Race, class and above all power.

Wrat

To repeat -

As to who decides well ask yourself which side would you have been on? Would you have opposed the ending of slavery or fought for it? Would you have wanted women to have the vote or been against it?

In your opinion what was fairer?

 

thats not an answer

 

Wrat

well answer the questions and lets see - can you answer the question or do you not want to answer the questions - are you taking the 5th?

 

to get pedantic I asked you several posts ago who decides whats fair and you have avoided answering so thats where I will leave it

 

Wrat

So you are taking the 5th –you don’t want to incriminate yourself by saying you were not in favour of ending slavery or giving women the vote – I quiet understand. LOL

Ok let’s go through this

People can decide which side of history they want to be on.

Do people want a fairer society or not - slavery was not fair, women not having the vote was unfair – these things may seem obvious now but there were many people that were against them.

There are many cases of institutional and societal inequality today in the US, are you on the side of there been a fairer society or not?

Who decides what is fair – you do.

But since you seem unable to even say after several posts that you think slavery was unfair I’m unsure what side of history you’d be on.

 

We don’t need a single point definition of fair to know the current situation where a few wealthy people control most of the economic wealth is grossly unfair. The distribution of wealth by quintile is measured by the gini coefficient.....look up the number for most European countries and you will see what a more equitable distribution of wealth looks like. Capitalism has a history of discarding the poor like last week’s rubbish.

 

walk

I’m just interested – is being inquisitive been "over the top" I often wonder why people like certain comments I mean I know I could always explain why I’ve liked a post, are you saying you can't?

You say ‘number of reasons’ but what reasons, I mean as part of the debating process it seems legitimate to ask why someone supports a certain position – have they genuine reasons for doing so or is it just partisan support that has no real solid foundation behind it.

 

Hindsight is always 20/20 to answer those questions appropriately I would have needed to be alive at that time and see how it affected me, its patently easy to agree with abolishing slavery NOW. and I already told you what I think is fair and you disagree

 

wrat

Slavery is only unfair in hindsight.

Ok so you are the type of person who would accept and be happy with slavery if it favoured you.

Your view is that slavery is not fundamentally unfair

 

Wrat

Where?

I mean you seem to be saying you think slavery is fair so what the fuck….

 

newsflah slavery still exists in many forms YOU are referring to the past and black slavery, just remember the blacks also sold blacks and some were ok with the situation and some were not .. things work until they dont,
For the most I am pleased when things favor me yes MOST people are sometimes its at the expense of another person life's not fair sometimes your the bug sometimes your the windshield, I am ok with this. you want something work for it that is fair

 

I think that we have almost solved that problem in the UK, but their will always be a few people who try to abuse any position.

 

Wils

I think we still have a long way to go, but we are in a far better position that the US, and that is because there is a lot more oversight of the UK police force.

 

Wrat

So you are the kind of person that would be happy to have slavery if it favoured you.

I think (and I’d guess most people would agree) that slavery is abhorrent something to be stopped but to you it would be a matter of if it served your interests, or at least didn’t affect you adversely

Now you have said elsewhere that this is spin but actually your views seem clear.

 

Last response IF 200 some odd years ago my FAMILY & LIVLIHOOD depended on slavery yes it would serve MY interests , My Family and interests will always come first

 

Policing should be about serving the public good but I was just imagining if you had police officers with similar views to Wrats, then that ideal goes out the window it would be purely about self-interest coupled with a disregard for the wellbeing of others.

In a philosophy of ‘life isn’t fair’ it would come down to ‘might is right’, of those with power and those that are powerless, I’s not about the public good, it’s not about been fair or just, or of working to make a better society.

I then thought that there would be others with the same political and philosophical outlook as Wrat, and basically they would accept such a system.

And then I wondered is that where many places in the US had got to?

I mean the abuses went on in plain sight, the militarisation of the police went on in plain sight, everyone knew about the ‘bad apples’ but those with a philosophy based on self-interest didn’t care because these things didn’t really affect them and when you view is ‘life isn’t fair’ then you don’t really care if it happens to other people.

Just a thought

 

Wrat

All you seem to be saying here is that if it suited your's and your family’s interests you’d be happy to bring back slavery. Basically confirming what you said before.

You have no moral qualms about slavery you really don’t care one way or another just as you wouldn’t care about those who were slaves (as long as it wasn’t you).

To me that is the kind of philosophy that would accept dictatorships, accept gulags, accept gas chambers that might even join in and go along with it if there seemed like something was in it for them.

 

Wrat was actually the first to ask you a question here:

Which @Balbus you still have completely failed to answer.

And what on earth is this drivel?

Which history, whose history, how far back. It might sound like some amazing revelation inside your head, but just saying "history" doesn't tell the reader anything


I have also read through the whole thread, I don't see anywhere where you have shown what is happening on the streets in America now is about class, or what you even specifically mean by class...just the usual tactic of repeating the same vague categorisation over and over "class"

 

VG

Which parts of my answers did you not understand?

The deserving and undeserving thing – the class thing – what?

I mean I can go through it again if you wish, but I don’t think I can put it any more simply.