With Critics Like This

Jeralyn Merritt is attacked by clowns, and good luck to her!

Ms. Merritt flagged this Obama video in which the Chosen One explained to Indiana voters that they lose their dignity when they lose their jobs.  Now, that does not grab me as a wildly controversial statement or a promising line of attack, but check this response from an Obama supporter on Ms. Merritt's far-left flank:

Her gripe is that Obama is being elitist because he said that losing your job means that you lose your dignity.  Of course, the smear begins by grossly taking this out of context, which shows how amateurish the attempt given that she actually produces the whole clip in context.

You say amateurish, I say honest.  We make these tough calls every day!  And now comes the classic pop sociology:

Now, I live in Virginia, you all know this by now, but I grew up in Stockton, California, and I’ve seen first hand what happens when economic hardship takes hold and becomes not just a temporary thing, but instead is integrated into the local culture, and I’ve seen what results.

Crime, gang violence, drugs.

Hmm, weren't we told that the victims of economic hardship would be bitterly clinging to their guns and religion?  And now drugs and crime.  My goodness, no sex or rock&roll?

You can’t tell me that the loss of dignity caused by the loss to provide for one’s own doesn’t feed this.  Why do you think gangs exist?

Bangers don’t hang their heads.  They don’t sit around and feel sorry for themselves, and you know why?  And this is going straight to the heart of the point I’m trying to make; gang life returns to these people that which economic loss has robbed their families of often times long before they even hit the streets.  The community that the bloods and crips offer give someone dignity.  They give them a means to take care of their family, and they give them a sense of being a part of something greater than they are.

It is important that we understand this because it’s the same pattern that we see over and over again.  We see it under the white sheets and hoods of the KKK, and we see it behind bomb vests in the middle east.

I see.  So given the latest economic downturn the good people of the great state of Indiana are five minutes away from joining up with the Bloods and Crips or donning suicide vests and heading to the nearest Outback.

I can't wait for Obama to update his stump speech to incorporate these insights.

MORE:  OK, Obama was tone-deaf.

Comments

[Danube of Thought]

Would a visitor from Outer Space ever guess that the current unemployment rate is lower than the average under Bill Clinton?

[clarice]

Me neither,TM. I bet it will be even more fabuloso than his speech on race which caused swooning and fainting in so many press rooms at the time--until last week when even the vaunted Fifth Estate had to realize what those of us watching the Emperor's naked parade had said at the time:It was fake-o and ineffectual carp-o.

[PeterUK]

So that's the Chippewa back on the warpath.

[SPQR]

Typo in second para "Indian" voters where I think meant "Indiana".

[Topsecretk9]

Who is Jeralyn's critic?

[Tom Maguire]

Who is Jeralyn's critic?

Good question - I put that link in, finally.

Typo in second para "Indian" voters where I think meant "Indiana".

I blame Bobby Jindal. Or Geronimo.

[Soylent Red]

gang life returns to these people that which economic loss has robbed their families of often times long before they even hit the streets.

This is such counterfactual BS I hesitate to even comment on it.

Even the other economic guidepost of the Left, Steven Levitt (the first being Krugman), suggests that gang affiliation and drug dealing aren't economically viable until you reach the highest levels.

IOW, dope dealers aren't in it for the money to feed families of four back in the projects, or if they are they are constantly being disappointed. Many, many academically vetted studies suggest gang membership is a combination of tribalism and protection racket, and anyone who has lived near gang infested areas knows that the money doesn't filter back into the communities, unless by community you mean the manufacturers of Escalades, Playstations, and tennis shoes.

Klan affiliation is even less economically based. Klansmen operate on ideology, rather than economics. In fact, Klan affiliation is probably more of an indicator than an effect. You are a Klansman because you are intellectually lazy, just like you are unemployed or living beyond your means because (at least in part) you are intellectually lazy.

People don't "turn to" antisocial behavior from economic necessity, they choose it as a lifestyle. The poor out-of-work schlub that robs a liquor store in order to make the rent is a whole different animal from the gang banger or suicide bomber.

[Buford Gooch]

Sad thing is, way too many on the left actually believe this dreck.

[ben]

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2008/05/
bill-ayers-stepping-us-flag-in2001.html

Courtesy of Marathon Pundit and Powerline, you can see Ayers stepping on a U.S. flag in 2001, when they were serving on a board together and a long time after Obama was 8 years old.

[Thomas Collins]

When I was in college, my father lost his job as a factory worker when the Uniroyal plant in Providence closed down (went down South). Far from losing his dignity, my father, who never went to college and stayed back three times in his school career, showed more dignity and class than any "elite" private school/college Nutroot ever did. He took the Post Office exam, and didn't quite qualify. He then embarked on a new career as a security guard, We family members thightened our belts and all pitched in, and things were fine.

I don't post this to complain about how tough I had it. I had a truly privileged upbringing (loving family, with a focus on helping oneself and each other). I post it to point out that, on the basis of my personal experience, economic hard times do not cause a loss of dignity or clinging to anything. Rather, how one responds to hard times depends on the values to which one is anchored. If one is anchored to an ethic of whining, all times, no matter how flush, are tough with inner poverty. If one is anchored to an ethic of work and responsibility to one's family, all times, no matter how tough, are flush with inner prosperity.

[Jane]

Beautiful post Thomas.

[Danube of Thought]

Very nice, TCollins. I sometimes find myself wondering these days how many of my countrymen there are whom I really, viscerally don't like. I'm talking about the whiners and complainers, the rent-seekers, the people who assume that it is the responsibility of the public sector to ensure that their lives are happy ones.

And I especially include those who are adamantly opposed to drilling in ANWR or offshore, and to the contruction of oil refineries and nuclear power plants, but who believe they have a birthright to gasoline at some particular price level.

I think I am growing increasingly out of touch with a large slice of the American population...

[Seu f/k/a Sue]

I think I am growing increasingly out of touch with a large slice of the American population...

I think that means we are getting older.

[Seu f/k/a Sue]

And email I received...

"We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an
election in the US. On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer,
married to lawyer, running against a lawyer who is married to a bitch, who is a
lawyer.

On the other side, you have a war hero married to a good looking woman
with big boobs who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there really a contest here?"

[Rick Ballard]

Seu, I'd drop the fka and go with "mysterious woman of the east". Just don't put in Texas and it will give the JOM commenting team a little international flair. You are east of Austin aren't you? If not, call El Paso the mid-Texas.

I need to keep the bit about "big chested blonde whose father owns a beer distributorship" in mind when I get grumpy about Gramps. Talk about "living the American dream"...

[Seu mysterious woman of the east]

Rick,

I'm East of Dallas.

[Rick Ballard]

Well, hell - make it "far" east then.

[Kathy]

If one is anchored to an ethic of whining, all times, no matter how flush, are tough with inner poverty. If one is anchored to an ethic of work and responsibility to one's family, all times, no matter how tough, are flush with inner prosperity.

Oh, so now if your sense of self-worth takes a hit when you lose your job you're a whiner. If you feel a loss of dignity because you can't support your family, you are lazy and irresponsible. So if you were up there running for president you would be telling the people in Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania who are struggling with unemployment and underemployment and how to put food on the table and clothes on their children's backs that they are lazy and irresponsible?

Oh, that is so much more respectful than acknowledging how much of a person's dignity is tied up in their work and how undignified it feels not to be able to make a living.

And by the way, with all due respect to your "personal experience," you do not have the personal experience of losing a long-time high-paying job and not passing the postal exam and having to work as a security guard. I'm sure your family did pull together as you say, just as those families in Indiana are pulling together through terribly hard times. But you don't know what it feels like to lose your job and see the company you were loyal to for years abandon your entire town for greener pastures. Only one person in your family knows whether losing that job damaged his dignity, and that is the person who lost the job -- your father.

[Seu, mysterious woman of the far east]

Oh, so now if your sense of self-worth takes a hit when you lose your job you're a whiner.

Reading comprehension should be the first requirement for diplomas.

[Sue]

Uhm, Rick, my new name takes up too much space in the recent comments sections. I think I'll go back to my name, no matter how mysterious I might have seemed and regardless of the flair I might have provided to JOM. Tom would probably prefer I not eat up half a page with my name. ::grin::

[Ann]

"Reading comprehension should be the first requirement for diplomas."

Heck, I am just going to call you Brilliant, Sue. :)

[Danube of Thought]

Sounds like one a them whiners to me.

[Sue]

Ann,

Well alright then. That should help ease the pain of selflessly giving up my mysteriously exotic, with an eastern flair, nom de plum that took the place of my nom de plum.

[ParseThis]

It's the Jeremiah Wright factor: 3/5 human, different and deficient, precept of inferiority. Reminds me of this passage from The Mind of the South:

If the plantation had introduced distinctions of wealth and rank among the men of the old backcountry, and, in doing so, had perhaps offended against the ego of the common white, it had also, you will remember, introduced that other vastly ego-warming and ego-expanding distinction between the white man and the black. Robbing him and degrading him in so many way, it yet, by singular irony, had simultaneously elevated this common white to a position comparable to that of, say, the Doric knight of ancient Sparta. Not only was he not exploited directly, he was himself made by extension a member of the dominant class--was lodged solidly on a tremendous superiority, which, however much the blacks in the "big house" might sneer at him, and however much their master might privately agree with them, he could never publicly lose. Come what might, he would always be a white man. And before that vast and capacious distinction, all others were foreshortened, dwarfed, and all but obliterated.

The grand outcome was the almost complete disappearance of economic and social focus on the part of the masses. One simply did not have to get on in this world in order to achieve security, independence, or value in one's own estimation and in that of one's fellows.
. . .
But for all that, it served wonderfully for a balance wheel in the Southern social world and so as a barrier against the development of bitterness. If the common white was scorned, yet that scorn was so attenuated and softened in its passage down through the universal medium of this manner, struck at last so obliquely upon his ego, that it glanced off harmless. When he frequented public gatherings, what he encountered would seldom be naked hauteur. Rather, there would nearly always be a fine gentleman to lay a familiar hand on his shoulder, to inquire by name after the members of his family, maybe to buy him a drink, certainly to rally him on some boasted weakness or treasured misadventure, and to come around eventually to confiding in a hushed voice that that damned, nigger-loving scoundrel Garrison, in Boston--in short, to patronize him in such fashion that to his simple eyes he seemed not to be patronized at all but actually deferred to, to send him home, not sullen and vindictive, but glowing with the sense of participation in the common brotherhood of white men.

[Kathy]

Reading comprehension should be the first requirement for diplomas.

Indeed. Or listening comprehension, in the case of the Obama video.

But I digress. I'm glad to hear I miscomprehended Tom's post. Just to be sure I'm clear now, I take it that Tom would agree that when a person loses a job, that person *does* experience a loss of dignity.

[Rick Ballard]

I like "Brilliant Seu" - it would capture all the other stuff 'cause people will think it's a translation issue involving the Orient. It fits, too.

DoT,

Using "through terribly hard times" in reference to the present situation in Indiana speaks to a deep lack of comprehension regarding both the economy and history rather than petulance. Could be ignorance, could be stupidity - more data is required to make a determination.

[Thomas Collins]

Kathy, as part of your response to my post, you stated that:

"Oh, so now if your sense of self-worth takes a hit when you lose your job you're a whiner."

Kathy, there is nothing in my post that indicates what you are ascribing to me is my view. It is not my view, and I would respectfully suggest that if you reread my post, you will come to the conclusion that my post cannot be reasonably read to state that I believe that if an individual loses his or her sense of self worth when he or she loses a job, he or she is a whiner. You might even agree with me that, whether rich, middle class or poor with regard to financial assets, the core values with which one approaches life have a far greater impact on how one reacts to adversity than changes in economic condition, and that one's core values are not determined by one's economic circumstances.

With regard to your comments on my personal experiences, I am certain that our fellow JOMers don't want to read my description of my personal experiences, or my approximately 45 years worth of memories of interactions with my father before he died (26 years of which occurred after he lost his job at the rubber plant). If you want to pursue this, let me know and I will provide you with my private email address. As to the impact of my father's job loss on me, once again, I am certain that this is not of primary concern to JOMers. I would be happy, however, if you are interested, to invite you to meet me in Providence, Rhode Island, where I will take you to some of the neighborhoods in which I delivered telephone books and served as a bar bouncer, because I had to do anything I could to help out my family while pursuing my college degree. While we are taking our stroll, I will explain to you why I spoke the way I did on my father and dignity.

If instead you would prefer to have a discussion of economic determinism and other determinants, by all means say so, and we can discuss Plato's view on internal being and its impact on how one confronts one's lot in life (see especially Book X of the Republic), Kojeve's analysis of the battle for pure prestige as a driver of history, the consolation Boethius found in philosophy under somewhat difficult circumstances, and the higher emotional state to which one can be raised by the music of Beethoven. I know these topics don't quite fit the mold of the educated elite today, but you'll have to forgive me; they were the topics that my factory worker/security guard father insisted I learn about and confront as part of my education.

[Sue]

I take it that Tom would agree that when a person loses a job, that person *does* experience a loss of dignity.

I can't help you. Reading comprehension is like Algebra. Either you get it or you don't. Frankly, I don't get Algebra and I bet you do, so we're even.

[Sue]

Thomas,

::grin::

[Danube of Thought]

From a review (at WSJ online) of a book entitled "Moral Clarity," by one Susan Neiman, which apparently addresses the malaise of the modern Left:

"Ms. Neiman points to many factors in the left's retreat from universal principles. The demise of socialism has played a role, as has despair over the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. But the real source, she suggests, is a 'conceptual collapse,' a self-destructive descent into identity politics, postmodern theory and victimology."

[Ann]

I like you Thomas Collins, alot!

[Danube of Thought]

Current unemployment rate in Indiana vs. historical high:

Current 5.1 Nov. 1982 12.8

(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Know your hard times...

[Thomas Collins]

It seems as if I have confused some of you (probably because confusion "rains" (with apologies to TM and his reins and reigns :-))) in my brain).

So, let me try to clarify. One may feel a loss of dignity because one's perfect board scores and boarding school prep education only resulted in one's being waitlisted at Yale. On the other hand, one may feel no loss of dignity despite a job loss. If by dignity we are speaking about one's sense of self worth, a sense of dignity does not necessarily depend on economic or job circumstances.

[Thomas Collins]

Wow! Jane thinks my post is beautiful, Sue thinks it's muddled, Ann likes me, and Kathy thinks I can shove my personal experience. All this attention from women (or at least posters posting with women's names). I am the Hugh Hefner of the blog world today!!! :-))

[centralcal]

Well, TC, don't go off the deep end here! Being HH-like just might cause some loss of dignity.

[Ann]

Dignitary Michelle Obama

"The life that I'm talking about that most people are living has gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.....So if you want to pretend like there was some point over the last couple of decades when your lives were easy. I want to meet you!"
-Michelle Obama, quoted in The New Yorker

I hear there are two little Obama girls with very wealthy parents. Go meet them.

(From "Stupid Quotes" section in the Limbaugh Letter:))

[Sue]

Sue thinks it's muddled

Not at all. I understood you perfectly.

[Sue]

Sorry.

[Danube of Thought]

Well, I like you too, Thomas Collins.

And the answer to your next question is "no."

[Elliott]

Thomas,

I think it would be more apt to say that your eloquent comments have earned you a one day membership in the Mark Steyn club.

I'm a little shaky on the Republic these days. I've always liked the Stoics, especially Seneca (and, yes, I am more than somewhat jealous of Charlie's pseudonym over at Flares).

[Thomas Collins]

Sorry that I misunderstood you, Sue (but you can call me muddled at any time).

Good jab, centralcal.

Thanks, DOT, for confirming that my likedness transcends genders.

And I appreciate the Steyn Club membership, Elliott, but the only book I completed was a picture book of cut out paper pasted on composition paper which was stapled together for a grade school art project.

Seriously, what determines one's sense of dignity is a topic with which I have struggled all my life. I don't challenge the good faith of those who emphasize economic determinants. I do vigorously challenge them, however, to reconsider (or consider, as the case may be) the possibility that factors of religion (or, with a nod to Mr. Hitchens, strong ethics), loving and challenging family, and internal discipline (as Seneca might emphasize, Elliott) are far more important to one's sense of dignity than one's economic lot in life.

[Danube of Thought]

My principal exposure to the Stoics was from reading A Man in Full. I loved that book, but it didn't prompt me sufficiently to go to the source material.

[Danube of Thought]

I think it would be appropriate to paraphrase a remark made by Liam Neeson in the excellent flick Rob Roy:

Dignity is a gift a man gives to himself. No one can give it to him, and no one can take it away.

(Rob Roy had it as "honor" in lieu of dignity.)

[Elliott]

Danube,

Frank Newport of Gallup said on O'Reilly that his tracking poll reports results based on likely voters (not registered voters as I said last week). So it would seem that Rasmussen and Gallup are showing better results for McCain in their tracking polls (although he now trails Clinton in both) because Republicans perform better among likely voters.

[Rick Ballard]

Elliot,

Gramps is suffering a slow bleed due to lack of that ol' free media coverage. It's going to be pretty tricky for him to get free air time from here on, "out of sight - out of mind - dropping in the polls". He's got a tough row to hoe.

[sbw]

Danube, Seneca's "Letters from a Stoic" is worth reading. You can get bits and pieces from Montaigne's Essays, the Penguin abridged version. Much of stoicism isn't about being stoic, it's common sense.

[JM Hanes]

Rick:

Maybe we should be glad that the Dem circus is sucking up all the oxygen. Read this, per ABC News, and weep:

Democratic charges of "McSame" and "a third Bush term" have had more resonance than they at first calculated.
......
The McCain campaign believes one issue in particular over which he can accentuate his differences with the Bush Administration is the environment. For months, the Arizona senator has talked on the stump about the threat of climate change and the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Soon, he will step up his focus on this issue.

Although Tom might see this contrast to McCain on Rev. Wright as a silver lining:

The McCain campaign appears less hesitant about going after Obama over his putative relationship with a former Weatherman radical, William Ayers.

[Rick Ballard]

JMH,

Gramps likes to stay on the cutting edge - with a 36 month delay. Plus, AFAIK, actual facts and knowledge have never played much of a part in his political decisions. I think he ignores them because they interfere with the voices...

[Kathy]

You might even agree with me that, whether rich, middle class or poor with regard to financial assets, the core values with which one approaches life have a far greater impact on how one reacts to adversity than changes in economic condition, and that one's core values are not determined by one's economic circumstances.

Actually, I don't agree with that at all. I believe that the economic and social circumstances one grows up in very much affect core values. If you have grown up in difficult circumstances, whether economic or in some other way, your core values are going to be way different than if you grew up never knowing a day's financial worry or hardship, knowing that your golden future was assured from the moment of your birth.

I don't know about your core values, but my core values were very much affected by the circumstances my parents grew up in, and how those circumstances affected them for the rest of their lives.

And I can say pretty unequivocally that the core values of, say, William Buckley, who was born and raised in wealth and immense privilege, who went to the most exclusive private schools and then continued on to Yale, who most likely never, ever, even met a black or a Jewish person until after he left home (except, in the former instance, as servants) were very, very different from the core values of, say, someone like Bruce Springsteen, who is fabulously wealthy now but grew up in a working-class family in an economically depressed town where everyone struggled to make ends meet.

[JM Hanes]

Well, Kathy, you've certainly managed to describe different, if rather imaginative, circumstances -- but you haven't actually described any differences in core values at all.