🚀 go-pugleaf

"Mark Richards" <markrichards8@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I'll grant you this: if a people lived in a relatively benign climate that
>was rich in food and water, they might stagnate developmentally because
>there had no pressing needs to overcome.

Or if they lived in a harsh environment that required devoting their
full attention to acquiring food and water, they might stagnate
developmentally.  The Eskimo's and Laplanders did not invent any
advanced civilizations either.

>So why do I reject this argument in reference to blacks? Simply because upon
>being exposed to the wondrous new technology, they did not copy it and adapt
>it to themselves.

Likewise the Eskimos and the Laplanders.  Likewise all manner of
"primitive peoples" of the world.  NONE of them "copy and adapt it to
themselves".  Are they all inferior to western European whites?  Or
perhaps they are missing something necessary to taking advantage of
it?  (Like "money", i.e. extra resources above and beyond that needed
for survival in order to invest in new things at a significant rate).

>It is often said that it took the white man to build a
>modern civilization in Africa, but that is not exactly true. They did not
>bring in hordes of Belgians and Swiss etc. to tame the wilderness and build
>great European-style cities. No, actually the local blacks did it. The
>whites provided the ideas and the motivation, but mostly blacks did the
>work. They also achieved at least mid-level management in all the African
>colonies, so they were involved in the day-to-day operation of a functioning
>economy. Yet in every case - every single case - upon the departure of the
>whites the former colonies descended into chaos.

Political chaos, perhaps. Loss of civilization?  I think you are
imagining things. 

Do you really think that Nairobi and Lagos are prehistoric villages
with 2 million and 12 million people respectively.  Do you know what
kind of infrastructure is needed to support a city of 12 million?
They couldn't do it in medieval Europe.  The African nations are
putting their limited resources into nation-building, which takes
time.

>And the worst "villains" of
>all, the South Africans, provided the most enduring civilization, although
>it, too, is doomed.

"Enduring"?  The South African "civilization" lasted a total of a
couple of decades longer than the "Soviet civilization".

I suspect that you need to read some African history.  There were
African civilizations that endured hundreds of years.  And I'm not
even including the Egyptians, which European civilization is finally
catching up with in longevity.

>So never mind what could have happened, should have happened, or didn't
>happen in the last 2,000 years. Right now today, why is there not a single
>African country that simply maintained the goodies it inherited from the
>colonials?

Several of them have done so and furthermore improved on them.  No
they haven't caught up and joined the financially powerful countries.
South Africa has a GNP per capita of $3,170. Botswana, Gabon and
Namibia have higher GNP's per capita, Namibia's being up at the level
of the Eastern European countries.

Several sub-Saharan countries have raised their literacy rates to the
60-80% level, far higher than it was 50 years ago, higher than India
(another ancient civilization) and comparable with Saudi Arabia.

But it takes time to build an educated populace and a modern economy
starting with few resources other than manpower.  You seem to think
that because they haven't done so in the 40 years since British
independence, that they cannot do so.

>My answer is: because they are run by blacks. You do not accept that answer.
>But since all available evidence says it is, your argument requires the
>greater proof, which is probably why it uses such long and convoluted
>explanations.

The problem is that you have no evidence, only ignorance and
prejudice.

>> >Now that's funny. Where I work, every qualified black is hired. Then they
>> >are treated with kid gloves because management is afraid to reprimand them.
>> >(In fairness, they are decent enough fellows who wouldn't cause trouble
>> >anyway, in my opinion.
>>
>> Well then how do you know how management would treat them "if"?  You
>> are ASSuming it.
>
>Because I am part of management.

In other words, YOU are afraid to reprimand them, if they do something
wrong.  You are a wimp who is not qualified to be a manager, and
takeout your inferiority complex by racist postings on the net.

>> Education and income levels, lack of segregation in some areas, the
>> kind of color blindness that has allowed my daughter to spend time
>> with black boys as well as whites without condemnation (and I live in
>> a southern state).  The fact that her music teacher that was black
>> itself would not have been possible in the 50s.
>
>So blacks are more incorporated into white society. OK, but most blacks
>don't live in white society.

The ones in this country do.

>> >What responsibility do we Americans have to the millions of blacks living
>> >perpetually in the ghetto?
>>
>> To consider them to be part of "we Americans" so that we know that
>> "we Americans" are living perpetually in the ghetto, not "those
>> others"
>
>Well, just for the record, the only division of Americans that makes sense
>to me is between the taxpaying and the non-taxpaying.

An odd division to call the "only" one that makes sense.  And you
obviously think that blacks don't pay taxes.  Tell me, O manager: do
you withhold income tax from the paychecks of your black workers?  Do
you think they get all that money back in refunds or something?  If
not, then they pay taxes too.

I hate to correct your misinformation, but in 1999, 12.6% of black
households had over $75K of income, and 14% had incomes between $50K
and $75K.  The median income was over $27K.  Do you think people at
that income level "don't pay taxes"?

Black males have an average income of $20,579, less than white males
at $28,584, but more than Hispanic males (who are usually "white", and
significantly more than white females.  

Yes, 23.6% are below the poverty line, which means they probably get
some money back from the government, but so are 9.8% of whites (and
there are a lot more whites in that 10% than blacks in 23%).  And
getting some money back doesn't mean that they don't pay taxes.

>Unfortunately, because
>of the realities of our country today, that position is often construed as
>racist, since any attempt to let working Americans keep their money results
>in less money for blacks.

Thereby implying that you make a different division than the one you
say "makes sense", between "working Americans" and "blacks".  THAT
distinction is what gets you labeled as a racist.

>I am no socialist.

More likely an anti-social.

>"We Americans" should not have the legal obligation to
>support "those Americans" who can't or won't support themselves, regardless
>of what color they are.

I guess I should remember that if you suffer an injury in an auto
accident like a friend of mine (white, if it matters) that leaves you
unable to work, or if you get an illness that your insurance doesn't
fully cover.  Then we can let you starve to death or depend on the
charity of your black, taxpaying, workers.

>> Luckily for blacks, they don't have to.  They are a PART of a 21st
>> century society which merely has to sustain itself, something it
>> cannot do while leaving 15% (or 30% if you count the Hispanics who
>> have even worse education numbers) "living perpetually in the ghetto".
>
>American blacks, you mean. African blacks will almost certainly die off in
>great numbers before the next century.

Really?  That is why they are currently growing at an unsustainably
high rate.  Part of the reason that Africa remains mired in such
poverty is their population grows as fast as their income.

This in turn is because their civilization level has risen to the
point where the death rate from starvation and disease no longer keep
up with the birth rate, which remains at pre-modern levels (a level
that the US was still at in the 19th century).  Birth rates tend to
drop when education levels get higher.

>> We have to change that, or our society will fail, passed up by other
>> countries that are more enlightened and hence more efficient so that
>> they aren't wasting 30% of their human resources.
>
>Only if you are correct. If I am, we will be surpassed by countries that
>aren't so narrow-minded that they keep throwing money down a rathole.

Given what you seem to call "throwing money down a rathole" (i.e.
spending money on the poor rather than giving you yet another tax
cut), the US is BEHIND most modern countries in this endeavor.  Around
100 nations of the world provide social security benefits to sick and
maternity patients, including most of Europe and Japan.  Around 30
countries spend a high percentage of their government income on social
protection programs than the US does, including Japan, Germany, and
Switzerland.

lojbab