_________________

What does the available data have to say about the veracity of this claim?

We don't. I was specifically responding to leash saying it's ridiculous for someone to say they don't take him seriously.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

This.

Tommy is my hummingbird.

_________________

Why are you bolding that part? Purposely ignoring the context in which it's true is my specific criticism of Shapiro. I suppose I could apply it to you as well, but I wasn't going to.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

So . . . would Curvebrim be a new pejorative for crackers? Ima use it from here on out.

It is.

Look, Hitler was probably a bad guy, but I’m not gonna reflexively dismiss any good points he makes in Mein Kampf.

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Everything I've seen from him shows him as a run of the mill Fox News dipshit. What interesting things does he have to say?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

definitely

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Is it a true claim or is it not?

That’s crazy talk. You can think he’s hateful or an asshole or whatever, but he’s twice as smart as anyone at Fox News not named Shep Smith or Chris Wallace.

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I already answered that in the post you just quoted.

Read better.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

How so? He certainly doesn't come across as particularly smart, insightful, or thoughtful in any of his speeches/debates/articles I've seen. Why is he hiding this supposed enormous intellect and choosing to play a right wing clown instead?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I believe he's made such statements in support of law enforcement rather than as some kind of commentary on the societal factors that cause such disparity in incarceration rates. I think he is of the belief that most of those in prison did something to deserve being there. I'm not saying I agree with his premise. Obviously we've had conversations about the difference between the way rich people (mostly white) do drugs and get away with it as opposed to the way poor people (often black, particularly in urban areas) do drugs and get caught and harshly sentenced.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don’t know what to tell you. He’s not a right wing clown at all. As Ogie mentioned, he has taken a number of principled positions over the years that were not easy to take. He is hated by the Alt-Right. And he actually engages in very honest dialogue with Leftists when they aren’t denying him the ability to speak. Obviously, I don’t agree with him on everything. He’s extremely religious. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a lot of his views.

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Right. It's just another way for him to dismissively say black people are worse than white people. He's pretty transparent about that.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I think we're just gonna disagree on this one. I don't agree with pretty much any of that other than he is definitely religious and disliked by the alt right.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

So you want a completely contextual and nuanced discussion about everything at all times, and to not do so is racist. That's unfair, I'd say, especially when some of the context people wish to add (courts being racist to black defendants, for instance) are in question. It is helpful, though, to begin with a simple point of fact and move on from there.

I've already said I haven't heard Shapiro say that criminality is inherent to black people, nor have I heard him deny that poverty and income disparity can help explain the observed facts. If he has please show me, and i will happily reexamine my views on the man's points.

Especially when he advocates for the forcible removal of Palestinians from Gaza. An action as dumbfounded as this would likely lead to WWIII. Is this what passes for "Conservative Intellectualism"?

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I'm not a Ben Shapiro fan but I think you have to make a lot of inferences to get to where you've gone there.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Nope. Never said anything remotely close to that.

It literally takes like 5 extra seconds to acknowledge the societal institutional reasons for the incarceration rate. If you're asked about why the black incarceration rate is so high, and your response is that it's so high because black people commit more crime, you're saying black people are genetically predisposed to commit more crime. I don't what else to tell you. Defend it more if you want, but that's what that statement is saying.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I don't think you have to make any inferences. As I said, Shapiro is pretty transparent in his disdain for black people and black culture. We can probably go dig up another 1,000 examples like the tweets CH posted but I don't really have the time nor inclination to do that.

People tell you who they are, but we ignore it - because we want them to be who we want them to be.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Reading through Ben’s wiki page, he graduated summa cum laude. Hmmm, wonder if his cake was properly lettered?

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

I'll say it again.

In reality, we aren't all that different.

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It definitely sounds like he's really interested in honest debate and dialogue with political opponents!

This.

I would be against someone saying that any group is more predisposed than another to commit crime or whatever else... but that’s not what he says. He states a fact: black people commit more crimes than white people. You would have to agree with that basic premise before you could have an honest discussion about anything, such as “are the laws on the books fair?” or “do the laws on the books target certain groups?” If you can’t agree on the basic fact that black people commit more crime, then those questions can’t even be addressed because, well, there’s nothing to address.

For the record, I do think many laws and sentencing are unfair toward minorities and people without a lot of financial means. I couldn’t hold that position unless I admitted that black people commit more crime.

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That's unreasonable. Why not simply ask the begged follow up of "well why do black people commit more crime?"? If his answer to that is something like "genetic predisposition" then I'll agree with you. Has he said that?

Nobody here denied that fact or said it was false.

As for the rest of the post, I already addressed it in my last response to JLN.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I think Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell and Larry Elder would probably take issue with the declaration of flat brim hats and droopy drawers as "black culture". I'm guessing ltg might too.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Par for the course. I’d like to believe we can have intellectual debates, but sadly, we may be past that point.

I wish my conservatives friends would work towards aspirational and inclusive ideas instead of this zero sum game of winners and losers.

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Hawaii (fuck) You