In other news

40 years + of systemic, widespread racial discrimination in college admission and hiring, with a ton of people claiming it's morally indispensable to do so, every single one of them on the left, and they still claim they are those pro racial blindness from the state (which was the civil right act).

an epic proportions fraud, and a mentally dishonest take by all those among them who know better.

That's not the left doing that though that's the right. You should look into Walter Benn Michaels

Here is a good one here The Political Economy of Anti-racism

I don't know who this guy is, never heard of him.

but you linked me a very vanilla ultra leftist take.

he supports abominations of "arguments" like "if there was no past racism blacks would have identical outcome to whites" which are exclusively believed by leftists

lol? this is absurd in ita face especially given quality blacks from Africa have higher incomes than whites in the USA.

jump start? if you remove barriers outcome will be wildly unequal and purely reflect the objective talent differential among individuals AND GROUPS.

which is what you guys deny exists among groups ofc

it’s at least reasonable to think that if you have 200 years of discrimination, the effects of that won’t disappear overnight.

so I don’t think it’s “lol”

I’m not really interested in debating the empirics of the topic as the point is just to contrast the difference between Jim Crow and Affirmative Action from the standpoint of intent.

I am generally against continuing affirmative action policies today

I think mostly out of randomness, I've been watching a fair amount of old school futuristic movies that has taken place in the future right around now - BTTF 2, Running Man, blade Runner and most are obviously way off or just too early in their prediction but Demolition Man is pretty damn close.

...Waymo style vehicles with an Alexa voice command
...No more handshaking due to germs
...Virtual Sex
...Zoom meetings
...All restaurants gone expect for fast food
...An unarmed, non violent police force (a work in progress)
...Ticket for swearing
...A man Asking "robot chat" why he feels so depressed all the time.

I remember watching that movie in theatres as a youngin and both thinking that there was no way the future was going to look like that and hoping that it didnt.

What are you reasons for disputing this?

I have read him. Brilliant chap.

There's no reason at to believe he would think centuries old views were gospal. On free speech in particular his view in part based on the weighing of harms. That balance changes over time so who knows for sure where he would stand today. He may well disagree with me but at least i'm following his line of reasoning. Those just blindly parroting his conclusions from centuries ago as if they are immutable are doing him a grave injustice.

"On Liberty", which is the one John Stuart Mill text I have read, isn't really a text filled with conclusions. There is certainly opinions, but it more arguments and comparisons.

I'd say it is well worth a read today. It is an easy read and quite engaging, except perhaps the repeated harping about religion, which I guess is just a trait of the times. Interestingly, the book actually goes further in defense of free speech than most current ideology, despite being written in far more unstable times both politically and geopolitically.

It is also an interesting commentary on "cancel culture", because Mill seems just as concerned with society's attempts at controlling speech as he is with government's attempts at controlling of speech.

I agree. And JSM actually argues that understanding is helped by incorrect/bad views being expressed. Which I also agree with. That still has to be weighed in the light of harms.

It's complicated and it's almost impossible to believe that social media (among other things) didn't significantly change the balance.

JSM, Chapter VIII (Of the Extension of the Suffrage) of "considerations on representative government" (1861)

the illiterate and innumerate shouldn't have the right to vote (but the teaching of those skills should be provided free of charge)

There are, however, certain exclusions, required by positive reasons, which do not conflict with this principle, and which, though an evil in themselves, are only to be got rid of by the cessation of the state of things which requires them. I regard it as wholly inadmissible that any person should participate in the suffrage without being able to read, write, and, I will add, perform the common operations of arithmetic. Justice demands, even when the suffrage does not depend on it, that the means of attaining these elementary acquirements should be within the reach of every person, either gratuitously, or at an expense not exceeding what the poorest, who can earn their own living, can afford. If this were really the case, people would no more think of giving the suffrage to a man who could not read, than of giving it to a child who could not speak; and it would not be society that would exclude him, but his own laziness. When society has not performed its duty by rendering this amount of instruction accessible to all, there is some hardship in the case, but it is a hardship that ought to be borne. If society has neglected to discharge two solemn obligations, the more important and more fundamental of the two must be fulfilled first; universal teaching must precede universal enfranchisement. No one but those in whom an à priori theory has silenced common sense will maintain that power over others, over the whole community, should be imparted to people who have not acquired the commonest and most essential requisities for taking care of themselves—for pursuing intelligently their own interests, and those of the persons most nearly allied to them. This argument, doubtless, might be pressed further, and made to prove much more. It would be eminently desirable that other things besides reading, writing, and arithmetic could be made necessary to the suffrage; that some knowledge of the conformation of the earth, its natural and political divisions, the elements of general history, and of the history and institutions of their own country, could be required from all electors. But these kinds of knowledge, however indispensable to an intelligent use of the suffrage, are not, in this country, nor probably any where save in the Northern United States, accessible to the whole people, nor does there exist any trustworthy machinery for ascertaining whether they have been acquired or not. The attempt, at present, would lead to partiality, chicanery, and every kind of fraud. It is better that the suffrage should be conferred indiscriminately, or even withheld indiscriminately, than that it should be given to one and withheld from another at the discretion of a public officer. In regard, however, to reading, writing, and calculating, there need be no difficulty. It would be easy to require from every one who presented himself for registry that he should, in the presence of the registrar, copy a sentence from an English book, and perform a sum in the rule of three; and to secure, by fixed rules and complete publicity, the honest application of so very simple a test. This condition, therefore, should in all cases accompany universal suffrage; and it would, after a few years, exclude none but those who cared so little for the privilege, that their vote, if given, would not in general be an indication of any real political opinion.

Those who don't pay a tax should have no power to discuss that tax, it would be a basic violation of the concept of free government (so institute a poll tax to give them the vote, or make people PAY TO HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE)

It is also important, that the assembly which votes the taxes, either general or local, should be elected exclusively by those who pay something towards the taxes imposed. Those who pay no taxes, disposing by their votes of other people's money, have every motive to be lavish and none to economize. As far as money matters are concerned, any power of voting possessed by them is a violation of the fundamental principle of free government, a severance of the power of control from the interest in its beneficial exercise. It amounts to allowing them to put their hands into other people's pockets for any purpose which they think fit to call a public one, which, in the great towns of the United States, is known to have produced a scale of local taxation onerous beyond example, and wholly borne by the wealthier classes. That representation should be coextensive with taxation, not stopping short of it, but also not going beyond it, is in accordance with the theory of British institutions. But to reconcile this, as a condition annexed to the representation, with universality, it is essential, as it is on many other accounts desirable, that taxation, in a visible shape, should descend to the poorest class. In this country, and in most others, there is probably no laboring family which does not contribute to the indirect taxes, by the purchase of tea, coffee, sugar, not to mention narcotics or stimulants. But this mode of defraying a share of the public expenses is hardly felt: the payer, unless a person of education and reflection, does not identify his interest with a low scale of public expenditure as closely as when money for its support is demanded directly from himself; and even supposing him to do so, he would doubtless take care that, however lavish an expenditure he might, by his vote, assist in imposing upon the government, it should not be defrayed by any additional taxes on the articles which he himself consumes. It would be better that a direct tax, in the simple form of a capitation, should be levied on every grown person in the community; or that every such person should be admitted an elector on allowing himself to be rated extra ordinem to the assessed taxes; or that a small annual payment, rising and falling with the gross expenditure of the country, should be required from every registered elector, that so every one might feel that the money which he assisted in voting was partly his own, and that he was interested in keeping down its amount.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/566...

Context always matters when reading these works.

Income tax was a hotly debated topic in the UK when "On Liberty" was written and published, it had been introduced at the start of the century, then repealed, and then in mid-century it had been re-introduced but with exemptions for lower income and combined with tariffs to ensure enough government funds. Still, many many wanted it abolished.

Similarly for schooling, you're still a time well before schooling was available to everyone in the UK and the idea of state-funding such efforts was still a long way off. Mill's suggestion about making this a reality is quite radical.

However, the most extreme element of the text you pasted is actually not that obvious to a most modern readers and to make it even more difficult is even hidden between the lines. Still, for the time it would have been radical to point of shocking: That voting should be within reach of everyone.

I can pretty much guarantee that that was an opinion that caused a lot of raised eyebrows, shocked tut-tuts and perhaps even the odd snort.

Yes so, as i stated, even a RADICAL leftist , the spearhead in favor of enlarging the franchise basically more than any other intellectual at his time, or before, in history, STILL HAD LIMITS at being a net tax payer, and literate (keep in mind basic literacy in 1860 was around 60-65% in the UK).

So TODAY, 160 years after that (which is *a very short time* historically), i have to read that unless i am TO THE LEFT of the most radical thinker on the topic in 1860, i am "dumb".

The idea that only the universal franchise is defensible and allows to call a system a democracy is so extreme, so radical, so absurdly a-historical, is my claim.

And btw when i say the left won every cultural battle far beyond what even the most radical people thought possible (or good) , this is one of the reasons why.

That what was the most radical , upsetting take just 150 years ago (which again, is NOTHING at least in our continent, it's less than the age of most buildings in our city centers) would today be considered reactionary and bigot. By people claiming we aren't enough on the left lol.

Currently there are 18954 posts from you proving this claim.

So, are 'quality blacks' the ones that are "a credit to their race" and aren't 'uppity?'

Funny how this dishonest creep who spends all morning, afternoon and evening posting far right fascist eugenics style ideology, probably for money, and makes no contribution to society, considers himself “quality”.

I don't understand what you mean. It's well known that african migration to the USA is and has been of very high quality in the last 50+ years. Almost only highly educated people, children of african elite or at least significantly well off vs their country average.

That's why every african community except those made up of refugees (for which there is no such quality filter) has massively higher incomes than actual american blacks.

Nigerian americans come to the USA and immediatly have far higher incomes than american blacks. That 1) completly disproves the existence of any actual current anti-black racism 2) proves that the current problems american blacks have are entirely not related to racism.

Otherwise all blacks including newcomers would perform far worse than other races in the USA.

people from the US see that and come to very different conclusions. they actually infer that it’s evidence that the conditions of black americans are caused by discriminatory zoning/schooling/services/etc.

Of course as well there is a lot that black people can overcome with higher levels of income. And people can be discriminated against in very particular ways where someone might think African immigrants are ok and black people from the US aren’t.

Rubbish. Racism is on a spectrum running from ‘well, we’d prefer people who integrate culturally well with our (mainly white) employees but if we can pay them less than an equally qualified white person then ok I suppose’’ to white hoods and nooses.

There are also racist assumptions about US black people often being drug dealers and violent criminals that don’t taint black Africans so much.

And there are class distinctions, biases and prejudices which take precedence over race.

So, would you say that an immigrant who is poorly educated is not a 'quality person?'

In a post-industrial information-based economy ? unless he has other talents needed for the job market, then no?

So, for you a 'quality person' is someone who has the requisite talent and/or education for the current job market?

I personally would define a 'quality person' (in this context) as someone who is honest, willing to learn and willing to work hard. Someone with those attributes can learn marketable skills without having such skills prior to coming to the U.S.

This guy should just switch over to the republican party. They would love him. Maybe make a run at pres in 2028.

https://scdailygazette.com/2025/08/13/sc...

as an immigration prospect yes, how and why would that be surprised? are you running a charity with immigration?

Did you miss the memo about the lower-middle class being slaughtered in the post industrial economy? honesty and hard work won't make you a net tax payer if you have a low IQ and are uneducated. And being "willing to learn" wouldn't work either without the knowledge base and necessary mental hardware (IQ).

And you really don't want to import future tax takers.