I can at least sort of make sense of what you're saying now, but I still feel like you've really misread the post.

He's arguing, from what I can tell, that Britain has a history of disenfranchising Muslims -- in reference to the previous "what not to learn from Britain" post, I take this to mean that he agrees heavy-handed law enforcement techniques and racial profiling, among other issues, are bad acts perpetrated by the UK government against their Muslim community.

He's saying that's a bad thing. He's saying that, since Muslims are being made to feel less like UK citizens, it's reasonable to expect at least some of them to feel less like UK citizens. He suggests that better integrating Muslims in the UK -- making them feel more welcome -- isn't just a humane, decent thing to do, but a better approach to law enforcement. There's nothing racist about that -- and insofar as it cuts against anyone, it cuts against British law enforcement. I think the real racists here are the racial profilers.

I really think you're misreading this. It seems like an extremely reasonable post to me. That being said, thanks for clarifying your thoughts.

mike

Posted at August 15, 2006 4:44 PM in response to What Britain is Learning from the US

Actually, I have no idea what you're getting at.

His argument is that it's a good idea to avoid disenfranchising segments of our community, because people who feel disenfranchised are likely to be less concerned with the wellbeing of the community.

How is this racist?

If I could honestly make sense of your post I'd probably give it a 0 -- illogical and spurious accusations of racism seem troll-worthy to me -- but I can't even figure out what you're getting at.

mike

Posted at August 14, 2006 2:41 PM in response to What Britain is Learning from the US

That's where this post lost me too. Bush's rhetoric tends to focus on Al Qaeda, but I don't remember the last time he actually did something about them.

mike

Posted at August 14, 2006 2:15 PM in response to W and Osama: The Odd Couple?

Interesting point. But I'm not sure that's a question of the person's thoughts so much as how much thought we can reasonably expect of a person in a given circumstance.

Or, to say it another way, we're not actually quantifying the person's state of mind and sentencing accordingly, we're quantifying what it's reasonable to expect.

So if Dan finds Victor in bed with his wife, he hasn't had a lot of time to think things through and we'll forgive him slightly for the subsequent killing.

If he hears about it in his office, waits a while, and then kills Victor, we understand that he had time to think more on the issue and still committed murder -- so we're less leniant.

Yes, the definition depends on "a reasonable person's" hypothetical response to the situation, but it does not depend on *Dan's* specific response. In fact, it specifically excludes him -- because being outraged by something unreasonable (such as, say, finding out a stranger is gay) doesn't predispose our community to go easy on you.

You could argue pretty easily (and convincingly) that I'm just coming up with a different rationale for essentially the same decision, but I'd be curious to see you come up with a parallel rationale in the case of a hate crime. I suspect we're talking about fundamentally different issues here.

Not that this is either here or there.

mike

Posted at August 12, 2006 11:02 PM in response to Answering Rhetorical Questions

This is one of those weird things. Hate crime legislation has always struck me as rather insane because you aren't being punished for your actions, but your thoughts. Or, looking at it as we do here, you're being punished for straying from the more acceptable targets available to you.

Philosophically it's completely insane, but that doesn't mean we ought to go to great lengths to fix it. People have different reactions to different murders. As long as we can agree that they're all pretty bad, I'm not especially terrified by a little prejudice getting into the mix.

mike

Posted at August 12, 2006 5:22 PM in response to Answering Rhetorical Questions

I don't think either of us can know if what you say is true, but we can be sure of one thing:

For us pro-withdrawal dems, it's very much to our advantage to advance a narrative wherein CT is symptomatic of the national political situation. I happen to believe it is anyway, but that's somewhat beside the point, since this is purely an issue of how you read the tea leaves, not a genuinely factual issue.

In other words, I don't feel dishonest saying Lieberman's problems are the establishment's problems, and I sure want the establishment to believe it.

mike

Posted at August 9, 2006 7:15 PM in response to Five More Cents on J. Lieb.

I know pointing out that groups are composed of individuals feels brilliant and insightful, but it doesn't really negate the fact that groups tend to have a net impact in one direction or another -- since human beings, however special they are, tend to occasionally agree on one or two things.

mike

Posted at August 3, 2006 1:25 AM in response to Too Conservative?

No, no, I did understand that you feel there are lots of different motivations for these people.

I just don't see how that contradicts Matt's basic point -- being that, as I read it, for different goals, different levels of violence are effective. I actually think your basic point and his work together.

I'm not sure where you find a disagreement, but it's not a big deal.

mike

Posted at August 3, 2006 12:20 AM in response to Violence and Insurgency

You seem to believe that you're arguing against Matt, here, which strikes me as wrong -- I'm not seeing a substantive point of disagreement in the meat of either argument.

He's saying, "If people were thinking rationally, they would do these things."

You're saying, "But they're not rational."

No actual disagreement!

One thing that always bugs me, though, is the assertion that all insurgents are irrational. I believe that many of them probably are, but surely we aren't so terrified of these people that we can't admit at least a few of them are perfectly rational, even if they aren't our friends.

You also seem to be conflating all insurgents and terrorists, which again serves to talk past the substance of Matt's post. Note the peaceful examples he provided above. Part of what seperates especially rational people and less rational people is that especially rational people tend to be less interested in violence -- and therefore, less likely to terrorize.

mike

Posted at August 2, 2006 6:28 PM in response to Violence and Insurgency

That's what's most interesting to me about the article, though, and a point deserving of extensive discussion -- why is it harder to sell things like medical foreign aid and actual spending focused on actual homeland security to the American people than it is to convince them to go to war?

And how much easier is it? Why?

I personally suspect it's an issue of the anti-welfare voting bloc combined with the dishonest and morally pitiful rhetoric of savage conservatives and cowardly liberals, but we can't say until people who know more than I investigate the question.

mike

Posted at June 26, 2006 8:58 PM in response to The High Price of War