Re: Final posting for a long while

From: Kenneth Wilson (kfwils@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 12:35:38 EDT


Wade Riddick wrote:
> I believe the sworn affidavits of Choicepoint employees who were told by
the Secretary of State to use race as a screening criterion for their felon
lists but weren't allowed to call to verify any of the information and were
prevented from using more narrow classifications like date of birth which
would have prevented false matches. <
 
First of all, if those Choicepoint folks didn't have the integrity to report an abuse like that before the election -- and they could have done so anonymously -- you have to wonder if they're telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth now. But I'll grant there is strong evidence that you may be right here.
 
Secondly, I object to your presumption that these particular partisans would want to beat anyone over the head. It's that sort of attribution of the worst possible motives to people who disagree with you that bothers me. They may just be ignorant racists, not hateful ones. 
 
> Many districts in Florida remain under Federal
> supervision for civil rights voting violations - not
> that this has amounted to much.
 
The Civil Rights Commission inquiry was a charade with a pre-determined outcome. Its own abuses are on record.

> I believe racism persists in the South,
 
It persists everywhere.
 
> There was a report issued on it a few weeks ago.  Students from similar
socioeconomic backgrounds start having sex at a later age and have fewer
partners when fully exposed to information about reproduction and
contraception. <
I'm not questioning that sex ed can have this effect, or saying sex ed in the schools is wrong. I'm asking if stressing abstinence works better than stressing contraceptive techniques and giving out contraception.
 
>>> And yet we let idiots run
>> >around bullying schoolboards
>
>> Why is it bullying? Did they use nightsticks, Wade, or the threat of
>> democratic reprisals -- voting them off the school board?
>> Please try putting yourself in someone else's shoes and listening to their
>> reasoning instead of name calling-- it's the first step towards the
>> tolerance contemporary liberals are always preaching.

> What kind of tolerance is it for idiots on the schoolboards in Oklahoma to
> tell you you're going to hell for teaching your kids evolution and to
> denounce a person of a different faith as a secular humanist? 
 
I didn't say *they* were tolerant -- two wrongs don't make a right. But they aren't bullying either, unless you really think the accused believed them, and unless you really think the accusers don't mean what they say.
 
> What kind of tolerance is it for Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson to go on TV and say NYC got what it deserved and
the US is in for more of the same because it's in moral decline?
Again, wrong category. Assigning blame is not tolerant or intolerant. And re: tolerance in general, we all draw the line somewhere. No one shows "tolerance" to what they consider a true and dangerous evil. So call the fundamentalists nuts if you will, but to call them intolerant is to misuse the word and to be inconsistent (notice I'm trying to practice what I preach, so I don't say "hypocritical").

> Do you think I'm advocating sex ed because I'm some liberal out to have
> kids practicing free love? 
 
No I don't caricature you that way the way you've caricatured many conservatives -- "Those who claim government should make it easier for people to be good who then stand up and oppose sex ed in light of this evidence .............  Too many of them would rather be right than do better."
> As a reader, you have to examine who's
> picking up the tab and how the data model was designed and its assumptions.
 
Yes. What about the one you cite?
 
Here's hoping your health improves.
 
Ken



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