From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 12:46:12 MDT
Mike Lorrey write,
> Well, you quoted him saying 'the Creator', which could be anything, and
> I think that irrespective of his own religious views, he said this
> specifically to appeal to those who may have other opinions of who the
> 'creator' is.
My point exactly.
> > I don't think Heston implying that whites deserve more credit for US
> > civilization than blacks, native Americans, etc. You are reading some
> > implications even farther than I would have imagined.
>
> What he was asking is why blacks are given so much more of a prominent
> place in current history books than whites like George Washington and
> Thomas Jefferson. I think that he was trying to show that excluding the
> founding fathers is at least as unjust as excluding later civil rights
> leaders, and that all should be represented in history books
> proportionate to their actual contribution to the history of the
> country.
Again, you may be right, but the speech does not get into these areas
specifically. You are extrapolating all of this from the signals in the
speech. You can't find this stuff in Heston's actual words. That is my
point.
> > That's why I make it clear that hate-crime laws are NOT an example of
> > equal-rights laws. They do not have the same purpose or effect.
>
> Actually, they ARE equal rights laws. They are intended to eliminate the
> unequal living conditions that minorities are subjected to by bigots
> through harassment. Just why they are needed when ordinary harassment
> laws have worked for the rest of us is beyond me.
OK, you can call these equal-rights laws if you want. However, that makes
two kinds of equal rights laws. Those that try to enforce "equal rights"
for "all" and those that try to enforce "special rights" for "some". These
are not the same thing. What I call real equal rights laws do the former,
whereas hate-crime laws do the latter.
My previous statements were meant to support the former laws. Your
statements were meant to criticize the latter laws. We are not really in
disagreement on this point.
> The reason why we can and do make the comparison, Harvey, is because the
> primary gun control law in this country, the Gun Control Act of 1968,
> has been documented (by a Jewish gun-rights group) to have been
> purposely translated from the 1938 revised National Weapons Law of
> Germany which was used to disarm the Jews, and put into effect here by
> Democrat Senator Thomas Dodd. We can compare ourselves to jews because
> we are living under anti-semitic originated laws right now.
I will concede the question of whether gun-owners are suffering as much as
Jews under the Holocaust to your expertise. My point is that this is a
meme-killer not a meme-supporter.
> So you think it is alright for HIV carriers to willfully expose others
> to the virus without telling them? Excuse me? Maybe you misunderstood my
> original statement
No, I was not clear. I do NOT support withholding information in situations
that have been proven to be communicable. I do not even support withholding
information in situations that have not been so proven. The individual must
make decisions for their own health based on their doctor's advice. The
doctor must not withhold information to lead the patient to a decision which
would be contrary to their own will. (People have the right to make their
own decisions.)
> That Heston is drawing attention to a situation that he feels is an
> unjust one is irrelevant to his own implied opinion about it. It doesn't
> matter if different people have different opinions about how important
> or severe this situation is, so long as they see it as unjust as well.
Agreed. My fear is that Heston's speech gains support against certain
situations without clearly defining Heston's position or the proposed
action. He merely gives examples and says "Let's fix it!" Everybody agrees
to fix problems, but the devil is in the details. Nothing in Heston's
speech defines the problems, outlines a solution, or obtains consensus. Eve
rybody in the audience "agrees", but it is not clear what they agree to.
> What expiration date do you put on
> having a status as 'original Africans'??? We are all African if you go
> far back enough (even native Americans are). So what date do you decide
> determines what one's 'Africanness' is? Jews lived in Egypt for hundreds
> of years, and later migrated all over europe, asia, and africa. It is
> nearly impossible for a person of european extraction to have absolutely
> no jewish blood in them, so therefore most europeans can be found to
> have African ancestry that is less than 3000 years old. Even later, many
> Italians, Greeks, Albanians, Spaniards, etc have african blood that
> dates only back to the Moorish conquests of the middle ages.
I think you misunderstood my position to be arguing for the use of these
labels. I am not. I was concerned that Heston seemed to insist on calling
blacks "negros" even if they disliked the term. This attitude bothers me,
but I was not endorsing the politically-correct hyphenated terms. I think
anybody should be able to call themselves what they want.
> Furthermore, what about africans who never lived here in the US under
> slavery or Jim Crow, who are only recent immigrants whose families never
> suffered from American prejudice (merely the even greater tribal
> prejudices of their homeland in africa. Why should they enjoy
> preferential treatment under affirmative action when their families
> never suffered the injustices of slavery here?
Why ask me? I never endorsed this idea. You are assuming that if I'm not
on "your" side that I must be on the "other" side, and are therefore making
a whole bunch of invalid assumptions about my position. I don't support
half the ideas you seem to be projecting onto me.
> > > Since you've decided that 'white' is bad, what about 'european'?
> >
> > Where did you get the idea that I think "white" is bad?
>
> You said that using the term 'white' is as racist as using the term
> 'black' instead of 'African-American'
I see what you mean. I thought you meant I claimed that white people were
"bad".
I think classifying people by skin color is a bad idea. I don't mind the
terms black or white, and I use the terms myself.
> Heston is not talking about committing violent crimes against innocent
> people. Rappers are. End of story.
I know. I never implied that Heston was condoning violence. I do think he
condones suppressing rapper music. Maybe only in the context of
stock-holders, and maybe only in certain circumstances. I just found the
juxtaposition of stopping rap music with free speech to be awkward.
> > Agreed. But he has a definite call to action at the end of the
> speech. He
> > calls for civil disobedience and for people to "act" when these kinds of
> > things occur. Now he doesn't specify what exact acts should be
> taken, but
> > it is clear that some kind of action is being requested.
>
> Of course. And is this wrong?
Nope. But it is imprecise. I am worried about any call to action that
leaves the "problem" and the "solution" up to the audience, and just
identifies the problem "groups". Maybe Heston doesn't mean anything bad
about this, but somebody is going to misunderstand such a message and think
they need to "do something" about those blacks, Jews and gays.
> Why is it that unjust laws are to be
> resisted unless they are unjust toward white males?
I don't know. Why do you keep asking me these kinds of questions? You seem
to have a whole liberal agenda projected onto me that I really don't
support.
> His point is that the government is forcing people by statute,
> jack-boot, and expenditure of taxpayer dollars, to act in ways contrary
> to their values, and to punish people for their beliefs with their own
> money. His point is that the injustice of a minority of rich white males
> upon the rest of society in the past does not justify the injustice
> today by a majority of blacks, women, poor people, and other formerly
> disadvantaged groups. Our country was structured in such a way as to
> protect the rights of the individual against the tyranny of the
> majority, but that tyranny is exactly what is occurring today, with
> prettied up 'code words' for revenge like 'affirmative action',
> 'set-asides', and 'racial quotas'.
Again, none of this is in Heston's speech. You are assuming that this is
what he meant. You also are assuming what should be done about this stuff.
I think that KKK members would make more dangerous assumptions.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
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