h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>that's just moral relativism.<<

Absolutely. So in the context of war, which the elected government has declared on another country, whether or not one agrees with it, do you think it's wrong to kill?

In my opinion *context* is fundemental in trying to undrestand nwhether a particular course of action is morally okay. We live in a democracy and the Race Relations Act is the law of the land.

Fine, we now know exactly what you stand for.

For you, morals are a shifting sand depending on the situation.

And you support racism.

Conflating employment legislation and war is ridiculous.

I'm presuming from your reply then that you are an absolutist about your morals. On the presumption you believe killing people is immoral, I wonder why a *conchy* would join the Rotal Navy.

"Groundless? It's a link to a job application that clearly shows race discrimination. As a way of a riposte, you find an ad that's open to all? WTF does that prove? "They're not always racist"? That makes it ok does it?"

Id have thought that anyone who had an ounce of intelligence might have worked this out for themselves...forgive me for giving you that level of credit.

The answer is yes. It is whats known as a necessary evil. Cutting people open or locking them away from thei family and frioends are two things that are bad but they become good or at the very least less bad things than the person dying from an appendicitis or going around robbing banks. Do you need everything explaining to you?



As for Rev Nicks questions I just didnt have the time two days ago but I'll have a go for you both now.



"I have a simple question, blicky ... In your view, has there been a single, well-intentioned and intelligent person (of any gender or biological/geographical/what-ever backgorund) joined a police agency in the UK?

Yes I could tell you about the ones I work with and play alongside with. I consider most of them friends. I have even dated women who were or became police officers.

One of my closet friends who is now a nursery teacher left the police force because she simply could not hack the gerogatory way other officers talked about black people. She happens to be Asian. Much the same thing was told to me by a woman I once dated she happens to be White

Our club chairman is the most moral person I hae ever personally known. Ive stood shoulder to shoulder with him in fights on the pitch and seen him take long deliberations about dealing with problems and people off it. One of the most unpleasant people I used to have to dare was the fatehr of a youth player. used terrible language and displayed a negative attitude towards other people. They are both policemen.

The police as any large group of people will be are a mixed bag, but there is a discernable culture of racial prjudice within it. The official line within the force is it does not want this to continue. However the force is very big and you cant turn something that big around over night especially when some of the people within it are resistant to change. That's why I said its good if some officers get the hump and leave.




"It does seem that none have except for raw racist brutes. From your slant, atleast. You see, I will visit your country (assuming you lay any claim to being English, British, what-ever) in the autumn. And wish to know if I should find a way to arrive either well armed with weapons, or loads of money for graft. I am, after all, visibly pale skinned and seem anglo.

EH

You're white you'll be fine.

True story:
I was enjoying my self so much on a night out that I had to visit the cash point on the way back to the pub i saw a group of about a dozen Asian youths had been hemmed up by some police officers. they were searching them in the middle of a busy street area. I walked over to one who had already been searched and asked them why they had been stopped. "I dont know"
"Didnt they give you a reason"?
"No"

I went up to an officer not involved in the actual searches and asked why they had stopped these young men.

"flip off" he didnt quite say
"you do know this is illegal dont you"
"Look we just doing our job mind your own business and flip off"
"no you're job is to give a reason why they are being searched and offer to do it in an area where you are less likely to embarras the people you are searching, you havent even offered them any search slips"
"do you want to end up in the back of the van"
"Fine if you want to arrest me you can explain to my boss the mayor on Monday"
You'll be arrested for blocking a public higway"
"what like the officers down there who have stopped to have photos taken with that hen night"
"flippin social workers" and he walked off to speak to his officers

Suddenly whatever crime the young men were being questoned and searched over was forgotten about.


From this incident and many others Ive encountered I should imagine that the paler you are the safer you are. Dont have nightmares

one love

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I guess that I really AM in the wrong country then. Even in the 60s as a kid, in a predominantly 'white' Germanic area, interesting travels and experiences were reserved for the 'natives' in the class. It didn't matter that most of them had more free pocket money than most of us. Or during my years of military time, my skills scored and rated me in the top 5% of the trade usually. How-ever, promotions continued to fly past ... The understanding being that if you were a dark-skinned, turban-wearing female who spoke French, you could aspire to being the Chief of Defence in 10 years. But an apoliticial white anglo male might see master Corporal in 20 years. I lucked out ... a drive to reduce the forces depleted my trade enough that I made that secondary rank after only 18 years.

Some of the promotions that I saw, I did not begrudge, having worked with the folks and knowing that they deserved it as much as I did. They too had earned the steps ... But many were moved up because there were percentages that officially had to be met. Perhaps one of the folks I most respected was a very large native chap who just happened to be born in Quebec. On promotion, he declined it. Wanting to earn it on merit, NOT bleeping numbers and skin-tone.

Oh, and that chap had humour as well. On first meeting, his hand swallowed mine in a hand-shake, as he introduced himself as "FBI". "Funny Big Indian", ... though the first word really wasn't 'funny'.

So to get this straight you arguing with me about the police force of the country I was born in and live in using examples gleane from your experiences in the army in an entirely different country.

I can see how there is some relevance but we are in this country so far from that stage that to compare the two is like comparing a boating lake with the Pacific ocean if what you say is anything to go by.

It is clear that there is a race issue at work here.

It goes without saying because it is actually *announced* in the advert. What isnt annopunced and what you and SWL keep saying is that this will drop standards. The advert does not say *anything* about lowering of qualification requirements. Until you can prove differently its unfair to say this is the case here.

SWL reveals hi racism yet again on this thread in other ways. He witters on about chinnese people in gambling establishments and such like but misses out prisons, mental institutions and the dole queues. Its fairly clear that these have an over representation from BME people.

Would he suggest this is down to a natural aptitude?

Other people think not. Other people think that the social set up like the one that means despite the fact that Parliament and top jobs in industry are open to all they are still mostly the preserve of people from a small group of families who attended fee paying schools. This according to SWL's reasoning means that poorer people just arent able to do aswell as people from richer families.

This is an obvious answer but so is the answer the world is flat an obvious answer if you only look from a certain angle at the question.

Racism is wrong. Acting in a racist way to acheive a laudable goal is still wrong but it has become "a necessary evil" in the UK. The Race relations act hasnt failed, it hs worked but its succes has not been total. Like any law its better to have people not want to break it than it is to prosecute people for breaking it.

Affirmitive action is a clumbsy attempt to instill in people the idea that people are capable of anything regardless of their skin colour and to take away the idea that skin colour detrmines a person likelyhood to fail or falter. Not only when people look at others whne they themselves too.

I meet too many people who think their destiny is written in stone and just cant see the point in doing the right thing for themselves. I know what its like because I was like that and in that frame of mind I did bad things to other people too. It took deliberate help to get me out of that. I think we need more of that not less.

one love

<>

Your own reply, in it's way, showed that you do NOT believe all police to be racist and violent thugs. So you did answer that aspect, and I saw no reason to chase it any further. The fact that you let some personal encounters not alter the general tone that police are not to be trusted is not something that I care to take on. You have your etched-in-stone perspective, and I'm not likely to change that with mere words. And so I reverted to your common theme, that racism in proper measures, and in favour of anyone other than "white" folks, is a good thing. I related a couple of ways that I have met the beast, as a white guy. Something that you apparently missed as well.

So I won't be so blunt as SWL with the "racism is always bad" tone. I will try a different angle, before heading off to a day of work ...

Of course promoting any one race or ethnic background above another is not the answer. Forcing quota's or relative proportional appearances to a region isn't either. Some few folks of "other" backgrounds I have met have been quite happy to use these avenues to join prison systems and police forces. The military as well. They saw it as a means to get their own back, by being inside and just as beastly as everything that they despised. So where was the gains in those anecdotal cases?

I have no idea how to accomplish the idea, but all that I can see as ever working to even out the attitudes is to instill it in the earliest years. That James, Billy or Fred is your friend and equal, ... in every way ... until they personally prove themselves better or lesser, BY THEIR OWN ACTIONS. Nothing what-so-ever to do with skin tone, number of working limbs, or anything else. Trying to force an attitude change by legal limits and quotas will never resolve the problem. It only aggravates those who already have preconceptions, getting their backs up, and demanding that they prove they are right.

"Your own reply, in it's way, showed that you do NOT believe all police to be racist and violent thugs. So you did answer that aspect, and I saw no reason to chase it any further. The fact that you let some personal encounters not alter the general tone that police are not to be trusted is not something that I care to take on. You have your etched-in-stone perspective, and I'm not likely to change that with mere words.

Never a truer word said. my attitude to the police changes as I see their collective attitude change and my trust in a group or individual is based upon how I see them behaving. The reason I dont hold the police force in high regard simply follows what I see the good and the bad.



"And so I reverted to your common theme, that racism in proper measures, and in favour of anyone other than "white" folks, is a good thing."

Not *my* theme at all, perhaps what you would like my theme to be, but its not! I think it is a bad thing, not proper, but faced with the problem and the fact that other methods have not been able to change things enough a desperate measure that has to be used in a desperate situation. Moreover on THIS VERY THREAD if you care to look back there is an exmple of where I think a pro-white selection process would be reasonable.



"I related a couple of ways that I have met the beast, as a white guy. Something that you apparently missed as well.

Whats apparent to you isnt always correct I did see them, what did you want me to say?


"Forcing quota's or relative proportional appearances to a region isn't either. Some few folks of "other" backgrounds I have met have been quite happy to use these avenues to join prison systems and police forces. The military as well. They saw it as a means to get their own back, by being inside and just as beastly as everything that they despised. So where was the gains in those anecdotal cases?

So you see people sabuse a system and its automatically a bad system, not bad people. How many people grasped it with both hands and were a credit to themsleves and their uniform? You dont mention any, does this mean there were none?


"I have no idea how to accomplish the idea, but all that I can see as ever working to even out the attitudes is to instill it in the earliest years.

Why say you have no idea then put forward an idea? Unfotunately the "level playing feild" idea demonstrably isnt working. Infact white racists would have you believe that despite the fact that BMEs as a group are doing the worst in the this country according to all the most important social indicators they actually have the deck stacked in their favour.

Tis is true in some minor ways but it hasnt made enough headway in curtailing the social problems we are experiencing in the UK. White people can ignore them and make a fuss disporportiante to the effects of positive action if they wish. Its mich harder for black people to ignore the problems they face while some of the problems like people not wanting to trust or refusing to trust you because you're black and therefore more likley to be a criminal are impossible to ignore even if you really try.

This is where people and public bodies who can need to step in and help finish of what teh race realtions act started.

Many years ago Enouh Powell spoke about the black man endning up with "the whip hand" over whites its not true and only looks true to white people who are with us at the bottom of the pile especially when some people persist in telling the lie that underpriviliged white are there because of black people.

I've just re-read this thread. One of the most telling comments from SWL, amongst so many is:-

"without a bit of force" - what are you suggesting? You appear to be implying that unfair pressure is justified in order to redress a balance. But in fact, that is exactly what quotas and the like are all about isn't it? It's not about fairness at all. It's a chance to hit back at "whitey" and see how he likes a bit of discrimination.

Post 31

Apart from anything else, SWL, it shows your utter stupidity. Does it not occur to you that it is far more likely being done to enable the police to do their job better. I've had a good think about this, and actually if the country were really ready to fes up to exclusion in jobs, they'd be doing it where the racial make-up or sexual make-up of the job was less significant in enabling people to do their jobs better.

So not only have you *thought* of a really daft reason SWL,

>>It's a chance to hit back at "whitey" and see how he likes a bit of discrimination.<<

You've also chosen an example where it is patently obvious that the authorities, may well be doing it for reasons that have little to do with really addressing 'racism' overall in our society. I mean I'm sure MI6 and 5 are quietly employing mostly Arabic speakers at the moment for good practical reasons, that have nothing to do with combatting racism.

But to return to this staement.

>>It's a chance to hit back at "whitey" and see how he likes a bit of discrimination.<<

Just because that's how you see things SWL, through your nasty cynical prism of perception, don't assume that's the motivations of others. We are a democracy.

That kind of simple minded junk thinking that belongs at a BNP meeting, where it's possible to feed on the lack of education and simple minded thinking of the *jackboots*

Actually thinking about what I've posted, it might seem that I'm being cynival. Maybe I am? Countering SWL's simplistic paranoid tosh always seems to bring out the worst in me. I'll admit to a bit sceptisim, maybe more, but my views are certainly not in stone.

I just felt so angry when I re-read his nonsense in post 31.

(This is a reply to an interesting post by Fanny.)

Race does matter. I think all here gathered agree that it shouldn't matter, but the fact is that it does. Anything is important if a sufficiant number of people think it's important. Right?

It follows, then, that it is wise for the proportions of each ethnic group in a police force to be roughly the same as those of the area policed. Okay, we're getting somewhere.

Let's see where we go now. We now have a justification for hiring practices which discriminate on racial grounds. Remember a point Otto Fisch once made: to call a person discriminating is usually a compliment; discrimination is wrong only when the grounds on which you are discriminating are irellevant. Race often is relevant, though we may wish it wasn't.

But, we still ask whether racially discriminating hiring practices may cause more problems than they solve. They legally define race (and that's a complex thing to do), and they officially sanction racially diferented behaviour. Is this healthy? I don't know: I'm only asking.

TRiG.

I simply do not have the online hours to cipher blicky's posts, hunt about for recognized authorities that can express what I am trying to say, (to his satisfaction, if that is at all possible), and so I can only hope to meet him some day in-the-flesh for a long face-to-face conversation. I'm sure that he has points to make, as have I. They just are not coming across here.

Fanny's posts seem to be predominantly personal, having an obvious detestation of any words that SWL might post ... even a wish for a nice day. So they aren't in need of replies.

So at this time, I will step back, and browse the endless back-and-forths that never get any of you anywhere except a brief feeling of superiority.

*fades to quiet*

I agree, this is tiresome and pointless - almost.

We have after all established that discrimination is supported and encouraged by the state.

Blicky talks about this form of racism being a "necessary evil". Well, there have been quite a few states that implemented racist policies & laws whilst assuring all & sundry that they were a "necessary evil" and they all ended in tears.

What doesn't end in tears?

Empires rise and fall its the way of things, but feel free to do an Enoch and predict we're all doomed becuase black people are, according to you atleast, getting too much of a good deal.

one love

Keep justifying racism Blicky.

Actually, that IS a rather nice bit about this country ... Outside of February, "Black History Month" intended to follow the 'Murican idea ... blacks don't get that much extra attention here. No more than anyone else who isn't the palest white atleast. The bulk of the propoganda and monies go into natives/Indians/aboriginals/what-ever-name-this-week. THEN, to what-ever is defined as a visible minority ... including women.

Odd that last one. The last census showed women as about 54% of the population. How minor is that?