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Dr. Peikoff on which party to vote for: GOP or Democrat

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He pretty obviously said racist.

"Obviously"? I heard it as races, too. Not only that, "racists" would make no sense - enlisting racists, really, I don't even understand how that is even plausible. "Races" though makes more sense, but again, I don't see how that is plausible either. Basically, Peikoff was doing the equivalent of saying Obama enlisted ex-KGB officers. Doesn't matter which he said, Peikoff is just too old to do this anymore, not lucid enough.

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"Obviously"? I heard it as races, too. Not only that, "racists" would make no sense - enlisting racists, really, I don't even understand how that is even plausible. "Races" though makes more sense, but again, I don't see how that is plausible either. Basically, Peikoff was doing the equivalent of saying Obama enlisted ex-KGB officers. Doesn't matter which he said, Peikoff is just too old to do this anymore, not lucid enough.

 

When I said that "races" made the sentence valid, I meant that in a narrow sense. The entire rant didn't make sense externally, and didn't make sense coming from LP...

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"Obviously"? I heard it as races, too. Not only that, "racists" would make no sense - enlisting racists, really, I don't even understand how that is even plausible.

Are you asking me for an explanation, or are you using your lack of understanding as evidence that Leonard Peikoff is senile?

If you're asking for an explanation, then I can tell you that he is referring to the organization known as La Raza (official name, National Council of The Race). Feel free to guess which race that is.

Edited by Nicky
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Having listened to those few second again a few times, I conclude thus:

  • If I pull out just that word and loop it, it is very tough to tell. There appears to be a slight "t" near the end, but it is hard to say
  • Considered in context, "racists" makes sense, while "races" does not

So, I conclude he said "racists".

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If you're asking for an explanation, then I can tell you that he is referring to the organization known as La Raza (official name, National Council of The Race). Feel free to guess which race that is.

He said "of the world". La Raza isn't a worldwide organization. Either that, or he wasn't even paying attention to what he was saying.

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Well that's just strange. I'm not sure how to argue about an obviously incoherent sentence...

If the word is racists, the sentence is fully coherent. It's just not clear who are the racist immigrants that he's referring to. The word "races" in that context doesn't make any sense, because all races have been represented on electoral polls for decades. You can't enlist races onto electoral polls when all races are already enlisted.

Edited by oso
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If the word is racists, the sentence is fully coherent. It's just not clear who are the racist immigrants that he's referring to. The word "races" in that context doesn't make any sense, because all races have been represented on electoral polls for decades. You can't enlist races onto electoral polls when all races are already enlisted.

 

I guess the way I interpreted that is that Obama is identifying strategic races of people throughout the world who will come here and vote Democrat, and he's busy bribing them all to do so.

 

The alternative seems to be that he is going to scour the world to find all of the racists, and bribe them to come here to vote Democrat.

 

Okay, maybe.

 

Both notions are batshit insane...

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... Peikoff is just too old to do this anymore, not lucid enough.

 

I agree. He speaks of enlisting them onto "electoral polls" which also doesn't make sense to my British ear. Surely this should be "electoral rolls"? In the same way he says the word "racists" but the way he slurs his speech he probably meant to say "races". The sentence doesn't make sense to enlist "racists from any country" but enlisting "races from any country" does make sense.

 

So it's not just racist/races it's polls/rolls. Peikoff is definitely too old for this stuff and doesn't speak clearly enough. They're minor errors but can have huge differences to meaning as is demonstrated in this thread.

 

 

Having listened to those few second again a few times, I conclude thus:

  • If I pull out just that word and loop it, it is very tough to tell. There appears to be a slight "t" near the end, but it is hard to say
  • Considered in context, "racists" makes sense, while "races" does not

So, I conclude he said "racists".

 

 

How does "racists from any country" make more sense than "races from any country"? Especially in the context of his stated views of the Democrats deliberately letting in foreigners that vote Democratic?

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Um, okay.... Do you care to defend LP's thesis here??? Really?

Why would I defend his thesis? I'm for pretty open immigration, and for giving "amnesty" to all current illegals immigrants.

The thesis that democrats have a racist attitude is hardly something novel among Objectivists. The argument goes like this:

  • subjectivity is dominant in Epistemology (as opposed to intrinsic thinking for the GOP extreme)
  • thus, multi-culturalism and the truth for one race versus another... also gender, etc.
  • thus, defining people by their race and gender... sometimes sexuality, ..but always some such group

     

I'm not actually trying to make the argument here, but surely you're familiar with the thesis. Why would you be surprised when an Objectivist says a Democrat is racist?

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I'm not actually trying to make the argument here, but surely you're familiar with the thesis. Why would you be surprised when an Objectivist says a Democrat is racist?

 

Um, LP wasn't saying that "all Democrats are racists", he was insinuating that (in your hearing of the tape), "all (or most) non-US resident racists would vote Democrat if they came here".

 

(I continue to struggle to have this conversation at all, as it sounds like we're carefully analyzing a five-year-old's statements about the monster under their bed).

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Just as an aside, I've always considered racism to be a species of collectivism so it's not surprising that democracts conduct themselves in ways that sometimes blur the lines with racism - Like quotas or multiculturalism.  It is simply there way of implementing collectivism in their compartmentalized view of politics when compared to Republicans (immigration for example).  I don't think they racists but some come of that way since their ideas are bascially skepticism run amok so they missed the forest for the integration. 

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  • 2 years later...

Fast forward to 2016.  Dr. Peikoff's views are just as pertinent today as they were back in 2008.  

America has long since developed into a mixed sociopolitical system which adequately protects capitalism, yet unfortunately has strong elements of entitlement in it.  The roots of such a system happened in the 1930's under Roosevelt's watch.  My main reservation about such a system is that it unfairly expects all Americans to pay into such entitlement.  

Now more than ever, I view the Republican platform and its vociferous, bombastic candidate, Donald Trump, as an ever-worsening threat to individual rights due to their embracing time-worn Christian beliefs about those who are not white anglo-saxon Protestant men.  I note with disdain the current Senate opposing replacing a Supreme Court justice, doing everything in their right to delay such appointment, in the hope that a justice who espouses Religious Right values would get appointed by a Republican president.  Such bromides as stopping immigration, building walls between us and Mexico, and prohibiting abortion ring heavily in the G.O.P. agenda.  I don't know about the others on this forum, but I do not want to live in a country whose purpose is to further restrict our rights.

But I am going to vote this November.  And I hope that my vote, along with others who vote, will put an end to Donald Trump's pathetic campaign, send him back to reality trash TV where he belongs, and cause the Republican party to totally reorganize within their ranks.

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