Rep. Steve King wonders what ‘sub-groups’ besides whites made contributions to civilization

[Rose Siding]

Source: Washington Post

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) offered an unusual defense of the racial homogeneity of his party during a panel on MSNBC Monday evening.
...
"This 'old white people' business does get a little tired, Charlie," King said. "I'd ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you're talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?"

"Than white people?" Hayes asked, clearly amazed.

"Than, than Western civilization itself," King replied. "It's rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That's all of Western civilization."

The other panelists objected, with Hayes trying to keep the peace. Panelist April Ryan, who is black, asked, "What about Asia? What about Africa?"

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/18/rep-steve-king-wonders-what-sub-groups-besides-whites-made-contributions-to-civilization/

---

Got so mad I had to count to ten. Using a HINDU-ARABIC numeral system.

[Else You Are Mad]

1. He does know that...

His beloved Bible was not written by white people... nor was Jesus white.

[groundloop]

15. And what about his beloved gunpowder?

[Else You Are Mad]

17. Good point. nt.

[brush]

21. And metalurgy and agriculture

King is a racist, know nothing idiot. All cultures build on the knowledge acquired from earlier civilizations.

[pangaia]

2. Well, for starters, there is Chinese...EVERYTHING !!!!!!!

[Cal33]

49. And in the Western World, the first people to develop writing were the people named in

the Bible as "Mesopotamians." Today, it's called "Iraq." Over many centuries, the written
language spread west, mainly through trade. Each country made some changes to
better fit into their own language.

The first Europeans to acquire a written language were the Greeks, who learned
it from the Semitic people, with whom they were trading. And the Romans learned
about the written language from the Greeks. The Romans civilized the rest of
Western Europe (notice that whether it's English, French, German, Scandinavian...
we all use the same alphabet). And Greece civilized the rest of Eastern Europe.

The Scandinavian nations were the last to acquire their written language -- they
had no written history until only about 1000 years ago.

The modern numerical system 0 to 9 came from the Arabs. And higher mathematics
also began with the Arabs, who invented "algebra."

With the Roman system of I, V, X, L, C, D, M, the highest functions that can be
achieved are multiplication and division. And even these simple arithmetical
functions are extremely troublesome to do. No higher math was possible without
the abstract ideas of the zero and the decimal point.

As written by someone in a previous post, each new culture is built upon the
foundations of earlier cultures. I might add, that as we go back in history, it seems
that other cultures were the Numero Uno in the past, and that each culture had its
time at being Number One.

People like Rep. Steve King, who are so eager to pat themselves on the back,
display an ignorance of history, not to mention a lack of good manners and common
etiquette.

[SummerSnow]

3. image of king

Isn't it amazing how much these rethugs are unifying people

[lapfog_1]

4. good thing you didn't need Al-gebra

to calculate how long to calm down.

That you did count to ten made sure that your head didn't explode like a box of gunpowder.

[arcane1]

12. He's surely benefited from algorithms and alcohol n/t

[getagrip_already]

23. alcohol was found pre-sumaria.....

so that wasn't invented by no whitie either.

[arcane1]

27. Yep. And I'm sure his NRA friends appreciate the Chinese invention of gunpowder.

And the list goes on and on...

[getagrip_already]

47. well, to be fair, we did discover....

gonorrhea, syphilis, and herpes. Oh, and the bubonic plague and lepracy.

See, we do have value!

[vkkv]

5. He's a BIGOT through and through..................nt

[Aristus]

6. The Sumerians had running water, plumbing, and sewers several thousand years

before the Romans. The Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia.

The Inca were building monumental architecture while the former Roman Empire was in ashes.

As above: the Chinese - everything!...

Black Africans of the Kingdom of Kush built cities of astonishing sophistication and cosmopolitanism when the Egyptian Empire was in decline.

[Rex]

7. Is 'contribution' code for 'conquering and slaughtering' entire generations of 'sub-groups'?

Fuck him, ignorant garbage like that deserves no reply just visual scorn and ridicule.

[Equinox Moon]

8. tRumps hate speech is fueling this ugliness

[Rex]

9. I am afraid it is only going to get worse as we move toward November.

[Equinox Moon]

10. That's what I am afraid of too

Already hate crimes and hateful acts are on the rise in my State. We hear of them often. His hateful talk is hurting people every day.

[jtuck004]

11. That's not a terrible question.The better one is why we white folk don't do more to teach how

important those contributions of others are and who made them.

He knew he could safely ask it because most people have only the vaguest idea that anything else besides white euros happened.

We are too busy teaching them the answers, instead of taking time to let them think about the culture, labor, and history.

Otherwise they might start asking these inconvenient questions again.

[displacedtexan]

13. Did you beigin that count with zero?

King needs to go back to school. And listen this time.

[UnFettered]

14. He must not have paid attention in world history class

I guess some people make up there own reality.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. Poor dear doesn't know about where civilization began and

has never heard of the Egyptians or Persians.

[rpannier]

25. They were in the Garden of Eden

And then a few years passed quickly and there were civilizations in several parts of the world
And then white Christian Europe
Then America

That's his history

They can never quite explain adequately how the Chinese, Indus, southern African, western hemisphere cultures didn't seem to know about Gawwwwwd.
You'd think that would be something they'd remember

Oh... and the Vikings, Celts, Picts, Scots, Rus, etc that seemed to have forgot

[Joe Chi Minh]

42. ...or that the Mayan Indians 'invented' the numeric

concept of zero, at least as early as 36 AD, and were accomplished astronomers and monumental architects, while our ancestors were still running around daubed in wode. The Arabic world introduced the numeric concept of zero the same much later, though apparently borrowed it from Indian culture.

http://www.storyofmathematics.com/mayan.html

The Chinese invented printing on cloth 200 BC and on paper 82 AD.

The whole of Chrisitian civilisation, i.e. western civilisation, arose from Judaism, so that alone rubbished our friend's point. The Jews, wold have been olive-skinned type then, you know. Abraham was Iranian.

The reason why various peoples have seemed smarter than others at different times (see, above, about the Mayans) and others less smart, is for no other reason than that sme have shown more interst in worldly things than others. Christ' Incarnation was what gave Europeans such an advantage - not superior brain-power, as the Chinese and Indians are clearly demonstrating today.

And by the way, the Native Americans are, of course, today educating us all too belatedly in the importance of respecting the environment.

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. I hope he had the decency to have his hood professionally ironed

[the48er]

19. Sauciers?

Or is that a sub-sub group? Super group?

[SunSeeker]

20. The "Cradle of Civilization" is Mesopotamia, not Europe.

http://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/mesopotamia-cradle-of-civilization.htm

[Grimelle]

22. Ignorant POS

that's why the morning after pill should be given out for free. So that this specimen doesn't make it to term.

[GulfCoast66]

24. Just got back from china

Had some great noodles. Glad the Italians taught them how to make pasta.

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. Actually, kidding aside, the Italians have contributed a lot

to European civilization - unsurprisingly since they nursed early Christianity in their pre-Viking empire. (The British empire was arguably an extension of the medieval Norman (norseman) empire. The Norsemen had only lived in Normandy for 150 years, before they invaded Britain.

Among other things the Italians gave us double-entry bookkeeping, and apparently taught the French how to cook. Today, they are a byword for stylish design..

[GulfCoast66]

45. My post was not intended

To denigrate the Italians, who I have great respect for. And I love you mentioning teaching the French to eat, or eat well. Wasn't it Catherine Medici who brought fine dining to France?

But regardless, the Chinese were eating well 2000 years before her.

[Joe Chi Minh]

65. I knew that. But that's interesting about Chinese cuisine.

Also interesting that only the 'monied' fascists, their low-life myrmidons, and perhaps their crack troops would have been pleased to see a German or Italian, fascist victory in WWII, but more than 40,000 Italian CIVILIANS lost heir lives fighting the Germans, mostly, I believe in Northern Italy. They must have shown outstanding courage and strength of purpose to have suffered such losses in that context.

[Drahthaardogs]

55. The modern world would not exist without Rome

Period. Italians also gave us the Renaissance

[GulfCoast66]

66. please refer back to the reason for this entire discussion

I am aware and appreciate what Italy, and before them Greece did for the modern western world. And how they shaped the world my ancestors came from.

But this is in response to a republican saying whites were the only 'sub-group' who added anything to civilization. A totally ridiculous and racist claim. An irony of our little discussion here is that when Italians first began migrating to American, they were hardly considered 'real whites' by the cultural ancestors of Trump and his friends. And in all honesty perhaps even my ancestors who were no paragons of civil rights. They were slightly darker skinned and even worst, Catholic.


Yall have a great evening. Was going to watch the shit-show of the RNC but decided bourbon and DU will make for a better evening.

[Drahthaardogs]

67. Italians were not considered white in this country

Until recent times

[SCVDem]

26. What exactly is a sub-group.

We are all one group out of Africa.

That's what science teaches.

Want to go Biblical?

Adam and Eve, period. All one group.

What the fuck is this asshole babbling about?

[SwankyXomb]

57. By sub-group he means sub-human

A proud white supremacist traditional position.

[niyad]

28. as z budapest observed about the fanatic worship of the bible, "isn't it amazing that white

europeans worship a book with no white europeans in it."

[Beartracks]

29. "What else is there besides this cave?"

... asked the guy in the cave.

======================

[underpants]

51. Perfect

[niyad]

30. does he realize he just admitted that whites are a sub-group?

[Grimelle]

31. LOL

He meant sub-human...

[niyad]

32. of course!!

[flyingfysh]

33. He forgot some large groups

What about the Chinese? At one time, almost all of the world's scientists were Arabic. What about Egypt? And what about the Nubians? At one time, the pharaohs were Nubian, and black. And India has written literature going back thousands of years.

King showed himself to be a racist, but we already knew that.

[3catwoman3]

34. He is such...

...a dope.

[Frustratedlady]

35. I'll bet that if you ran DNA tests on Steve King and Louis Gohmert...

you'd find they were brothers.

King is a constant embarrassment to Iowa.

[applegrove]

36. Africans came up with binary math. Which is the basis of computing.

So there is that.

[L. Coyote]

37. Someone please tell the poor man there are no races. He's just like everyone.

And then send him on a camel tour of the Old World after he walks the length of the Americas, going from pyramid to pyramid, monument to monument, etc.

Say for 20 years or so.

[Lunabell]

38. Wow

Just, wow.

[sofa king]

39. The stirrup, gunpowder, and the compass....

... all came from East Asia. Whitey merely exported those gems.

[Solly Mack]

40. SMH

[mainer]

41. In his head Moses looks like Charlton Heston

And Jesus looks like Max Von Sydow. No wonder he's confused. Blame Hollywood.

[MosheFeingold]

48. Hey

I liked Charlton Heston (as an actor).

And, even as a guy named "Moshe" (really), I can't help but picture my namesake as Heston.

(Doesn't mean King is not an ass. He's the king of pork and corruption, in addition to being a bigot. So bad even Republicans hate him.)

[AngryAmish]

44. The traffic light.

[Nitram]

46. The pure unadulterated ignorance boggles the mind.

An achievement test should be required of all politicians running for federal office.

[ProfessorGAC]

50. And Yet, A Majority Of Voters In That District. . .

. . .keep sending him to Washington. So, he can't be the only idiot. His district must be full of them

[underpants]

52. As I posted last night - this is flat out pure white supremacy talk

Watched it live and my jaw actually dropped.

[olddad56]

53. the last white male pResident certainly didn't make any positive contribution.

and neither will this one.

[PJMcK]

54. Steve King is an idiot (n/t)

[apnu]

58. No, he's a bigot.

Let's call him what he is: a bigot.

[PJMcK]

59. He's stupid

He's a bigot.
And he's an idiot.

I feel so much better, apnu! (wink)

[apnu]

64. Hugs!

[rurallib]

56. Isn't much of our government structure based on ideas from the Iriquos League?

Something in the far reaches of my mind keeps telling me that.
Plus concepts from many previous forms of government that came before.

[Hekate]

60. KnR

[jpak]

61. Party of Lincoln RIP

yup

[yurbud]

62. Republicans should stop playing rock at their events then since it was invented by black people

[nolabear]

63. You mean like really, really long walls?

Some might say Great Walls.

[AlbertCat]

68. His clueless summation of western civilization...

.... was beautifully blurted out in an INDO-european language.

[downeastdaniel]

69. Perhaps the voters who voted for King will be so filled with maybe disgust, they'll make a better

Choice in November...

[The Stranger]

70. Ask him: "What are these? 1, 2 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 . . . "

Then ask him how any form of technology whatsoever could function without them.

Here's another: try doing just about anything and using MMDCCCLXXXVIII instead of 2888.