Another Xangan posted an article called "Racism: get over it already."

I find this is actually a surprisingly common attitude among those with liberal upbringing, which is fascinating if you think about it: having grown up with "racism is bad" beaten into their heads, perhaps they assume that everyone has likewise been made to understand that racism is bad and thus, it's a non-issue.  This is not only a gross misunderstanding of the diversity of viewpoints present in society, it leaves them ill-equipped to deal with what racism remains.

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Okay, seriously?

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin as Conan the Barbarian (with gold medallion) and Red Sonja ("She-devil with a sword" and glasses)?

Wherein I compare Pat Robertson to a delusional anime character

"The people of Haiti didn't die for us." - Nephyo

An economist might object.  In a sense they did die for us, where "they" are the poor and "we" are those lucky enough to live in affluent countries.  Resources are limited, and concentrated in affluent areas.  In the rawest terms, the poor have always been a shield for the rich, as long as there have been distinctions of class and wealth.  In fact, it can be argued that the very concepts of class and wealth are inherently exploitative (see also "Property is theft.")

Of course, the majority of earthquake victims didn't die because of anything involving money, but those who were on the brink and whose lives were lost due to missing supplies or poor treatment would, statistically speaking, probably have survived if they had been living in a much more prosperous country, with stocks of emergency supplies and helicopters to airlift them in.  It's not that we literally killed them to fuel some obscene ritual, ripping their hearts out in tribute to the sun like ancient Aztecs, or that they were directly and consciously harvested for some purpose, like pod people in The Matrix.  But they died anyway, so those distinctions are immaterial.

It's important to note that economics also teaches us that if we had instead concentrated wealth in Haiti, it would be people elsewhere who suffered and died in their stead when some other incident occurred.  There is no victory to be had from that, only damage control.  It's maddening, because it's like asking "Which child of yours would you like to die?" or "Would you like to lose your left hand, or your right hand?" The ideal choice - I'd like them all to live; I'd like to keep all of myself intact - doesn't exist.

However, there are still choices, and people are going to make them, for good or for ill.  Furthermore, the Dismal Science teaches us that there are some things - higher levels of technology, of medical development, of art - that only arise when resources are concentrated in one place.

So society continues to concentrate resources, hoping against hope that one day something will deliver everyone from the iron judgment that people will always suffer and resources will never be sufficient.  Of course people rationalize this in different ways - "I deserve this because I work harder," "I just want what I'm entitled to," or even "Idealism is for suckers."  Some reject it, and seek to distribute wealth evenly, or just differently. Are they helping things, or are they only making it harder to achieve that concentration needed for progress?  I don't know, and it's often easy to find arguments in favor of either interpretation for a given example.

But even if we can't figure out where we're headed, we should at least realize how things stand.

An Outsider’s Introduction to Ikkicon

  - By CallMeQuell

He thought we were assholes.

It was a rainy night, and several of us were out at a diner.  We paid the bill and went to go, and as we did so, the clerk interrupted us with a speech about Haiti.  His face a mask of woe, he recounted tales of suffering, of thousands of bodies left to rot in the streets.  We have it good here, he said. A large jar marked DONATIONS FOR HAITI was prominently featured next to the register. I nodded at him and deposited my change there, then continued the conversation as we headed out.

He cast a baleful glare at us after we had gone.

What he did not know - what he could not have known - was that our party included a medical researcher, two social workers, a grad student researching genocide prevention, and a medical student.  Putting aside that several of us had already donated to Haiti - putting aside that most of us do, in fact, work explicitly for the betterment of the world - there was no proof that any donations in the jar would, in fact, make their way to Haiti.

But no, failure to follow certain social rituals in certain situations makes us assholes.

On hearing Hong Gildong referred to as "the Korean Robin Hood" I was conflicted.  That's not wrong, exactly - both were outlaws who stole from rich and corrupt officials to feed the poor - but the syntactic convention of making everything in another culture their version of something in your own is suspect.

To my knowledge, the Chinese do not refer to the Gutenberg press as "the German Bi Sheng press," nor do the Koreans refer to it as "the German Choe Yun-ui press."

Does our language predestine us to think of other cultures in "imperialistic" terms?

What's the difference between a king and his horse? I don't mean superficial considerations like, "One's a person's and one's an animal" or, "One has two legs and one has four." Even if there are no notable differences between their form, ability and power, one becomes the king and controls the battle, while the other becomes the horse and carries the king. And why is that? There's only one answer. Instinct! In order for identical beings to get stronger and gain the power they need to become king, they must search for more battles and power!

- Kubo Tite, Bleach

Ravnr and Zerowing21 brought DOMA to my attention.  It's the Defense of Marriage Act, where "defense" apparently means "narrowing."

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

Many liberals love Clinton, so it's interesting that Clinton signed this into law.  Yes, it's probable that politically he didn't want to fight over it by vetoing it, but he could have just let it pass into law without his signature.