000 sq ft, while lot sizes range from 1/4 acre clear up above 50. My house including the basement is right at 10,000 and sits on more than 1 acre of land. Even though it is considered a McMansion, it is not an all white neighborhood as I have stated... Predominantly, yes, but I would never move if everyone in the neighborhood was of a different race. You won't find an all white or all black neighborhood in my price range Bobbb. Yes, you can at $100ks, $200ks, even $600ks, but not in my price range. In my price range, you will find whites, blacks, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

I don't mean to sound rude here, but can i ask what price range your in? If your in the same as me, then you would know that you don't have all white and all black neighborhoods. See yet why, this blows away your statement, doesn't it?

I can't help the statistics of the world we live in, that most blacks don't have my income. Hell, Bobbb few whites even do... that is why I am "placed" in a group called the 1%, even though I consider the 1% to have more than $5MM in the bank in liquid cap. (not net worth) like say my parents. However, I know I don't come close to $5MM in even net worth.. But I am also part of the 53%, and in a 32+% tax bracket too.

Oh, and yes, IF I could build my house for less, I would, but see I have already been told, you can't rebuild it for even current value, even in Mississippi (no slam on MS, Trust me I love to gamble there once a month at leas - Tunica, Biloxi, and Vicksburgt), because we have seriously looked. Also, i would never have less than an acre of land, one reason why i will drive 35 miles (2 hrs in rush hour) to go downtown for a client. i would never live with someone right beside me, on top or below. I absolutely hated it when I was in college and first starting my career 20 years ago... Nor would i invest in a co-op type arrangement. That was another reason, we bought were we bought. We knew we got it for $300k under original builder asking price, and if there is a such a thing as miracles and market fully recovers, I do hope to see that gain.  Although doubtful in this new economic world. Although, I have seen about a 5% rise this year versus last year 

Also, I might add, less than one mile west is a different county, and one mile north is another county. The house prices directly in my immediate area for both of these two counties are equivalent in price, size of lots, and house. HOWEVER, in both instances their schools are NOT the equivalent of ours (not even close) and their property taxes are 50% of what I pay, which is $10,000 a year.

Let me ask this question in the following example:
Post-SHTF 9 months.
You are part of a group of 10-15 people.
You are of perfect health, but some (including a immediate family member) say needs medical assistance. 
Although you have some training, and by your posts, I can tell are smart enough to read and understand what you read, no one in the group has the experience required medically to assist. Say your 20+ year old daughter made it to your group, and is with child.

A black, Asian, Indian, whatever doctor, who actually specialized in pediatric medicine shows up outside your BOL, plus in their car is 6 months of food and a modest supply of seeds. So he and his family even bring more to the table besides being a doctor...

Will you turn them away, really? Just because of race?


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## hillobeans (May 17, 2012)

,


Bobbb said:


> Housing is an expense (and in many cases a rapidly depreciating asset) and not so much an investment these days, so buying the same amount of living space for less money and then investing the difference will increase your net worth while keeping your square footage the same. Further, if you're carrying a mortgage or paying property taxes based on market value or paying insurance premiums based on market value you'll decrease your expenses for maintaining the household. Money that you don't spend on property taxes is money that adds to your net worth. It doesn't even have to be a house, it could be lot size and then build the exact same house, exact floor plan, exact finishings, etc. If the racial composition of the neighborhood is so totally immaterial, then this should be a winning strategy - identical quality of housing for less money = WIN, WIN, WIN.
> 
> As I noted above, this doesn't have to be a class issue - move into a professional class neighborhood that is solidly black and you'll find that the school quality doesn't match up, that crime rates doesn't match up, etc. I'm not talking about these neighborhoods being on par with ravaged ghettos but decreases that are certainly noticeable. Look at those two graphs - the children of white HS graduates perform better academically than do the children of blacks with graduate degrees. There are reasons for this but they're beside the point here. The point is that when people are looking at neighborhoods with good schools, one of the best predictors of school quality is going to be the ratio of minority students and even better is the ratio of black students. Parental income in the neighborhood, or the school's catchment area, is actually not as powerful a predictive factor as race. John Ogbu wrote _"Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement"_ which deals with this precise topic. These kids are the children of black physicians, scientists, executives, lawyers, professors, businessmen, politicians, etc and they are being outperformed in school by the kids of white warehouse workers, dishwashers, maids, etc. When professional class and wealthy parents say "I don't consider race" and they buy a home in a black professional neighborhood, their children are going to be going to school with classmates who, in the aggregate, perform at levels lower than the children of white HS grads and this is going to affect the learning environment that their child is going to be enmeshed within.
> 
> The point here is that there is not some bloody conspiracy nor is it coincidence that good schools have low minority student ratios and that good schools increase property values, so claiming that one doesn't consider race but one looks strictly at school quality when considering which neighborhood to buy a home in is willfully delusional thinking.


I still don't see how, if you sold your house for a cheaper one in a low income neighborhood, you would somehow end up with more net assets. Isn't the house he owns now, itself an asset?

It's a small point in the grand scheme of things, Bobbb, but I think it just shows that you are throwing anything out there in the hopes that something will stick.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> Say your 20+ year old daughter made it to your group, and is with child.
> 
> A black, Asian, Indian, whatever doctor, who actually specialized in pediatric medicine shows up outside your BOL, plus in there car is 6 months of food and a modest supply of seeds. So he and his family even bring more to the table besides being a doctor...
> 
> Will you turn them away, really? Just because of race?


Of course I wouldn't turn him away. He has a valuable skill that we can't duplicate. This example is too extreme in to use in order to test the attitude you want to examine. You've created an all-or-nothing scenario, or more appropriately an anything-is-better-than-nothing. What you should create is a marginal scenario which puts race, not talent, straight into the middle of the cross-hairs.

Here's what we know. If you take the median MCAT score for white/asian students, 50% of students scoring above the score and 50% of students scoring below that score and then you compared the median MCAT score of black medical students to the white median, the black student median would be at the 10th percentile of whites, meaning 90% of white students scored higher than the median black score.

Now, to test your scenario, two physicians approach your compound, one white and one black and you can only accommodate one person and you don't have time to extract lengthy biographies and references and do background checks on these men, but you know the information that I've just provided to you, which physician will you chose to join your group?

Your position should be a flip of the coin but my position would be to reject the black physician. All I have is probabilities to work with but the outcomes of the decision are quite real:

A Courant analysis of disciplinary actions against doctors nationwide found, however, that both Howard and Meharry *produce troubled doctors more frequently than most other schools -- at rates about 10 times greater than the schools with the lowest numbers.* The actions ranged from a simple citation to permanent license revocation for a range of misdeeds including medical incompetence, ethical lapses and criminal behavior.

The findings -- controversial and politically sensitive as they are -- defy simple explanation.

Howard and Meharry are not offshore schools with little accountability to U.S. regulators. Their programs are regularly reviewed and are subject to the same accreditation standards as all other American medical schools. They graduate many fine doctors.

So what accounts for the higher rates of disciplinary actions?​
Here's what happened in LA at a hospital run by black physicians and black administrators as reported in an award-winning series of articles from the Los Angeles Times:

King/Drew, founded in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots, has stood for more than three decades as a symbol of justice and political power to many black people in South Los Angeles and beyond. In reality, if not officially, *the hospital was established by and for African Americans; the majority of its staff always has been black.*

"That hospital means hope to us," said Karimu McNeal, 52, an African American woman treated successfully for colon cancer at King/Drew in 2002. "When you go into the hospital and you see people that look like you and take care of you, it gives you hope for the whole race that we're achieving and doing something."

Mixed with community pride is an undercurrent of concern about King/Drew's standards.* For about three decades it has been known by an unflattering nickname, "Killer King." Patients have fled ambulances to avoid it, according to paramedics and one ranking fire official. And police officers say they have an understanding among themselves that, if shot, they will not be taken there* . . . .

*The hospital's failings do not stem from a lack of money*, as its supporters long have contended. *King/Drew spends more per patient than any of the three other general hospitals run by Los Angeles County.* Millions of dollars go to unusual workers' compensation claims and abnormally high salaries for ranking doctors.​
The point here is a simple one - when institutions implement lowered standards for members of certain races, then the quality of the people will be lower. This taints everyone in the selected race for there is no way left to distinguish the student/professional who was admitted in a race-blind competition and the one who was accepted when he should have been rejected. The odds, I contend, make it safer to use this general knowledge than your presumed tactic of flipping the coin and ignoring race.

The consequences of these decisions are quite real:

On April 30, 1996, Senator Edward Kennedy vigorously defended racial preferences in a statement to the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. . . .

Kennedy offered proof. *"Dr. Bernard Chavis is a perfect example," he said. "He is the supposedly less qualified African-American student who allegedly 'displaced' Allen Bakke at the University of California-Davis and triggered the landmark case. *Today, Dr. Chavis is a successful ob-gyn in central Los Angeles, serving a disadvantaged community and making a difference in the lives of scores of poor families." (In fact, Chavis's first name is Patrick, and he lived not in central LA, but in the suburb of Compton.)

*Eight weeks ago, warning of Chavis's "inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a physician," the Medical Board of California suspended his license. An administrative law judge, Samuel Reyes, found Chavis guilty of gross negligence and incompetence in the treatment of three patients, one of whom died at his hands. Letting him "continue to engage in the practice of medicine" the judge ruled, "will endanger the public health, safety, and welfare."*

But the legal language of the judge's interim order barely conveys the horror of what Chavis inflicted last year on Yolanda Mukhalian, Valerie Lawrence, and Tammaria Cotton.

On May 11, 1996, just days after Kennedy sang his praises, Chavis performed what was meant to be a simple liposuction on Mukhalian. (Though specializing in obstetrics, Chavis's practice increasingly focused on liposuction. His training in the procedure was a four-day course at the Liposuction Institute of Beverly Hills -- only half of which he completed.)

Mukhalian's surgery left her vomiting, sweating, and urinating helplessly as, in the court's words, "blood gushed down her pants leg."* But rather than get her to a hospital, Chavis took her to his home. She lay there bleeding for 40 hours, during which Chavis provided virtually no supervision or medical care. She returned to his office on May 14, still bleeding and in pain. He prescribed heat packs and a massage. Two days later, she was worse -- still bleeding, in extreme pain, and growing delirious. He didn't return her calls. Nor did he examine her when she returned once more on May 17.

By June 8, Mukhalian was in St. Francis Hospital with a severe abdominal infection. She was badly scarred and had lost 70 percent of her blood. By some miracle, she survived.*

A similar miracle must have saved Valerie Lawrence, whose story is almost identical to Mukhalian's: a botched liposuction, massive bleeding, shocking postoperative neglect.

Tammaria Cotton wasn't as lucky. When Chavis performed her liposuction on June 22, her blood pressure plummeted, and she complained of difficulty breathing. "If you can talk, you can breathe," Chavis reportedly told her. As her frightened husband watched, "reddish fluid" leaked from her body for hours, pooling on the floor. But instead of administering emergency treatment, Chavis vanished. By early evening, Cotton was in cardiac arrest. She died en route to the hospital.

This is Kennedy's "perfect example" of an affirmative action success.​
Pretty ironic, huh? The man who the medical school chose because of his race and thus displaced Allan Bakke, who went on to sue the school and took the case to the Supreme Court becomes the posterboy for the damage caused to real people by admitting students who can't pass muster but admitting them due to racial political concerns.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> ,
> 
> I still don't see how, if you sold your house for a cheaper one in a low income neighborhood, you would somehow end up with more net assets. Isn't the house he owns now, itself an asset?


House = $1,000,000
Property taxes = $15,000
House value falls 5% per year in this housing market.

One year later, the house is worth $950,000.

Cost of house ownership has been $15,000 + $50,000.

The alternative would have been to capture the $1,000,000 market value and buy a similar house for $500,000 in a "diverse" neighborhood where the property taxes were $7,500.

One year later, the house is now worth $475,000.

Cost of house ownership has been $7,500 + $25,000, for a total of $32,500 rather than the $65,000 for the home in the better neighborhood. Further, the $500,000 in cash that wasn't spent on a replacement home earned 1% in a CD, decreasing the cost of ownership from $32,500 to $27,500 and enriching him by $37,500 compared to where he would otherwise be.



> It's a small point in the grand scheme of things, Bobbb, but I think it just shows that you are throwing anything out there in the hopes that something will stick.


That's some chutzpah buddy - using your own ignorance to justify an accusation against someone else. _"Hey, I don't know jack about target shooting, but the fact that you were aiming for the eye of the goose that was flying overhead and missed and instead shot his beak off clearly shows that you're a lousy shot."_


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

hillobeans said:


> ,
> 
> I still don't see how, if you sold your house for a cheaper one in a low income neighborhood, you would somehow end up with more net assets. Isn't the house he owns now, itself an asset?
> 
> It's a small point in the grand scheme of things, Bobbb, but I think it just shows that you are throwing anything out there in the hopes that something will stick.


The amount I could sell it for, minus what I owe is what would be my net value. Thus this net value would be how much of an asset it would add to my total net worth.

What he is trying to claim is, my house is sellable at $1MM, I owe say $650,000 on my mortgage. My asset is $350,000.

Now here is where he is wrong, I sell for $1MM, and I go and build it in an all black neighborhood, for say $650,000 and I take a mortgage of $300,000, he thinks, that because I built it for less than $1MM, then I should have gained an extra $350,000 in net value cause I should be able to sell it for $1MM. However, this is NOT the case. See, if I am building for $650,000 then the house will appraise at $650,000 not $1MM. I basically just took the equity in one house and moved it to another. Now what would eventually build my NET worth is my mortgage payments would go from say $3700 a month down to a very nice $1800 or so. So over 30 years, not assuming, I don't put the extra $1800 toward the principle each month to pay it off quicker. I would amass a net worth of at least $640,000+ depending upon how I invest the addition $1800 every month. Which Clark Howard would scream to do...

Yet, since I have been told by multiple builders that this house can't be built for say $650,000 and since I highly doubt there is any single race neighborhoods in the suburbs of where I live in this price range, it is a moot point.

Btw thanks hillobeans.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> What he is trying to claim is,. . .


I won't fault you for this because you posted only 1 minute after I posted so it's clear that we were posting at the same time. Further, I didn't spell it out in detail so I left everyone the option of conjuring up anything they wanted to disprove my point.

If I give people the opportunity to put words in my mouth then the fault was mine for letting them do so. That however doesn't mean that the words shoved into my mouth are actually accurate.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> House = $1,000,000
> Property taxes = $15,000
> House value falls 5% per year in this housing market.
> 
> ...


Nice numbers, flawed, but nice... The year after we bought it, we saw a bigger decrease than already seen when we bought late 2008 by another 125,000.. We immediately got a re-evaluation on property tax value, and have had it lowered each year that we have seen a devaluation occur since. And they have lowered it to our demands every year, too. Anyone who sits by and doesn't fight to get their property taxes lowered when their house loses value is IMO an imbecile.

Bobbb, seriously give it a break, you can find a "similar" house like I have for 50% less. What have you been smoking tonight???

Since your so good at find such obscure research, go out to realtor.com, look for 10,000 sq ft houses, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, 2 master bedrooms one bedroom must be greater than 30x40, all bedrooms must have walk in closets, 3 car garage, all brick/stone. Oh yeah, all Bosch kitchen equipment, sub-zero fridge, and every counter (including baths) must have 2 in think or better granite, must have 12 ft ceilings in every floor too.

Below I just took two quick pics of just the kitchen area, sorry I couldn't fit it in one shot from the iPad. The master upstairs is even bigger than this room.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> I won't fault you for this because you posted only 1 minute after I posted so it's clear that we were posting at the same time. Further, I didn't spell it out in detail so I left everyone the option of conjuring up anything they wanted to disprove my point.
> 
> If I give people the opportunity to put words in my mouth then the fault was mine for letting them do so. That however doesn't mean that the words shoved into my mouth are actually accurate.


No problem. What you stated 'clarified' is absolutely correct. What i am stating is, even though mathematically you are absolutely correct, you physically can't do it. Believe me, I am a businessman, if I could do that, I absolutely would. I would actually use the addition savings and knock that mortgage out in less than 15 years. But I can't.

Also in your regards to having two doctors show up at the same time is just as bad as my own 'gotcha' with needs question. I would think it would be one at a time, highly doubt more than 1 doctor, unless you live near a hospital. Although there are two Drs in my neighborhood, neither are MDs, they are PhDs... Go figure.

Yes, I can agree with some of your facts you point out, but I will not limit my group based off race. If we need a doctor, and one comes along, we will take them in, same with nurse, or anyone that can contribute to the group.

I think the bigger issue will be social class interaction... In a post-SHTF era. Two of the novels I just read, points out the "surf" versus the "rich" in a BOL. In both instances, the "underdog" survives versus the "rich" group.

I know this will sound extremely one wing or the other to you, but I honestly believe that all men are created equal. Even though, I live a "lavish" lifestyle compared to some, that guy working at McDees taking my order is no different than me, same with the guy in the garbage truck, or patrolling the area in a squad car, or fighting overseas for our country.. I try to always give everyone a chance in regards to having respect for them. Why would I look down at someone just because they don't make what I make. I hate that with a passion, and the same holds true when those who think all those who "have it" are crooks, liars, cheats, whatever, then I lose respect for them too.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> Also in your regards to having two doctors show up at the same time is just as bad as my own 'gotcha' with needs question.


Actually, you're wrong. The scenario doesn't have to be based on what is likely to be a common occurrence, it simply has to create a scenario which tests your decision model. Your scenario of one black doctor showing up didn't test your position on race, it rather tested your position on whether your group wanted to have a doctor on board. Race was immaterial to that desire, so race wasn't even considered. My scenario satisfies your desire to want to have a doctor within your group but now forces you to make a choice on the basis of race, thereby actually testing you on your claim that race is never something that you would consider.

These types of scenarios are not "gotcha" scenarios, they have to be designed in a way that puts the issue under discussion smack dab into the core of the question that you have to contend with. Will you flip a coin and randomly pick a doctor or will you use information based on race that you have at your fingertips in order to guide you in your decision?

People use this type of information all of the time. Avoid a poor black neighborhood at night but don't avoid a poor white neighborhood at night. They don't know every single person living in the neighborhoods but they certainly know the aggregate crime information for murder and assault and rape for the two different neighborhoods and the different risk levels involved in entering that neighborhood at night. You'd have to say that there is no different risk profile because you never consider race.



> I know this will sound extremely one wing or the other to you, but I honestly believe that all men are created equal.


What I think is that you haven't thought about this at all and are simply relying on propaganda that has been drowning you. Do you really believe that you have the same basketball talent as Michael Jordan? You should, you were born with the same talent as him as well as the same physique. Do you really believe that you had the same mental talent as Albert Einstein? You should for you were both born with the same brain structure.

Need I go on? It should be imminently clear to everyone that we are not all born equal.

If I had to guess as to what you might be striving to express it would be this - "We should have a society where the laws treat all of us equally." That makes a lot of sense to me. Jordan and Einstein shouldn't receive different treatment in court, from police, from the IRS, simply because they were born with talents valued by society and the hobo, the drunk, the addict, the thief, shouldn't be treated worse by society because they were born with less talent and more problems than the rest of us. Government should treat us all equally even though we are all born unequally. Now, if this isn't what you believe, then I have no clue how to proceed with someone who contends that he's as smart as Einstein and as athletic as Jordan and further claims that each and every member of humanity has the same talents as every other member of humanity because we were all born equal to each other. We'd be on two different planets.

The evidence is all before us that we're not all born equal and this evidence powerfully extends to race, gender and ethnicity as well. Women in general are not as strong as men in general. They would be if we were all born equal. From this general knowledge we can make decisions that have real consequences in our lives. The more insight we can bring to decisions the better our decisions should be.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Gosh your so full of yourself aren't.

So go 2 men show up same skill wants in group post shtf... go look up my response from around a month ago. They would sit outside the gate for at least a month proving themselves. The one that cuts the muster gets in. The other is asked to move on or goes bye bye.

As for me vs MJ or me vs AE... since you like to twist any comments to your twisted view so be it. I obviously have skills that you don't and visa versa... duh... no shiot really??? to explain it in simplistic enough terms for you, unfortunately i cannot bring it down far enough to your level

Have a good day sir.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> As for me vs MJ or me vs AE... *since you like to twist any comments to your twisted view so be it. * I obviously have skills that you don't and visa versa... duh... no shiot really??? to explain it in simplistic enough terms for you, unfortunately i cannot bring it down far enough to your level.


How am I twisting your comment? This is what you wrote: _"I honestly believe that all men are *created* equal."_

What is created equal supposed to mean? Michael Jordan and I were not created as equals. We're quite different from each other.

If you think I'm twisting your words then please correct your statement instead of lashing out and accusing me of bad faith. You're acting like liberals act - having a huff, making an accusation against me and then declaring that you can't continue in the discussion with a bad person like me. That's a common tactic liberals use to bail-out of arguments that they're losing, so it saddens me to see it being used outside of liberal circles.

Why not simply clarify what you mean by "created equal?"


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

*I have seen*



invision said:


> Nice numbers, flawed, but nice... The year after we bought it, we saw a bigger decrease than already seen when we bought late 2008 by another 125,000.. We immediately got a re-evaluation on property tax value, and have had it lowered each year that we have seen a devaluation occur since. And they have lowered it to our demands every year, too. Anyone who sits by and doesn't fight to get their property taxes lowered when their house loses value is IMO an imbecile.
> 
> Bobbb, seriously give it a break, you can find a "similar" house like I have for 50% less. What have you been smoking tonight???
> 
> ...


I have seen some older houses on the other side of the tracks that are selling at below their value simply because of the neighbor hood for 40 to 60 K. If you buy one , I think you get a choise of whether you want to be a "Blood" or a "Crip".


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> How am I twisting your comment? This is what you wrote: "I honestly believe that all men are created equal."
> 
> What is created equal supposed to mean? Michael Jordan and I were not created as equals. We're quite different from each other.
> 
> ...


Ok, let me state it this way:

I did... I am no better than you, you are no better than me. MJ has a God given talent for sports, AE had one for numbers, I have god given talent for computers and business, you have some too I suppose but as men none are better than the man who collects the garbage for the city you live in. Yes they (MJ and AE) may have extraordinary talent, but as individuals they are all no better than one another. That isn't a liberal or left wing comment. It is my belief, one that a whole bunch of men, including our forefathers agreed and believed true.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

BillM said:


> I have seen some older houses on the other side of the tracks that are selling at below their value simply because of the neighbor hood for 40 to 60 K. If you buy one , I think you get a choise of whether you want to be a "Blood" or a "Crip".


Roflmao... Nice...what's the crime rate, school districts like?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> Ok, let me state it this way:
> 
> I did... I am no better than you, you are no better than me. MJ has a God given talent for sports, AE had one for numbers, I have god given talent for computers and business, you have some too I suppose but as men none are better than the man who collects the garbage for the city you live in. Yes they (MJ and AE) may have extraordinary talent, but as individuals they are all no better than one another. That isn't a liberal or left wing comment. It is my belief, one that a whole bunch of men, including our forefathers agreed and believed true.


How do you see this as different from what I proposed as society treating us all equally while recognizing that we're born unequal?

Here's what I see as the difference - I'm supportive of government not playing favorites but I reserve unto each individual the right to play favorites. I won't stand for government deciding that Michael Jordan deserves to get special treatment over me. I think it would be folly for me to demand that other private individuals, or groups, treat me the same as they voluntarily want to treat Jordan.

Another way of looking at this, I suppose, is that every life IS worth the same instead of every life SHOULD be worth the same. If you had to chose only one life to save, that of a physician or Einstein versus that of Charles Manson or a gutter-sleeping heroin addict, the best thing for you to do would be to flip a coin because there cannot ever exist a rational basis for differentiating the value of one person's life. Others disagree. A good example is illustrated in the movie Saving Private Ryan, many men gave their lives in order to save the life of Ryan and those who ordered these men to their mission made a decision that the life of Ryan was indeed worth more than the lives of the men ordered to rescue him.

I'm just asking you to clarify what it is that you believe. I don't have any basis to object to people's moral aspirations but things get dicier when I see arguments getting advanced which claim that the aspirations are the way things operate in real life or the way things should operate in real life for now we're entering the world of policy and policy affects us all.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> Roflmao... Nice...what's the crime rate, school districts like?


And now we're back full circle. What is it that you think is important in determining crime rate and school performance? Children of black parents with graduate degrees do worse on the SAT than white children of hs graduates.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> How do you see this as different from what I proposed as society treating us all equally while recognizing that we're born unequal?
> 
> Here's what I see as the difference - I'm supportive of government not playing favorites but I reserve unto each individual the right to play favorites. I won't stand for government deciding that Michael Jordan deserves to get special treatment over me. I think it would be folly for me to demand that other private individuals, or groups, treat me the same as they voluntarily want to treat Jordan.
> 
> ...


No Boob, we are talking about how race impacts where you would take someone in to your group. Having MJ, AE, a drug addict and a homicidal maniac stand inline is moot. If we had no needs for any of the above we would not take any in... If we have a need, race will not be an issue, skills and abilities will be, each would have to prove themselves prior to admittance.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> And now we're back full circle. What is it that you think is important in determining crime rate and school performance? Children of black parents with graduate degrees do worse on the SAT than white children of hs graduates.


No we aren't. Maybe in your mind, yes.... But I have not seen you produce what my requirements would be... Your not seriously going to find a 10,000 sq ft house next door to crips and bloods. More next to your home, right? So find what I have asked for, then we can discuss, but you can't can you? Admit your concept is garbage a hypothetical dream.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

invision said:


> Your not seriously going to find a 10,000 sq ft house next door to crips and bloods.


Well, to be honest, the only way to discuss this would be equal house sizes. I think what Bobbb is trying to say is that an average, middle-class white person in the market for a 2000sq ft home looks at the neighborhood when buying. That home in a "nice, white neighborhood with white kid schools" would be $150,000. The same 2000sq ft home in a predominantly black neighborhood might only sell for $80,000.

Right or wrong, this *does* happen. 
After much searching and looking, we bought our house in the "middle" - LITERALLY - both in price ($112.5K) and "neighborhood". School doesn't matter since we home-school, and since "redistricting" of schools occurred, we are now also homeschooling two other neighborhood kids, since they would have to be bussed 6 miles to the (statistics-wise) worst school in town (which just happens to be predominantly black).


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

I must say that skin color has no bearing on whether I have prejudices or not; the family across the street is black - they are really great folks with two well behaved sons. 

But the friends of the other kids in the neighborhood (several blocks away) can sometimes disturb the peace. Why do they have to play loud, curse-word laden rap music at full volume with the windows down when driving past?

Do people in "nice" black neighborhoods have to put up with the loud rap music, too?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> No Boob, *we are talking about how race impacts where you would take someone in to your group*. Having MJ, AE, a drug addict and a homicidal maniac stand inline is moot. If we had no needs for any of the above we would not take any in...* If we have a need,* race will not be an issue, skills and abilities will be, each would have to prove themselves prior to admittance.


Can you keep the question straight in your mind? Here, in the space of one paragraph, you veer drastically off issue. You start out by restricting the issue to how race would be factored in the decision to take someone into your group and then you completely ignore race as a criterion and declare that you would accept people on skills only.

Let's have a taste test on these nut brownies and see which one tastes best. Oh man, this Popsicle tastes great and it avoids the nut allergies issue of brownies.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

LincTex said:


> I must say that skin color has no bearing on whether I have prejudices or not; the family across the street is black - they are really great folks with two well behaved sons.


You're no different than everyone else really. Prejudices and stereotypes are always trumped by specific information. Who clings to the belief of the stereotype when they have very specific information which contradicts the stereotype?

Here's a counter to your story - one of my siblings lives next to a black family where the wife is a lawyer and the husband is a professor and their 16 year old son is a serious drug dealer. The only house in the neighborhood that the police visit regularly is this house. The only disturbances in the neighborhood is from this kid and his drug clients (friends) causing trouble and having fights. The parents of this kid are great people. Their kid, not so much. Yes, yes, I know, having a bad seed kid happens to many families irrespective of race. That's not the point. The point is the odds of this happening are not identical across racial groups. With information about the race of the family my predictions of outcomes will be, given enough rolls of the dice, more accurate than someone else's race-blind predictions.



> Do people in "nice" black neighborhoods have to put up with the loud rap music, too?


There are people on this board who can tell you stories about Prince Georges County, Maryland - the wealthiest black county in the US.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> Can you keep the question straight in your mind? Here, in the space of one paragraph, you veer drastically off issue. You start out by restricting the issue to how race would be factored in the decision to take someone into your group and then you completely ignore race as a criterion and declare that you would accept people on skills only.
> 
> Let's have a taste test on these nut brownies and see which one tastes best. Oh man, this Popsicle tastes great and it avoids the nut allergies issue of brownies.


Maybe you misunderstood what I wrote bud. Said in choosing for our group, race would not matter... End of discussion.

One question, do you have a group, or are you a lone wolf?


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## Startingout-Blair (Aug 28, 2012)

I have to agree with Invision. I have friends of various races and religions. I trust them as my friends. If they come to my BOL, they will be welcomed. If there are issues, we will deal with them as they occur


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

LincTex said:


> Well, to be honest, the only way to discuss this would be equal house sizes. I think what Bobbb is trying to say is that an average, middle-class white person in the market for a 2000sq ft home looks at the neighborhood when buying. That home in a "nice, white neighborhood with white kid schools" would be $150,000. The same 2000sq ft home in a predominantly black neighborhood might only sell for $80,000.
> 
> Right or wrong, this does happen.
> After much searching and looking, we bought our house in the "middle" - LITERALLY - both in price ($112.5K) and "neighborhood". School doesn't matter since we home-school, and since "redistricting" of schools occurred, we are now also homeschooling two other neighborhood kids, since they would have to be bussed 6 miles to the (statistics-wise) worst school in town (which just happens to be predominantly black).


Precisely, and what I stated was this is what I have, if you think these houses are white only, I guess it would depend upon where you lived. Statistically, yes it would be mostly white with few exceptions thrown in. However, like I also said, out of 20 houses, half are not white owned. I also agree at lower valued houses, like you pointed out, could be all white, all black, all Asian, etc... And a mixed area to me would be best like you chose. Home schooling would also be best in the school district changes. I believe (as I think you do) that you must provide the best chance at education for your kids. That is the primary reason we didn't buy a house in either of the two other counties within a mile west or north of our current house, because their schools stats are poor compared to the school she will graduate from. To my wife and I that was worth the extra property tax we pay, which is much lower than a private school would cost.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

Before my teens left home, I had to endure the loudest head banging " Rock music" ever blasted over a set of speakers.

Some rap music might have been nice !

Kids just do what kids do .


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## lotsoflead (Jul 25, 2010)

I know a few blacks and lots of whites, when and if the SHsTF, they both better keep right on trucking.I want no one here but emediate family, all my friends will be in five gallon buckets,jars or still on the trees and in the garden.


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## radio477 (Feb 9, 2012)

I guess I would be considered a racist even if I never thought of my self as one. I live in a small town outside of a larger city with just a handful of black people in it. I grew up in the larger city, attended public schools, seen first hand the effects of integration and "bussing" they called it. I had several acquaintance that were black that i considered friends i guess at that time until growing older and started really considering what true friendship and trust really is. When i started having children of my own i decided there was no way in good consciousness i could allow them to grow up in that environment. I know it sounds bad and i hate the fact that i feel this way but if i was outside in the evening with my neighbors and two black folks drove down our street we would think they were up to no good. Not the case if two white boys drove by. If a black family moved into the immediate neighborhood i would be friendly and not hateful but if several did i would move. After shtf i think anyone outside of our community will be treated with suspicion and black people doubly so. Do i think that is right? Not necessarily but the truth none the less. I believe there is just cultural differences ingrained into us that will be even more imbedded after shtf. I do not hate them for these differences in culture but neither do i welcome them around me. I feel bad admitting this but just being truthful.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

radio477 said:


> I believe there is just cultural differences ingrained into us that will be even more imbedded after shtf.
> 
> *I do not hate them for these differences in culture but neither do I welcome them around me*.


As would most others.


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## RoadRash (Sep 29, 2010)

Who knows ... 
For the most part in a SHTF I think groups would be formed on what suits the best needs of the community and who the leader is, deception is easy, trust is hard. So we have an unknown KKK in charge of a suburb do you think he wants a Black Asain or Mexican, Inner city Mexican group do they want a bunch of Blacks or Whites NO! 
there will be lots of groups made up of outcasts, who will form, taking the best from each community weed out the bad not due to skin or religous belifes but work ethic and skills. These will be the groups to survive grow and do well the others will self distruct due to hate and deception.
Just my $,02 
He untill it comes who knows


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

radio477 said:


> I guess I would be considered a racist even if I never thought of my self as one.


What you're describing isn't racism, it's human nature, it's the glue that builds societies and holds them together. Familiarity and common bonds, the more the better, are what people seek out in community and it's what builds trust.

The cultural shame of racism stems from acts of violence and oppression that are directed towards innocent people of another race because of their race. These attitudes and behaviors are behind societal dislike of racism. Wanting to be with your own people is nothing to be ashamed of for that is how societies emerge and sustain themselves and what you describe is what liberals like Invision and Hillofbeans are doing in their own lives. They've told us that they don't purposely seek out neighborhoods teeming with diversity. Their lifestyles are dependent on cultural factors which emerge from white America. You don't find cool hipster liberalism in Detroit or Newark, you find it in lily-white Portland or Vermont, you don't find good schools in Detroit or Compton, you find them in affluent white suburbs or for that matter, in poor white communities where the schools are better than those in affluent black communities.



> When i started having children of my own i decided there was no way in good consciousness i could allow them to grow up in that environment.


Did you see the movie "Waiting for Superman," the documentary on public education. The raging liberal director feels guilty about his intellectual preference for public schooling and increasing diversity but he can't in good conscience subject his own daughters to the environment that his politics creates so he sends them to a lily-white private school. At least he openly acknowledges his evil hypocrisy. He's a liberal, he can't help himself. You apparently know better. He's out actively campaigning to inflict this misery on poor and middle class people who don't have the financial means to escape like he can. In order to make himself feel better he has to diminish the benefits of society for other people while escaping from the consequences he produces in order to safeguard his own family.



> I know it sounds bad and i hate the fact that i feel this way but if i was outside in the evening with my neighbors and two black folks drove down our street we would think they were up to no good.


If you're walking across a crosswalk and you see a car speeding towards the crosswalk, do you modify your behavior in the crosswalk? If so, why? You're stereotyping the car as being potentially dangerous to you. You do this because you have enough information about cars hitting pedestrians in crosswalks to form a probabilistic course of action. You don't know that THIS PARTICULAR CAR will strike you in the crosswalk, but you know enough to be concerned about a car which is approaching you and not slowing down.

The same type of reasoning also applies to people. On a dark path, late at night, a young woman walking alone has more to fear from two boisterous men walking towards her than she would from two elderly women out walking their Chihuahuas. She doesn't know the men and she doesn't know the women, but she knows that men attack women far more frequently than elderly women attack young women.

The black population in the US has a murder rate that is 8x higher than the combined white and Hispanic murder rate. Factor out the Hispanic rate, which the FBI won't reveal but most observers acknowledge is far higher than the white murder rate, and the black-white murder ratio increases even further. You'd be a fool to ignore this very real information in your life.



> If a black family moved into the immediate neighborhood i would be friendly and not hateful but if several did i would move.


It's not the blackness that creates the issue here, it's the quality of life fall-out that occurs probabilistically in these situations. There will always be black families, or even groups of black families, in neighborhood where their presence doesn't create emerging quality of life degradation, but the far more common occurrence is the opposite one. When any homeowner bides their time in order to find out what's what, they put at risk their property values. Selling before problems emerge protects property values while selling in a problem neighborhood means that one has taken a hit on his net worth when one finally sells the property.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> That is the primary reason we didn't buy a house in either of the two other counties within a mile west or north of our current house, because their schools stats are poor compared to the school she will graduate from. To my wife and I that was worth the extra property tax we pay, which is much lower than a private school would cost.


You and a hundred million other people.

Let's be honest though. People like to lie to themselves and claim that the better schools emerge as a result of higher spending, but what they conveniently overlook is that the busing experiment and numerous other local initiatives, some recent like Section 8 housing introducing black inner city residents into their schools, clearly show that MORE MONEY SPENT /= BETTER EDUCATION.

Those better schools emerge from the process of high expenses keeping out poor people, so it's not the teachers nor the fabulous school buildings/grounds, it's the quality of the student that is the primary determinant of school success.

The fly in the ointment here is, as demonstrated above, the children of black professionals do worse academically than the children of white HS graduates, so the parent whose primary mission is to find a school for his child where the caliber of students is the best it can be is going to run into more obstacles to meeting that goal when he sorts neighborhoods and school catchment areas by income or price of housing than he would if he sorted by racial demographics of the neighborhood or school catchment area.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> You and a hundred million other people.
> 
> Let's be honest though. People like to lie to themselves and claim that the better schools emerge as a result of higher spending, but what they conveniently overlook is that the busing experiment and numerous other local initiatives, some recent like Section 8 housing introducing black inner city residents into their schools, clearly show that MORE MONEY SPENT /= BETTER EDUCATION.
> 
> ...


Ok, as the son of two public educators, I think I can talk from a little experience, more than government projected reports... Students do best when parents are involved. Plain and simple.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> Ok, as the son of two public educators, I think I can talk from a little experience, more than government projected reports... Students do best when parents are involved. Plain and simple.


We should all try to understand the causes and the effects related to the education process. This is NOT a cause and effect relationship which is a principal driver of student success. What you're seeing is a misidentified variable. It's pretty much the case that intelligent and/or educated parents are more involved with their children's education because they see the value of education but the question is whether this involvement is actually responsible for the improved educational outcome of their children or do their children do well because they carry the genes of their parents and they've picked up the values of their parents by being raised in a home environment constructed by the parents.

Here's another way of looking at this issue - plenty of leftists, and joined by fools like Bush, saw that home owners had a lot less social dysfunction than those who were not home owners, so they created programs to boost home ownership levels in the belief that it was home ownership which led to the diminishment of social dysfunction. Surprise, surprise, the social dysfunction remained. The cause and effect relationship was not in effect.

Simply telling disengaged parents to become engaged in the education process of their children will not turn things around for those failing students. There have been scores of studies on this. In one famous study the researchers sought out white families where the parents were following Asian American cultural practices with respect to schooling in order to see how these super-involved, super-critical, super-demanding parent's influence on their children translated into school performance. Would the white kids perform as well as the Asian kids? Nope, the same parenting behavior led to worse academic results for the white kids compared to the Asian kids.

The primary determinant of a child's education success is the child. Gimmicks won't have profound influence on outcomes.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> We should all try to understand the causes and the effects related to the education process. This is NOT a cause and effect relationship which is a principal driver of student success. What you're seeing is a misidentified variable. It's pretty much the case that intelligent and/or educated parents are more involved with their children's education because they see the value of education but the question is whether this involvement is actually responsible for the improved educational outcome of their children or do their children do well because they carry the genes of their parents and they've picked up the values of their parents by being raised in a home environment constructed by the parents.


I completely disagree, in the area I grew up, not everyone was college educated, most of the town was blue color factory workers or farmers. The kids whose parents pushed them - demanded As and Bs, went to parent teacher conferences, were involved with their kids, instilled a dream within their kids had kids who turned out with better educations, some went on to college, some went armed services, etc. however, most have done better than their parents. The leaches of society (white and black and green and blue) who sit at home collecting government assistance and not caring where or what their kids are doing raise the same.



Bobbb said:


> Here's another way of looking at this issue - plenty of leftists, and joined by fools like Bush, saw that home owners had a lot less social dysfunction than those who were not home owners, so they created programs to boost home ownership levels in the belief that it was home ownership which led to the diminishment of social dysfunction. Surprise, surprise, the social dysfunction remained. The cause and effect relationship was not in effect.


Um, if memory serves me, it was Clinton who started the everyone should have a home, and removed the regulations that started the down turn. In the 8 years of Bush, he went back to congress 4 times to try to have those regulations put back in for fear of a bubble, which Dodd said don't worry. Then Frank-Dodd act jumps the gun and over regulates putting penalties on banks if the provide "bad loans" but don't define a bad loan.



Bobbb said:


> Simply telling disengaged parents to become engaged in the education process of their children will not turn things around for those failing students. There have been scores of studies on this. In one famous study the researchers sought out white families where the parents were following Asian American cultural practices with respect to schooling in order to see how these super-involved, super-critical, super-demanding parent's influence on their children translated into school performance. Would the white kids perform as well as the Asian kids? Nope, the same parenting behavior led to worse academic results for the white kids compared to the Asian kids.
> 
> The primary determinant of a child's education success is the child. Gimmicks won't have profound influence on outcomes.


Studies by who? Are they in the classrooms everyday with students or are they "college professors" looking for their next grant? Seriously, you need to do more research by talking to people who do the job day in and day out, instead of sitting reading reports that favor your opinion, cause every teacher I have ever known would disagree. Considering my parents taught in different school systems, the number of teachers that I have known growing up all saying the same thing completely out weighs the "brain groups" total live classroom experience.... It's funny, I am just a step father, but I take a very active roll in raising my daughter, including attending every parent teacher conference with every teacher she has during a year. Everyone of them has stated, wow, we wish we had more parents like you. How many kids do you have and how active of a parent are you? Have yours had this same foundation?

I can only give the foundation for my daughter to succeed, like my parents gave me... However, once she is out of my direct control, she must decide for herself if she wants to throw her life away with drugs and parties, work a job and live pay check to pay check, or push herself to out work everyone and climb the old corporate ladder... I will love her just the same, but I hope she does what her mom and I have done all our lives.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

invision said:


> I completely disagree, in the area I grew up, not everyone was college educated, most of the town was blue color factory workers or farmers.


Intelligence /= college educated. There are vast numbers of intelligent people who are not college educated and this was even more the case 40 years ago than it is today.



> The kids whose parents pushed them - demanded As and Bs, went to parent teacher conferences, were involved with their kids, instilled a dream within their kids had kids who turned out with better educations, some went on to college, some went armed services, etc. however, most have done better than their parents.


The parents you cite are showing high conscientiousness and that shows with the kids. Conscientiousness is a highly heritable trait. It's very hard to teach behavior to people. It shouldn't be a surprise that the very personality trait which gets parents involved in their children's educational lives also plays out in the children to make them diligent and successful in school.



> Um, if memory serves me, it was Clinton who started the everyone should have a home, and removed the regulations that started the down turn. In the 8 years of Bush, he went back to congress 4 times to try to have those regulations put back in for fear of a bubble, which Dodd said don't worry.


That's only half of the story and it focuses on Fannie/Freddie. It's more complicated with respect to Bush, but he was an idiot too, just not as much of an idiot on as many things as are liberals, but this was one of them. Here are his own words:

. . . Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet *we have a problem here in America* because *few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That's a homeownership gap. It's a -- it's a gap that we've got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We've got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.
*
*I set an ambitious goal. *It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade *we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families. *(Applause.)

Some may think that's a stretch. I don't think it is. I think it is realistic. I know we're going to have to work together to achieve it. But when we do our communities will be stronger and so will our economy. Achieving the goal is going to require some good policies out of Washington.​
As I noted, even idiots like Bush believed in the leftist nonsense that "the clothes make the man." That if only we could get minorities to be homeowners then they'd act like solid middle class white people. The act of home ownership is not what imparts middle class values, it's middle class values which leads one to home ownership. The same dynamic is in play on this education dynamic - parental involvement brought on via trickery or coercion or encouragement doesn't make for children becoming good students, the good students develop because they are born to parents who have the right stuff and that right stuff also leads the parents to become involved in the education of their children. In both examples, people are claiming that there is a cause-effect relationship at work when there isn't.



> cause every teacher I have ever known would disagree. Considering my parents taught in different school systems, the number of teachers that I have known growing up all saying the same thing completely out weighs the "brain groups" total live classroom experience....


Nothing against your parents because I don't know them and this isn't addressed to them but there's really no way to avoid talking about teachers as a group, and as a group, most of them are idiots, so thinking that teachers are bringing specialized expertise to this question is a fantastical position to hold.



> It's funny, I am just a step father, but I take a very active roll in raising my daughter, including attending every parent teacher conference with every teacher she has during a year. Everyone of them has stated, wow, we wish we had more parents like you.


There's absolutely nothing wrong with parental involvement and it should be encouraged and it's definitely beneficial but not for the reasons that you imagine. It helps the process of educating a child to have a parent working alongside a teacher, it helps in creating a communication pathway, it helps the teacher to better understand the student, but what it doesn't do is make the child a better student.

Let's frame this in terms of computers. Learning is a combination of a student's hardware and software. Teacher's lessons are directed at the student and the student has to process those lessons. The hardware is the biological foundation of intellect - kids who are mentally retarded have biological limitations but this isn't a binary situation, there are gradations involved between the students. As for the software, this is a student's patience, the student's ability to put the new information he's learned into the context of past information already in his skull, his ability to sit still, listen and concentrate, etc. That's how learning happens, it happens within the student. A teacher cannot force a student to learn if the student resists or if the student isn't processing the new information in an efficient manner. Neither can an involved parent make a student learn if there are hiccups with the hardware/software of the student. A parent showing interest in his daughter's school life and class work is good because it helps connect the lives of child and parent but it doesn't MAKE the student a star performer. So in terms of hardware/software, you don't make a computer operation more efficient by showering attention on your laptop, it's efficiency is determined by factors internal to the computer which have nothing to do with your efforts to show interest in what is going on with your laptop.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

I don't want to derail this thread too far from the topic of race, but I do want to point out some more parts of Bush's speech:

Owning something is freedom, as far as I'm concerned. It's part of a free society. *And ownership of a home helps bring stability to neighborhoods. *​
There's Bush invoking cause and effect. Another example of the deficiency in his view of the world. Correlation is not causality.

To open up the doors of homeownership there are some barriers, and I want to talk about four that need to be overcome. First, down payments. A lot of folks can't make a down payment. They may be qualified. They may desire to buy a home, but they don't have the money to make a down payment. I think if you were to talk to a lot of families that are desirous to have a home, *they would tell you that the down payment is the hurdle that they can't cross. And one way to address that is to have the federal government participate. *​
There you go. Bush was part of the problem. Now the next part is where he diverged from liberals.

And so we've called upon Congress to set up what's called the American Dream Down Payment Fund, which will provide financial grants to local governments to help first-time home buyers who qualify to make the down payment on their home. If a down payment is a problem, there's a way we can address that. *And when Congress funds the program*, this should help 200,000 new families over the next five years become first-time home buyers.​
Liberals infected the financial system with a cancer and we're still paying the price for the damage that they inflicted. What Bush is doing is how these things should be done - he's not involving the banking sector and assigning them a mandate to make bad loans, he's talking about a Congressional appropriation that is debated and voted upon. Further, he limits the government's exposure to a down payment only and he limits the scope of this government program to 200,000 families over 5 years.

He's still an idiot but he's wasn't as delusional as all the liberals who brought this mess down upon us. He goes on to list other government initiatives but they all steer clear of the liberal solution of imposing requirements on banks to make uncreditworthy loans.

The goals of liberals and idiots like Bush were identical, but the means they chose to advance those goals were quite different. The point again was that both Bush and liberals misidentified a correlation as signifying causality.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

Bobby, Start a new thread in Off Grid, and we can discuss as many topics as you want. I promise not to use any research provided by government funded or college profs spouting any garbage paid for by grant money to justify the grantors, if you do too. 

Let's hear only your thoughts on subjects instead of trolling looking for stuff that you can recite your wide variety of publicized "paid for" research work. Can you?


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

This story was published in the NYT today and it fits perfectly with the issues of collapse, race and even the topic of education which we inadvertently veered into.

Boston, the bastion of liberalism, is a city teeming with a high concentration of institutes of higher learning. Education is big business in Boston. As with most places that have a highly educated workforce, the school systems for the worker's children tend to be top notch. Boston WAS no exception. It's public school system used to be regarded very highly. Today, not so much. So what happened? Liberals.

Liberals wanted to continue their effort of destroying society so they latched onto the notion of busing children to schools out of their neighborhood in order to achieve some imagined benefit from diversity. As with most liberal schemes, the liberals never imagine that people will react in response to bad things that liberals are shoving down their throats. Well, the people of Boston reacted. Check out this graph.










In a city where whites are the largest racial group, only 13% of the city's public school students are white. Parents react when liberals force their crazy society-destroying schemes on them, even angelic liberal parents in Boston.

What has been the consequence for a once excellent school system? Here's the punchline from the article:

_Recent scores show the Boston Public Schools lagging badly behind schools in the rest of the state._​
So let's go back full circle to the question asked in the OP. People resist with all their might forcible integration. This destroys communities, and in this case, a fine public school system. In a post-collapse scenario, without liberals around trying to push society-destroying projects onto civilization as part of some bizarre death-wish vision of the future, people will group together based on similarity for similarity is the glue that holds groups, and later tribes, and later still, societies, together. When factors which signal difference are introduced into groups, those differences act like pebbles in a shoe, they cause problems that could have been avoided by simply not introducing the pebble into the shoe in the first place.

The lesson here is that a problem avoided is a problem that you never after have to address. Without a quest for diversity Boston could still have had one of the nation's finest public school systems instead of a dysfunctional system abandoned by most of the students from the city's largest racial group.


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