As the Language Changes

Around the year 2003, I realized that the language was changing - the meaning of "racist" had shifted from describing a person that believed race described moral or intellectual superiority. People could be defined as racist by one thoughtless comment. The term also began to mean that the racist person had to be in the power demographic - in other words, a non-power demographic person could say terrible things based on race, but would not be termed a racist. I referred to a dictionary in 2004 or so and surprised even very educated people with the simple fact that even a person that dislikes others based on their race was, until recently, described as a bigot vice a racist. 

If I can make conscientious choices and show care and concern for every human I meet and still be a racist, then ... so what? How is the term any different than saying "you are an asshole"?

I wish there was a reason to believe these mutations of language were about creating a more just way of more good people living together in harmony. I fear that instead these changes are about creating a more centralized and more abusive federal government that will use all kinds of new reasons to create soul and economy crushing laws and turn us all into subjects vice citizens.

It is wrong to hurt a fellow human. It is wrong for a LE professional to hurt the people whom they are charged with protecting. It is wrong to hurt an LE professional. Excepting self defense or defense of others - do not hurt people. The concept is simple, how to actualize it in the world of human frailty is vexing.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/03/i-did-not-kill-george-floyd/

this is an effort to establish racial collective guilt for the murderous suffocation of George Floyd. There are two problems with this approach. The first is that collective guilt on the basis of racial origin is always a wicked ideology to pursue. Whether it’s Jews being held collectively guilty of the alleged excesses of ‘rich Jews’ or blacks being collectively punished for the offences of individual black people, such racial extrapolation always leads to prejudice and suffering. There is a twisted irony in the fact that so many commentators and activists who pose as anti-racist are promoting the ideology of collective racial guilt in response to the killing of George Floyd.

What is a Racist?

The word used to me, in my understanding, someone who believes some races are inferior, less valuable, not fully human. Or, more simply, that some races are better suited to rule and some less so, never mind humans rights or the notion that all humans are created equal in rights. 

Now, the word seems to mean "you are not an American with black skin". Or, "you are white". 

This is a complex nuanced topic. I get the influence of the unconscious and the ways that even non-black in the US have unconscious or conscious negative associations with blacks based on distorted facts, inculturation by the dominant class, real and unfortunate experiences or poor parenting. 

It does not seem to be enough to be a person who treats other people well. One could do that and still be called a racist. The basis of the claim could be on some pretty spotty grounds. Taking an action to hurt another person is not a requirement to be termed a racist. One could even amass a life time of kindness to others, say the wrong thing, and all of a sudden be tossed in the pit of boiling racist tar and feathers. 

Life is plenty hard for any of us, essentially all the time. It is harder when the rules are changing this fast and for seemingly arbitrary reasons. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/501857-am-i-racist

I hope he's right about the carriers

I always felt like a pretty fat target on the big deck ships in the area we sailed, but I hope the author is correct.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2020/06/09/claims-of-aircraft-carrier-vulnerability-are-false-but-the-versatility-is-real/#427be58f591a

US Will See Better Days, but China ...

... will run out of cards to play. Guessing the future is a fool's game but I'll always be more bullish on human liberty over goonish centralized planning (not that there's any other kind).

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/05/29/the_chinese_economy_is_reeling_president_trump_is_the_reason_why_494378.html

"How dare you!" (Resist the mob mentality on lockdowns ...)

Overall, Florida has been one of the safest states in the country during this pandemic, confounding all the media “experts,” whose dire predictions for the Sunshine State have failed to materialize. For a couple of weeks in late March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was incessantly denounced in the media because he was reluctant to issue a statewide “stay-at-home” order. DeSantis’s argument was that the state’s outbreak was largely confined to three counties — Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward — on Florida’s southeast coast. Local officials were implementing their own lockdown policies to contain these outbreaks, while state officials were concentrating their efforts on ensuring that Florida’s elderly population was protected from the virus. Given these circumstances, shutting down all “nonessential” business statewide was not necessary, DeSantis argued.

https://spectator.org/experts-wrong-florida-ron-desantis-coronavirus-shutdown-reopening/

This write up was enough to make me wish I could watch it ....

The best hope for the future of the world is that all parts of the world can be brought to property rights and rule of law, which would lead to stable or declining birth rates - at least, that is what has happened in every first world nation so far.

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2020/05/28/the_green_god_that_failed__almost_494439.html

He got shot? Yes, but he died of SARS-CoV-19

A review of the data by the Olympia-based Freedom Foundation found that of all the deaths attributed to the virus, 5% didn’t list COVID-19 as the cause of death on their death certificates. Another 13% involved people who had at one time tested positive for the disease, but the virus wasn’t “listed on death certificates as either causing or contributing to death.” Five of the state’s “coronavirus deaths” actually died from gunshot wounds. 

Gov. Jay Inslee’s reaction to the Freedom Foundation report was to accuse the group of trafficking in conspiracy theories “from the planet Pluto.”

The Freedom Foundation findings came after Colorado’s public health department was forced to admit that nearly a quarter of those listed as dying from COVID-19 didn’t have the disease listed on their death certificates.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/28/just-how-exaggerated-is-the-covid-19-death-count/