Frame-Flipping and Racism

I don't know what planet Ta-Nehisi Coates, whoever he is, inhabits. I can tell you that down here in Realityville, which is where I live, actual space-time data stand his "insight" on its head. To wit:  

Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping -- positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So straight confectioners do not simply want to practice their business in peace; they force their views of marriage on gay people by refusing to bake wedding cakes for them. U.S. Christians struggling to make ends meet don't merely want to end the $38 billion a year foreign-aid subsidy to Israel; they are actually plotting another Holocaust. And the whites are not disproportionately victims of black-on-white crime, but beneficiaries of the war against law-abiding blacks. This is the only respectable, politically correct bigotry, one that legitimizes name-calling even as it changes the subject and attacks straw men. 

Anu Garg ran the quote that follows with his 9/30/2016 Word for the Day ("skylark"). My response appears above. 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping -- positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace; they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and straw man. 

~Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer and journalist (b. 30 Sep 1975) 

Vaccination and Religion

The anti-vaxxers have exploited parents' fears of an alleged autism-vaccination link. Parents instill those fears in their children. This is all part of the anti-vaxxers' system of indoctrination and control.

The medical establishment has exploited parents' fears of an alleged link between infectious disease and failure to vaccinate. Parents instill those fears in their children. This is all part of the medical establishment's system of indoctrination and control.

Health is just like religion. Parents brainwash their kids about both. Same goes for that old "don't play in traffic!" chestnut. Parents should just shut up and let kids make up their own minds. Anything beyond that is child abuse.

Platonic Horseshit (Apologies to Robert Anton Wilson)

Rights (not God, mind you--that would be mysticism) are the Ventriloquist. Rights theorists are the Ventriloquist's dummies. There is (or is not) a Right to civilian safety in wartime, "reproductive choice," intellectual property, slant drilling in oil fields, collecting 100 percent of one's income. The dummies all disagree. But they all know Rights exist nonetheless, on a Platonic plane (not Heaven, mind you--that would be mysticism) somewhere.

Likewise, the horse I see before me is not a real horse. The real horse exists on a Platonic plane. As does the horse's shit. The horse and horseshit I see before me, in the here-and-now, are not real. For the real horse and real horseshit, I have to visit the Platonic plane.

So it is with Rights. What Rights I do or do not enjoy in sensory-sensual space-time are meaningless. All that matters is Platonic Rights. You'll find them right next to the Platonic horseshit. It's all so rational!