Okay, to Cheez and Nic:
1: Genocide
Yes, I am aware that some people try and extend it to include idealogy or culture. The fact that I disagree with this extension is what started the discussion on it to begin with.
As far as I go, I believe that Genocide is limited to the destruction of an ethnicity. Basically if you are going to round up all Arabs, Hebrews, Blacks, Asians, Whites, or whatever and murder them so there aren't any more left. That is the only thing that is genocide.
Otherwise, you'd basically have to start making arguements by the extended logic that by erasing racism, banning hate speech, and generally persecuting groups like say the KKK or Nazis we should all put guns to our own heads and committ suicide for crimes against humanity because we are committing genocide.
"But wait Therumancer, nobody considers hate based philosophies to be included in that. The whole idea is the law is to prevent them"... and that is exactly my point, and a concept like this has to be universal.
The fact that groups like the UN have accepted an extended definition is one of the reasons I believe they are a group of idiots that have outlived their usefulness, and that the US should leave and simply start another group (a whole differant discussion). I am just waiting for the day that someone from the KKK, Khymer Rouge Remnants, or Al Queda or whatever comes up and demands support from the UN due to being victims of attempted ideological genocide.
"You can't genocidally annihilate those who want to perpetuate genocide without causing genocide. Thus you should protect our right to preach and perhaps committ genocide to prevent genocide!". Uh-Huh.
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2:
On the matter of Affirmitive action itself:
#1: The only people argueing that Obama could have been elected purely by Black support are people who want to keep racism alive for political reasons, and honestly this includes a lot of the media and those generating statistics because after all the issue, whether it truely exists or not, gets attention. These are exactly the guys with a vested interest in there never truely being an end to it.
Blacks are a minority group, there simply are not enough of them to carry a cantidate without overwhelming support from the mainstream (which are ethnically white). This is why the election of Obama is a noteworthy occurance and proves the demise of racism as a mainstream phenomena.
When it comes to the mainstream you REALLY have to look for something that addresses the issue of race in anything but presenting a message of tolerance. For the most part to try and find a sign of racism people really have to go overboard and try and claim things like RE 5 are racist (which is simply ridiculous).
Actually the easiest forms of racist material to find are pro-black, but even then it's typically indirect. Even Rap music has chilled out quite a bit in recent years. The whole "get rich or die trying", and "so coool to be a Thug" generes of Black-centric entertainment are liable to gradually die out before too long, especially if people start to seriously look at it and realize that a lot of it is very similar to what is currently being CLAIMED about games like RE5, except in reverse, and for real (as opposed to digging for a headline). But as I said that won't be immediate.
Things like KKK newsletters and such just aren't mainstream, and please note I have carefully been using the term "Mainstream" rather than saying the issue is entirely dead, because there still are guys out there running around with sheets over their heads. They are treated with scorn, and if mentioned in the media it's typically to mock them, but they are out there. The attempted "Genocide" continues but is not yet complete .
#2:
Affirmitive Action existed largely because when it started people would fire off the "N" word as frequently as they said hello when dealing with black people, and nobody would want them around. Basically there were overt acts of discrimination.
Right now such things simply do not exist. The biggest form of discrimination you see is when minorities "take care of their own" by hiring and promoting other minorities in a lot of cases. Though such is not always the case, it does happen.
Sure, somewhere down in hicksville there might be a package store where a guy keeps a pillowcase with eyeholes under the counter next to his shotgun and copy of "The Amerikkkan Warrior". But that isn't mainstream and in general there are probably a few black owned businesses that would have similar hiring practices in reverse. But none of this is MAINSTREAM.
Today when you get hired, nobody cares. In fact people care so little that like 90% of the hiring is done almost totally by computer. Your typical job, like working for Wal*Mart involves either calling their website to apply, or using the internet right there from their store. You don't even ask for an application. It's a huge conglomerate, they want disposable employee #112451 they don't care what your ethnicity is. Heck if they call you in for an interview it's typically just to make sure the information from the computer is accurate half the time.
The exception to this is of course job or hiring fairs. When I got hired to work at Mohegan Sun down here in connecticut, the "hiring process" was basically a giant line they fed all the prospetive employees though like a conveyor. Here you had an application, and you tossed it over, they double checked the information, and basically said "oh you want this job, okay, the sheet is accurate? will you work hard. Go for it, come in next week for your uniform".
Now I suppose things are a little more personal for some jobs, but this is how it is for most people, and I've been through the process (admittedly I only held 2 jobs over a period of 10 years before I became disabled and both were in Casino Security, the first one where I got hired like the above was as a Janitor though and once I had my foot in the door I went into security due to my Criminal Justice training from College).
Mom and pops stores are disappearing, and honestly the day of walking in, risking a manager giving you an application based on what you look like, and then sitting down for a serious job interview, are dead for most normal blue collar employment. Even outside of blue collar it's all about your Pedigree/qualifications since companies can consider good ones a notch in their belt.
In such situations Affirmitive action usually amounts to a company being given a quota and then telling so many white people "no" until they have the set number of minorities simply to appease the goverment, and that is how the game is played.
Don't believe me? Check out a Wal*Mart employment center/kiosk at one of their stores, and they are one of America's biggest employers. Heck after *I* was hired the Casinos also went totally online and now they have computers out front. It's so incredibly antiseptic and impersonal nowadays that it's ridiculous. Businesses only care about you being able to fit in as a cog in their machine, they could care less about you personally.
Even when your dealing with AA situations for management and supervisory positions, it just comes down to a computer reviewing qualifications before anyone gets an interview, and the computer tells the guys in charge who their options are. If the goverment has mandated that they need so many minorities in those positions, the computer is simply going to produce minorities (and tell them why) and overall qualifications are going to be irrelevent. After all the company could care less, but does need to keep Uncle Sam off their doorstep.
The bottom line is that not only is racism dead as a mainstream phenomena, but also that the world has changed so much since such laws were conceived that it's ridiculous. The laws are an incredibly biased joke.
>>>----Therumancer--->
