Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Kim Jong III posted:

Holy poo poo Phil Muschnick is a massive loving racist.

Is he going to get the axe or is this par for the course at the N.Y. Post?

lol this was probably the least racist thing in this edition of the NY Post.

# ¿ May 4, 2012 19:27

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:40

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Dr. Tough posted:

There's no punchline in the letter, this guy really does want to shut down the GSA.

So Tim Phillips, President of an organization that produces nothing of value, is complaining about waste and inefficiency? :ironicat:

# ¿ May 4, 2012 19:35

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Also, there is no reputable social science research that proves that kids raised by gay parents turn out any different from kids raised by straight parents. But hate away!

# ¿ Oct 22, 2012 14:02

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Contempt for democracy has always been a part of conservatism in America. The Federalists, Whigs, Democrats, Know-Nothings, Redeemers, and Republicans have all called for restricting democracy at some point or another. Over in the Healthcare thread there is a poster who adheres to a particularly vile form of Libertarianism which seeks to curb democracy because it can be used to violate private propery.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 04:20

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

I had that 1912 Rich vs 2012 Poor thing come up in a bar argument before the election, and my drunken brain was still able to come up with the only response necessary to shut that whole thing down, "So who would you rather be? Andrew Carnegie, or the Obamaphone Lady?"

You cannot answer that question in good faith without completely undoing your argument.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2013 15:25

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

I love all this "traditional marriage" talk. My family came to America in 1889, my great-great grandparents got married when they were 13. It was your typical traditional marriage, wherein my grandmother was traded by her father to my grandfather's father for a moderate bride-price. The very concept of marriage for love is an extremely recent development in the history of human relationships. My family is full of excellent historians who have kept detailed records of our family transactions, including original contracts for several arranged marriages.

I bring this up every time I get into an argument about gay marriage and somebody uses the term "traditional marriage." Invariably they are talking about a concept of marriage that is plainly non-traditional and religious in nature, which is set against the bulk of human history- and American history- where marriage is clearly an economic and legal relationship. This general ignorance about the traditional property-contractual marriage and the modern love-choice marriage is really the problem, and the marriage paradigm most people argue about has only been in effect for scarcely 100 years (the last arranged marriage I have records for in my family took place in 1915). In the paradigm of love-choice marriages, it shouldn't be surprising that homosexual marriage has caught on culturally in so little time, and it is specifically because our modern conception of heterosexual marriage has also only been around for a very short time.

# ¿ May 11, 2013 18:01

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Americans waste a ton of words justifying acquisitive individualism as a value system, and as morally desirable, even as we are a mere 6 years separated from a definitive demonstration of its failure.

Also, read Piketty.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2014 14:15

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Won't someone think of the poor slaveholders??!!

Blood Cotton

The Economist posted:

American slavery
Blood cotton

How slaves built American capitalism
Sep 6th 2014 | From the print edition

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. By Edward Baptist. Basic Books; 498 pages; $35. Buy from Amazon.com

�FOR sale: a coloured girl, of very superior qualifications�a bright mulatto, fine figure, straight, black hair, and very black eyes; very neat and cleanly in her dress and person.� Such accounts of people being marketed like livestock punctuate Edward Baptist�s grim history of the business of slavery.

Although the import of African slaves into the United States was stopped in 1807, the country�s internal slave trade continued to prosper and expand for a long time afterwards. Right up until the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, the American-born children and grandchildren of enslaved Africans were bought cheap in Virginia and Maryland to be sold dear in private deals and public auctions to cotton planters in the deep South.

Tall men commanded higher prices than short ones. Women went for less than men. The best bids were for men aged 18 to 25 and for women aged 15 to 22. One slave recalled buyers passing up and down the lines at a Virginia slave auction, asking, �What can you do? Are you a good cook? Seamstress? Dairy maid?� and to the men, �Can you plough? Are you a blacksmith?� Slaves who gave surly answers risked a whipping from their masters.

Raw cotton was America�s most valuable export. It was grown and picked by black slaves. So Mr Baptist, an historian at Cornell University, is not being especially contentious when he says that America owed much of its early growth to the foreign exchange, cheaper raw materials and expanding markets provided by a slave-produced commodity. But he overstates his case when he dismisses �the traditional explanations� for America�s success: its individualistic culture, Puritanism, the lure of open land and high wages, Yankee ingenuity and government policies.

Take, for example, the astonishing increases he cites in both cotton productivity and cotton production. In 1860 a typical slave picked at least three times as much cotton a day as in 1800. In the 1850s cotton production in the southern states doubled to 4m bales and satisfied two-thirds of world consumption. By 1860 the four wealthiest states in the United States, ranked in terms of wealth per white person, were all southern: South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia.

Mr Baptist cites the testimony of a few slaves to support his view that these rises in productivity were achieved by pickers being driven to work ever harder by a system of �calibrated pain�. The complication here was noted by Hugh Thomas in 1997 in his definitive history, �The Slave Trade�; an historian cannot know whether these few spokesmen adequately speak for all.

Another unexamined factor may also have contributed to rises in productivity. Slaves were valuable property, and much harder and, thanks to the decline in supply from Africa, costlier to replace than, say, the Irish peasants that the iron-masters imported into south Wales in the 19th century. Slave owners surely had a vested interest in keeping their �hands� ever fitter and stronger to pick more cotton. Some of the rise in productivity could have come from better treatment. Unlike Mr Thomas, Mr Baptist has not written an objective history of slavery. Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains. This is not history; it is advocacy.

From the print edition: Books and arts

Almost all the blacks victims almost all the whites villains

Maybe sometimes the slaveholders were nice to the living humans that they literally owned maybe you should have thought of that before you slandered the noble institution of slavery you cretin

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 00:30

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

The real reason America is rich is because Puritans.

The best comment on that article is:

"Elie Weisel has not written an objective history of the Holocaust. Almost all the Jews in his book are victims, almost all the Nazis villains. This isn't history, it's advocacy."

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 04:57

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Has that writer been fired/forced into slavery to teach him a lesson?

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 19:56

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:40

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Won't somebody think of the capitalists?

# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 19:45

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