Worst Theory or K you have been hit with

[feldsy 1099]

 I'm half jewish and it pissed me off).

I'm Jewish.  And this pisses me off.

[mowl 106]

sorry, i ain't got hurt feelings, but feldsy why'd you lower my rep on that stuff? i just want to understand if i offended you or something.

[feldsy 1099]

sorry, i ain't got hurt feelings, but feldsy why'd you lower my rep on that stuff? i just want to understand if i offended you or something.

HALF JEWISH.... do you even understand how ignorant that is?  Judaism is not a race, it's a religion.  We don't call people "half-Christians" or "half-muslims" (usually) but for some reason it seems all too frequent for people to say "I/he am/are half Jewish.  While I'm perfectly aware you didn't mean it like this, groups throughout history have mis-labeled Judaism as a race and attempted to eradicate them to prevent "a Jewish blight."  Because people obviously have to get rid of those genetic big noses or those genetic horns under our hair.  

 

Seriously though, you're not "half Jewish" any more than I'm "half-Episcopalian" because my mother wasn't Jewish. Think before you say something so obviously false, ignorant, and has the undertone of bigotry

[mowl 106]

HALF JEWISH.... do you even understand how ignorant that is?  Judaism is not a race, it's a religion.  We don't call people "half-Christians" or "half-muslims" (usually) but for some reason it seems all too frequent for people to say "I/he am/are half Jewish.  While I'm perfectly aware you didn't mean it like this, groups throughout history have mis-labeled Judaism as a race and attempted to eradicate them to prevent "a Jewish blight."  Because people obviously have to get rid of those genetic big noses or those genetic horns under our hair.  

 

Seriously though, you're not "half Jewish" any more than I'm "half-Episcopalian" because my mother wasn't Jewish. Think before you say something so obviously false, ignorant, and has the undertone of bigotry

 

you and I have a very similar religious background. My father's family are secular, intellectual, and mostly non-practicing Anasazi Jews who lived in the Ukraine until the Bolshevik revolution (though some of my family are still in Belarus/ the Ukraine and some migrated to South America or East Asia). my mother's family are practicing Episcopalian. I have a very close relationship to my paternal grandmother, who teaches me yiddish and has instilled Jewish cultural values into me (value of education etc, my paternal grandfather did collegiate debate at UCLA and was the one who inspired me to try debate my freshman year). My grandmother always tells me because i lack maternal bloodlines I cannot consider myself a Jew, but rather someone who identifies as culturally Jewish, or part Jewish, though if I converted I would be a Jew. I hope this clears up why I said I was half-Jewish.

[mowl 106]

kimjungun/ feldsy please continue this debate with me because i really am interested in why youre upset that i said i was 'half jewish' 

[rteehas 412]

HALF JEWISH.... do you even understand how ignorant that is?  Judaism is not a race, it's a religion.  We don't call people "half-Christians" or "half-muslims" (usually) but for some reason it seems all too frequent for people to say "I/he am/are half Jewish.  While I'm perfectly aware you didn't mean it like this, groups throughout history have mis-labeled Judaism as a race and attempted to eradicate them to prevent "a Jewish blight."  Because people obviously have to get rid of those genetic big noses or those genetic horns under our hair.  

 

Seriously though, you're not "half Jewish" any more than I'm "half-Episcopalian" because my mother wasn't Jewish. Think before you say something so obviously false, ignorant, and has the undertone of bigotry

Judaism is distinct from Christianity and Islam, to my knowledge at least, because there are cultural features specific to Judaism (Yiddish for example).  I also don't think that calling Judaism a race is offensive.  Just because a certain individual/group of individuals employed that concept to discriminate against Jews does not automatically make it offensive.  There seems to be at least some ability to talk about Jewish cultural practices as identifying a particular cultural group or race.

 

Sidenote:  There is at least some connection with Judaism and the concept of a race, insofar as certain genetics patterns can be found among those referred to as the Jewish race.  Additionally, certain subsets of Judaism are labelled as being very susceptible to certain diseases due to those shared genes.  My point is just that it is not inconceivable for someone to think Judaism is a race, or a cultural group at the very least.

[feldsy 1099]

Judaism is distinct from Christianity and Islam, to my knowledge at least, because there are cultural features specific to Judaism (Yiddish for example). 

 I don't see how this distinguishes us from those religions-Christianity has Latin, which is taught at some oftheir Sunday schools (I think), and Islam is usually associated with arabic.  There are culturally features inherent in every religion-the Christian belief in Heave/Hell afterlife dichotomy (which has significant societal impacts), Hindu belief of reincarnation, and so on.

 

Sidenote:  There is at least some connection with Judaism and the concept of a race, insofar as certain genetics patterns can be found among those referred to as the Jewish race.  Additionally, certain subsets of Judaism are labelled as being very susceptible to certain diseases due to those shared genes.  My point is just that it is not inconceivable for someone to think Judaism is a race, or a cultural group at the very least.

This tends to stem from the fact that Jews tended to be Xenophobic of non-Jews throughout most of history (not without justification) and most other groups looked down upon them.  This resulted in very little marriage between Jews and Non-Jews, which means a large percentage of Jews today tend to share similar genetic ancestry (especially because Jews have never been big on going out and converting).  This does NOT mean we are a race-anymore than saying Confucians are a race because they are mostly Asians.

 

you and I have a very similar religious background. My father's family are secular, intellectual, and mostly non-practicing Anasazi Jews who lived in the Ukraine until the Bolshevik revolution (though some of my family are still in Belarus/ the Ukraine and some migrated to South America or East Asia). my mother's family are practicing Episcopalian. I have a very close relationship to my paternal grandmother, who teaches me yiddish and has instilled Jewish cultural values into me (value of education etc, my paternal grandfather did collegiate debate at UCLA and was the one who inspired me to try debate my freshman year). My grandmother always tells me because i lack maternal bloodlines I cannot consider myself a Jew, but rather someone who identifies as culturally Jewish, or part Jewish, though if I converted I would be a Jew. I hope this clears up why I said I was half-Jewish.

Its the part idea of "semi" identifying with a culture that irks me.  I would actually have no problem if you identified as Jewish (I'm reform, so we tend to be less strict about requirements for being Jewish).  The term half-Jewish connotates that its a race (which its not, as per my arguments above), and You can't seriously suggest that your're "half Jewish, half white".  

 

kimjungun/ feldsy 

How constructive. I can't even begin to argue with that kind of logic

 

 

 i really am interested in why youre upset that i said i was 'half jewish' 

Because I've had friends who, when I've told them I'm Jewish, respond with "oh cool, I'm half-Jewish" .   After a few more minutes of conversation,it becomes eminently clear they know NOTHING about Judaism but just to like to claim they are because they have a parent who's a non-practicing Jew. People seem to like to claim because it makes them "look cool" or some bullshit like that, and seem to think since they know the name of Hanukkah (the most insignificant of Jewish holidays ), they qualify as Jews. Also, I've taken a fair about of anti-Semitic abuse in my life, and everyone who perpetuates that starts off with assumption that Judaism is a race, and start their insults and abuse from there. And finally, its just factually incorrect and connotates, at least to me, a lack of understanding and therefore appreciation for Judaism.  The example of that I always remember is that there are at least 20 different classifications of Christianity on the PSAT when you register your religion, but only 1 for Judaism. People who consider themselves not prejudiced (and on the whole, aren't) ignore the hundreds of different kinds of Judaism, some of which vary massively in their beliefs.

[rteehas 412]

 I don't see how this distinguishes us from those religions-Christianity has Latin, which is taught at some oftheir Sunday schools (I think), and Islam is usually associated with arabic.  There are culturally features inherent in every religion-the Christian belief in Heave/Hell afterlife dichotomy (which has significant societal impacts), Hindu belief of reincarnation, and so on.

Again, this is only what is to my knowledge, I may very well be wrong about this.  The difference between Latin and Yiddish is that Yiddish is seen as "only" used by Jews, whereas Latin's history is well-known to be tied with the Roman Empire.  Distinguishing religious practices are not the same as cultural practices in the sense that the former could potentially impact social life whereas the other describes a particular aspect of social life.

 

This tends to stem from the fact that Jews tended to be Xenophobic of non-Jews throughout most of history (not without justification) and most other groups looked down upon them.  This resulted in very little marriage between Jews and Non-Jews, which means a large percentage of Jews today tend to share similar genetic ancestry (especially because Jews have never been big on going out and converting).  This does NOT mean we are a race-anymore than saying Confucians are a race because they are mostly Asians.

 

The analogy between Jews and Confucians does not hold, even by the way you describe it.  In the Confucians part, the encompassing race is "Asian" (I'm just mirroring your presentation here, I don't think that Asian is a proper way to describe a race), whereas with Jews there is no more encompassing racial description that could account for those genetic differences.  The fact that the literature describes these features as tied to certain groups of Jews seems to support some classification of this type.  I'm not trying to make the point that Judaism is actually a race, but rather that someone could reasonably believe that or something similar.  Anti-semitism does not come from calling Judaism a race, it comes from people being assholes.  Assholes will twist anything to continue being assholes, so there isn't really a harm to this classification. 

[mowl 106]

Kant said anything that I would want to. And yes I believe having discussions about race are constructive. And no I don't think it's 'cool' to be Jewish. And I definitely identify as more culturally Jewish than "white" which is in itself an essentialist description of people of European descent. I spend most of my passovers and thanksgivings with my father's side of the family as it is. 

[Bow2Baudrillard 66]

I had a debate last year running a topical disabilities aff and the neg went 3 off:

-Should PIK
-The PIK

-Authorship PIK

And then 2 minutes of PIKs good for critical thinking in the 1NC

That was not a fun round.  Since then I've taken 'the' out of my plantexts - COME AT ME UNITED STATES FACETERS GUILD!

[Snarf 3598]

I had a debate last year running a topical disabilities aff and the neg went 3 off:

-Should PIK

-The PIK

-Authorship PIK

And then 2 minutes of PIKs good for critical thinking in the 1NC

That was not a fun round.  Since then I've taken 'the' out of my plantexts - COME AT ME UNITED STATES FACETERS GUILD!

one response:  perm do the alt.

 

then let them try to defend ownership of the PIK while attacking ownership of the text. 

 

 

edit - then perm do the alt on the should PIC, and let them defend "normative instruction statements are bad" next to "severance is a voter"

 

double edit - then read functional competition good against the THE pik and you've got a solid time tradeoff.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Snarf

[Miro 1470]

Kant said anything that I would want to. And yes I believe having discussions about race are constructive. And no I don't think it's 'cool' to be Jewish. And I definitely identify as more culturally Jewish than "white" which is in itself an essentialist description of people of European descent. I spend most of my passovers and thanksgivings with my father's side of the family as it is. 

The jewish people are considered an ethno-religious group by most scholars

Edited November 17, 2013 by Miro

[Bow2Baudrillard 66]

Best CP ever:

-Obama should veto the plan

-Congress should sue Obama in the Supreme Court to get it passed

-The Supreme Court should rule in favor of Congress

The advantages are separation of powers (you read a bunch of cards from neocons about how Obama is going to destroy the world) which is key to heg

[DisplayName 377]

Best CP ever:

-Obama should veto the plan

-Congress should sue Obama in the Supreme Court to get it passed

-The Supreme Court should rule in favor of Congress

The advantages are separation of powers (you read a bunch of cards from neocons about how Obama is going to destroy the world) which is key to heg

I'm not sure that's legal

[Bow2Baudrillard 66]

I'm not sure that's legal

 

I think it is though...

If not, Congress just overrides the veto

Either that, or just fiat the constitution