Why Conservatives Will Always Be Racist (Or Anyway, Perceived That Way)

Shelby Steele explains that the conservative philosophy of "Don't just do something, stand there" can never trump well-intentioned action, however dismal the results.  Lots of good bits, but I'll snag this:

The appeal of conservatism is the mutuality it asserts between individual and political freedom, its beautiful idea of a free man in a free society. And it offers minorities the one thing they can never get from liberalism: human rather than racial dignity. I always secretly loved Malcolm X more than Martin Luther King Jr. because Malcolm wanted a fuller human dignity for blacks -- one independent of white moral wrestling. In a liberalism that wants to redeem the nation of its past, minorities can only be ciphers in white struggles of conscience.

Comments

[verner]

A beautiful statement from Steele. But a question for "white" liberals--what are they going to do when "whites" are a minority in this country?

Personally, I would love to give every man woman and child in the US a DNA screening.(Can we get it in the stimulus package??) That would put the matter to rest. Race is a meaningless cultural construct, with no real science to back it up.

[daddy]

Good morning.

Apologies for OT. Stuff is coming down from the sky today but thankfully it is not volcanic ash but instead is a very heavy snowfall, so with visibility limited to about a mile am unable to provide any new Volcano updates.
No big new developments about it at the local geological websites, so until another JOMer has another Birthday (like Porchlight's yesterday) I think we're almost back to normal. Sorry to interrupt.

[bgates]

Verner, I can find almost 6,000 articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association referring to "black patients". Isn't it odd that peer review didn't catch this meaningless non-scientific cultural construct?

I always secretly loved Malcolm X
Shelby Steele is one conservative who ought to be perceived as racist.

[Jane]

Daddy,

You keep the oddest hours. Good Morning to you too!

[hit and run]

Daddy:
so until another JOMer has another Birthday (like Porchlight's yesterday) I think we're almost back to normal.

This gives you about 5 days of almost back to normal, from the intel I have gathered.

[verner]

bgates, but what does "black" patients really mean genetically speaking? Take our president for example. Should he be included in the "black patient" category? Many if not most people in this country have a very "mixed" genetic makeup. For example, you can find sickle cell in certain "white" individuals.

In my family we have a genetic predisposition for heart disease. Can we attribute that to "whiteness?" There are a number of diseases that are more prevalent in certain groups (Tay Saks for example). How does that translate into the category we understand as "race?"

In truth, the genetic differences between "racial" groups are exceedingly small, are fairly recent in human evolutionary history,and can in large part be contributed to environmental factors (ie white skin and the need for Vit. D production in Northern climates). We just tend to exaggerate them.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Okay, bgtes, I'll bite. What is the genetic marker that identifies someone as "black"??

[jimmyk]

In truth, the genetic differences between "racial" groups are exceedingly small.

What does "small" mean? During the media blitz on gene mapping a few years ago, I recall stories about how surprisingly small the genetic differences are between humans and, say, aardvarks. To me that suggests we don't have a good way of quantifying "small" in this context.

[Rick Ballard]

"What does "small" mean?"

That depends upon the skill of the sophist. What would you like to "scientifically prove"?

[bgates]

Take our president for example. Should he be included in the "black patient" category?
Pointing out edge cases is very different from asserting no categorization is possible. If I breed a golden retriever with a bulldog I'll get something that is neither fully retriever nor fully bulldog, but that doesn't demonstrate that there's no such thing as a bulldog.

Many if not most people in this country have a very "mixed" genetic makeup. For example, you can find sickle cell in certain "white" individuals.

Sickle cell is the result of a point mutation. It's entirely possible that an incident of the mutation could have occurred in, say, 9th century Ireland and propagated among white (or, if you like, "white") people.

In my family we have a genetic predisposition for heart disease. Can we attribute that to "whiteness?"
I don't know any reason why you should. In my family we have complexions more like the inside of a potato than the outside. Is that due to some cultural artifact?

There are a number of diseases that are more prevalent in certain groups (Tay Saks for example). How does that translate into the category we understand as "race?"
Those diseases like several more obvious physical features are heritable and distinct among populations of humans which have developed on different parts of the globe.
the genetic differences between "racial" groups are exceedingly small
Compared to what?
are fairly recent in human evolutionary history
What on earth does that matter?
and can in large part be contributed to environmental factors
-and therefore anti-science?

[bgates]

What is the genetic marker that identifies someone as "black"?

I don't know. Do you think that proves something?

[matt]

The reality is that the Republican message has been successfully deconstructed and reconstructed by the Left. The very people who should be protesting poor schools and services and medical care are being used as tools to maintain power by the very people who they elected to represent them.

[kim]

It's a cognitive defect; in fact, conservatives are perfectly happy to accept that character counts more than color. It's the liberals and the Progressives who need to unleash the power of racism and the guilt attendant to it. Conservatives are post racial; it's the progressives who are not.

And there it is.
===================

[bgates]

Here is a picture of three men. They are all dressed in the traditional manner of Catholic priests, a religion centered in Rome. The middle fellow is wearing eyeglasses, which are probably also a European invention.

Every cultural marker in the picture suggests these men are European.

I invite each of you to print this picture out, and ask every human being you meet for the rest of your life the following question:
"Suppose you have access to a time machine, and you need to visit the ancestors of these three men from 700 years ago. Would you go to
A) Canada
B) Finland
C) Taiwan
D) Turkey
E) Vietnam
F) Egypt
G) Nigeria
?"
My hypothesis is that every human being on the face of the earth, including the three men in the picture, will answer (G).

[kim]

You and I are saying the same thing, matt. Those white working class people who didn't go for Obama didn't do it because of racism; it's because they've worked, labored, with black people and understand that it is character, not color, that is important. They were immune to Obama's calls to the guilty. It's the progressive white elite who haven't been exposed to the black experience, on the job, day after day, gittin' 'er done.
=========================================

[Rick Ballard]

?" It's obvious that they are Black Irish. You can't fool me with these trick questions.

[Strawman Cometh]

I nominate Shelby Steele for head of RNC. Conservatives would love a true intellectual promoting our positions. Liberals wouldn't notice the switch was made.

[kim]

Don't fall for it, bgates; their ancestors all hid money in safe deposit boxes.
===================================

[Nick]

I notice that Steele didn't mention the Southern Strategy as a reason why Republicans can't win with minorities.

I wouldn't be a fan of any political party which made the vilification of my race a political strategy either.

As for the notion that we white working class people who voted for Obama did so out of guilt or some such other nonsense--sadly, no!.

We voted for Obama because the Republicans have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at government, and wrongheaded on everything from the theory of evolution on up.

[matt]

well, they could be Canadian

[TCO]

you also have the Chicken Littles like kim who say "do a bailout, it must help".

[kim]

Nope, I don't say that, you big fat liar.
=========================================

[kim]

Nick, don't you remember the good old days under Bush when the worldwide economy expanded like never before, and the bad guys either played nice or ran for cover. That was pretty good government, but you swallowed all the media bullshit. And now you get to barf it all back up again.
===========================================

[Jane]

We voted for Obama because the Republicans have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at government, and wrongheaded on everything from the theory of evolution on up.

How's that working out for you?

[matt]

gee, Nick, that was a sensible statement. On September 12, things changed, but for democrats it was back to the same left/liberal memes @ 1 year after the Iraq invasion.... Then came Katrina, which the left did its best to blame everyone except Ray Nagin and that idiot Blanco, who were criminally derelict in their duties. You cay say a lot of things, but the deflection of responsibility by the democrats has been absolutely amazing. Take Barney Frank.... please...

The democrats have been misrepresenting the republicans and obstructionist in their own narrow interests to a degree which is inimical to an honest political discourse and to a functioning republic.

Then came Obama and his "blame anyone else" strategy. The "most open administration ever" instead has been populated by tax cheats and grifters and lobbyists. At least he's open about it. The Pelosi/Reid bailout bill just shot our childrens future all to hell and had more graft than anything since Rutherford Hayes.

I've not been a fan of the republicans, but the scope of scumbucketry of the dems makes the republicans look like little leaguers.

[narciso]

So why are you a Democrat then, Jackson, Johnson, Calhoun, Tillman, Watson, all those proud names, add Cornelius Sales, Hugo Black, & Ernest Hollings

[verner]

OK BGates, here's a question you're going to have to answer. What set of genes must one possess before one is considered genetically "BLACK."

[Nick]

Nick, don't you remember the good old days under Bush when the worldwide economy expanded like never before, and the bad guys either played nice or ran for cover. That was pretty good government, but you swallowed all the media bullshit. And now you get to barf it all back up again.
===========================================

Posted by: kim | March 16, 2009 at 05:27 PM
---------------------

We're living in Bush's economy; this current crisis is a result of 8 years of his policies, regardless of what your masters at Fox News tell you.

As for bad guys, too bad that 8 years on we still haven't gotten bin Laden--or the anthrax killer.

But we did blow the hell out of Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11.

And we also tortured a lot of people, some to death.

But back to the main topic, Steele conveniently failed to mention the racist Southern Strategy of the Republican Party as a reason why Republicans get almost no African American votes. That would be too obvious a cause for their disdain.

[verner]

BGates:I invite each of you to print this picture out, and ask every human being you meet for the rest of your life the following question:
"Suppose you have access to a time machine, and you need to visit the ancestors of these three men from 700 years ago. Would you go to?

I seriously doubt if you did DNA testing of these three men that you would find just one "focal local" point BGates. You would likely find alleles that are markers for any number of places...the arab world, Portugal, maybe even asia! Further, unless these three men were close blood relatives, you would also find a great deal of genetic variation between the three. This would be especially true if these gentlemen were of any sort of American origin.

Human beings have been mixing it up for a long long time.

[kim]

Naw, he tried to regulate housing and was thwarted by Frank, Dodd, and the Congressional Black Caucus. Furthermore, the crisis in confidence is entirely on the Democrats; look up the DOW in early 2007.

Bin Laden is one of those so on the run he's not been able to repeat his attack.

Check the latest news on Iraq; everything is coming up roses there. And you are delusional if you think Saddam did not support terrorists or lust after WMD.

Torture? Naw. What little waterboarding we did demonstratively saved lives and Obama has not ruled out similar efforts if necessary.

Blacks vote Democratic because the Democrats encourage their victimization claims, which hold them back. Who's the racist, you simple thing?
=======================================

[glasater]

I had read this fine article by Shelby Steele before TM brought it as a post.

This graph is one I hope to commit to memory:

Added to this, American minorities of color -- especially blacks -- are often born into grievance-focused identities. The idea of grievance will seem to define them in some eternal way, and it will link them atavistically to a community of loved ones. To separate from grievance -- to say simply that one is no longer racially aggrieved -- will surely feel like an act of betrayal that threatens to cut one off from community, family and history. So, paradoxically, a certain chauvinism develops around one's sense of grievance. Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement.

This explains something I've never understood before.

[clarice]

Announcing Another Contest:

Could dopey Nick possibly have fit more nincompoopery in that amount of space and written a less persuasive post than he did?

Best entry using the same number of words, wins an evening with TCO or semanticleo.

[Geek, Esq.]

Shorter Shelby Steele: Minorities hate the party of Tom Tancredo for its freedom.

Perhaps Mr. Steele was asleep between 1968 and the present day.

[Pofarmer]

As for bad guys, too bad that 8 years on we still haven't gotten bin Laden--or the anthrax killer.

Soooooo, you wanna do what? Invade Pakistan?

[Pofarmer]

This explains something I've never understood before.

Obama understands this perfectly well.

[Pofarmer]

Ya know, this asshatery from folks like Nick is just too much to take.

Can't get Bin Laden?

Well, maybe we should interrogate high level terrorists?

Nope, can't do that.

Well, maybe we should try to track financial exchanges to see where all the terrorist money is heading?

Nope, can't do that.

Well, maybe we can listen in on terrorist phone calls who just happen to come through U.S. exchanges?

Nope, can't do that, either.

How, exactly, do folks like Nick plan on catching or foiling Bin Laden, Send the FBI to Pakistan to track him down?

Good friggin luck with that.

[clarice]

glasater, this part of Steele's statement"To separate from grievance -- to say simply that one is no longer racially aggrieved -- will surely feel like an act of betrayal that threatens to cut one off from community, family and history" rather well summarizes what I've read of Michelle's senior thesis at Princeton.She was saying going to Princeton she adopted the values there and seemed very disturbed by the thought that meant separating from the community of her birth.

[hit and run]

As for bad guys, too bad that 8 years on we still haven't gotten bin Laden

Sure, that's why you love Obama:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/12/binladen.hunt/index.html>"Obama administration to ratchet up hunt for bin Laden"

And can't stand Bush:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5520116.ece>"It is no longer essential to kill Osama bin Laden"

Ooops. My bad. That wasn't Bush, that was President-Elect Obama in January, throwing Candidate Obama from October under the bus

Your use of bin Laden to castigate Bush is like bin Laden using the Palestinian issue to castigate Israel and the US.

[TCO]

close enough Kim...you little commie RINO. I am going to kick your moderate ass out of the Republican party. We don't have room for mavericks OR wimps. You had a chance to fight and instead drunk the Bush RINO Kool aid. So go and sit in the corner with the dunce cap on.

[Nick]

Naw, he tried to regulate housing and was thwarted by Frank, Dodd, and the Congressional Black Caucus. Furthermore, the crisis in confidence is entirely on the Democrats; look up the DOW in early 2007.

Bin Laden is one of those so on the run he's not been able to repeat his attack.

Check the latest news on Iraq; everything is coming up roses there. And you are delusional if you think Saddam did not support terrorists or lust after WMD.

Torture? Naw. What little waterboarding we did demonstratively saved lives and Obama has not ruled out similar efforts if necessary.

Blacks vote Democratic because the Democrats encourage their victimization claims, which hold them back. Who's the racist, you simple thing?
=======================================

Posted by: kim | March 16, 2009 at 06:09 PM
------------------------------

First, Bush had control of the Congress for 4 years and wasn't thwarted on this by Democrats. On the contrary, he was busy pushing his ownership society.

The fact is that Obama is dealing with the economic mess left over from 8 years of Republican misrule.

Second, $3-$5 trillion for the mess that is Iraq. You may be one of the few people who calls that a good investment; the rest of us recognize it for the foreign policy debacle it was.

Third, shame on Obama if he continues torturing people. That's not why I served.

Forth--so blacks vote en mass for Democrats because they're fooled by Democratic pandering? In other words, blacks are too dumb or too venal to do the right thing.
That sort of low opinion of black people is exactly why they loathe your party. That and the ongoing racism which Ken Mehlman apologized for, but which keeps rearing its ugly head.

[Nick]

Can't get Bin Laden?

Well, maybe we should interrogate high level terrorists?

Nope, can't do that.

Well, maybe we should try to track financial exchanges to see where all the terrorist money is heading?

Nope, can't do that.

Well, maybe we can listen in on terrorist phone calls who just happen to come through U.S. exchanges?

Nope, can't do that, either.
--------------------

We can interrogate terrorists, we just shouldn't be torturing them.

You're also wrong about tracing funds or listening in on terrorists. Read FISA.

But then again, I'm addressing people who were fooled by the WMD hype.

[verner]

"Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement."

I agree, a brilliant insight.

For example, in 1850, my starving Irish Gr Gr Grandfather was kicked off the land and forced to flee to America. Do I hate all Englishmen? No. Do I want reparations? No.Although, a very tangled argument could be made that I deserve compensation.

[kim]

Everyone, son, was fooled by Saddam's WMD hype, even Joe Wilson. Saddam bluffed about WMD to keep the Iranians at bay.

It is clear that waterboarding three terrorists saved lives, and Obama has not ruled out similar measures, nor has he changed the rules about tracing funds or electronic surveillance. You are just gullible.

Read Joe Wilson's 2/6/03 op-ed in the LATimes in which he argued that we should not invade Iraq for fear that Saddam would use his chemical and biological WMD on our troops. It just underlines his cowardice and treason.
===========================================

[kim]

Nope, TCO, you are a big fat liar whose kicking foot is in your mouth.
==========================================

[narciso]

So how do you get information from the logistics officer for AQ, Abu Zubeydah, or their chief operational planner, KSM, or their naval assets official, Al Nashiri

The NY Times burned the SWIFT program, breaching the cooperation of several governments, FISA was designed with nation states in mind, by Biden, who was more frightened of the CIA and the FBI than our enemies. It was amusing enough when you were relating your marines stories from the 70s, it's less now.

[bgates]

What set of genes must one possess before one is considered genetically "BLACK."

What set of genes must one possess before one is considered genetically "CAPABLE OF RUNNING A SUB-9.8 100M"?

I think it's flattering that you and Charlie think I know everything that can possibly be known about genetics, but I don't. There are plenty of young-earth creationists who think the fact that there are unanswered questions in science demonstrates that science has hit some kind of hard limit. I think they're wrong. I think you're making a similar mistake.

I seriously doubt if you did DNA testing of these three men that you would find just one "focal local" point BGates. You would likely find alleles that are markers for any number of places
You used the word "likely", so I'm going to ask you for a likelihood.
I'm also going to ask you to answer my question - do you think (G)? If so, why? If not, why not?

[SteveM]

Shelby Steele is one conservative who ought to be perceived as racist.

And so he is, in the positive sense of the term.

[SteveM]

The fact is that Obama is dealing with the economic mess left over from 8 years of Republican misrule.

That's your story line, but it's not a fact. And your thinking otherwise just shows that you don't understand the economic mess in the slightest.

[SteveM]

Steele conveniently failed to mention the racist Southern Strategy of the Republican Party as a reason why Republicans get almost no African American votes

Even for a lefty, you're incoherent. That makes no sense at all.

Assume for the moment that your premise about the wicked "Southern Strategy" is correct. The Democratic Party really did practice that strategy for several decades. And they had the majority of the black vote for all that time. Because all the blacks in the North, who could vote, voted for the Democratic party which put money in their pockets, even though this exact same Democraric party was the the party of Bull Connor and was oppressing their southern brothers.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

so until another JOMer has another Birthday (like Porchlight's yesterday) I think we're almost back to normal.

Porchlight, sorry I missed it yesterday. Hope that you had a good one and that you will have many more to come.

Interesting that none of the Bush policies towards Afghanistan and Bin Laden have changed much, Nick. How do you explain that?

If per chance we somehow get the turbaned one under the BHOWatch, I will be among the first to cheer.

There were few here that "were fooled by the WMD hype". In fact, Iraq had used WMD prior to 9/11, was looking to improve its nuclear weapon capability, was stonewalling all attempts at verification of weapons destruction, and was supporting terrorism in the mid-east and elsewhere.

There was no intelligence from the US or any other country during the Clinton Administration or in the two years afterward that contradicted any of the above facts.

Articulating those facts as a reason to disarm Iraq was not hype but prudence.

[WestWright]

I'm always impressed by JOM respondees,
even Nick, the ignorant troll is handled with witty dispatch. I thought the Shelby Steele piece had excellent insight and wish some of that would rub off on Michael Steele. "Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement." Certainly a brilliant insight.

[bgates]

And so he is, in the positive sense of the term.
I'll confess I don't know what that means. I'm bothered by the fact that Steele says he loved Malcolm X, a man who hated me for my skin color (despite what I'm told is the fact that my pigmentation is a cultural artifact with no genetic basis at all).

[matt]

verner, blackness must be officially adjudicated by either Jesse jackson or the Reverend Al Sharpton...everybody knows that....

[Nick]

Everyone, son, was fooled by Saddam's WMD hype, even Joe Wilson. Saddam bluffed about WMD to keep the Iranians at bay.

Posted by: kim | March 16, 2009 at 07:03 PM
------------------

Not everyone was fooled by Bush's WMD hype and the his claimed need to invade Iraq.

Blix made two reports to the security council asserting progress and no WMD. Bushco had their Office of Special Plans 'stovepiping evidence' favoring the WMD bogeyman.

It was all clearly bunk, a complete sell job (see Andy Card's comments on that).

The only people fooled by Bush's WMD hype were people who wanted to be fooled.

[verner]

BGates, I'll just end by saying that 30% of self-identified African American males have a YDNA lineage that indicates a European origin of the patri-lineal line.

You seem to be missing my point. Yes human beings are genetically diverse, and certain populations, and geographic locations show different frequencies of certain genes. But how does this translate into the rather, to me, meaningless categories of "race," with all their ugly connotations? I don't think that it does.

[Nick]

The fact is that Obama is dealing with the economic mess left over from 8 years of Republican misrule.

That's your story line, but it's not a fact. And your thinking otherwise just shows that you don't understand the economic mess in the slightest.

Posted by: SteveM | March 16, 2009 at 07:30 PM
-----------------------

And it's your sublime understanding of the economic situation that Obama, who has been in office less than 60 days, is responsible for an financial meltdown that has been rolling along since at least last spring?

And that the TARP was enacted in response to problems developed which are attributed to Obama's presidency?

I'm all ears for this explanation.

[bad]

The only people fooled by Bush's WMD hype were people who wanted to be fooled.

Joe Wilson, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, etc.....

[Nick]

Steele conveniently failed to mention the racist Southern Strategy of the Republican Party as a reason why Republicans get almost no African American votes

Even for a lefty, you're incoherent. That makes no sense at all.

Assume for the moment that your premise about the wicked "Southern Strategy" is correct. The Democratic Party really did practice that strategy for several decades. And they had the majority of the black vote for all that time. Because all the blacks in the North, who could vote, voted for the Democratic party which put money in their pockets, even though this exact same Democraric party was the the party of Bull Connor and was oppressing their southern brothers.

Posted by: SteveM | March 16, 2009 at 07:36 PM

---------------------------------

As recently as 1960 Republicans garnered over a third of the African American vote in presidential elections. Johnson did the right thing and passed the Civil Rights Act, admitted he would lose the South for a generation (southern whites), and Nixon and the rest of the Republicans took their opportunity to get the white vote by pandering to white racial fears at the expense of blacks, to their eternal shame.

[narciso]

Blix who was fooled by the Potemkin village at Yongbyon reactor in 1985, that Blix, whose actions were circumscribed by the Security Council members like France and Russia, firmly on the oil for food payoff scandal; that Blix.

[Nick]

There were few here that "were fooled by the WMD hype". In fact, Iraq had used WMD prior to 9/11, was looking to improve its nuclear weapon capability, was stonewalling all attempts at verification of weapons destruction, and was supporting terrorism in the mid-east and elsewhere.

There was no intelligence from the US or any other country during the Clinton Administration or in the two years afterward that contradicted any of the above facts.

Articulating those facts as a reason to disarm Iraq was not hype but prudence.

Posted by: Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet
----------------------

Hans Blix reported twice to the Security Council in 2003 that he was receiving cooperation and finding no WMD, and that with a little more time he would produce a definitive report.

Knowing this, Bush refused to go to the Security Council to seek a warrant for war, knowing they would demand that Blix's investigations be allowed to continue, and that they would show what David Kaye later said took him two days on the ground to know--that Saddam had no WMD.

That's all an reasoning person needed to know to realize we were being sold hype.

Of course, the emotionally charged rhetoric of the Bush administration and its supporters was obvious to anyone paying attention. Moreover, many credible people were speaking out against the manufactured excuses for going to war. And you saw how they treated Scott Ritter and Joe Wilson.

[Jane]

Nick,

You won. You got your man, and all the policies you want. So why are you here bitching at us?

Go out and celebrate. You certainly earned it.

[Nick]

"Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement." Certainly a brilliant insight.

Posted by: WestWright | March 16, 2009 at 07:43 PM
------------------------

And with what 'witty dispatch' do you dismiss the facts regarding greatly increased infant mortality among African American babies, decreased lifespans for African American adults, decreased earnings for African Americans of all ages, as well as the multitude of other indicia which suggest other than biological causes of poverty for African Americans?

[mel]

Nick-

Why, oh why do you insist on using history books with the hand drawn pretty pictures? They may pass as au courant at HuffPo and DU, but for everyone else they're still just comic books.

Just 'cause you WANT to have Spidey-sense, doesn't make it so.

[narciso]

Scott Ritter, who was paid off by the oil for food program, Joe Wilson, a partner with Saudi/Yemeni businessman who rightly saw the challenge of democratic Shia Iraq to the Wahhabi state. Armitage, Scowcroft
all basically in the realpolitik mode of Charles Freeman, apologists for Saud theocrats and Chinese oligarchs, what'd you think of him. Nick

[kim]

You still haven't read Joe Wilson's op-ed in the LATimes talking about Saddam's WMD, have you?

So why, if things are so tough for African Americans, do the Democrats still want to keep them as victims?
=========================================

[Strawman Cometh]

"'tis but a scratch"

"just a flesh wound"

"call it a draw"

"I'll bite your legs off!"

,Nick

[Captain Hate]

The fact is that Obama is dealing with the economic mess left over from 8 years of Republican misrule.

Nick is confused with what a fact is.

[Nick]

You still haven't read Joe Wilson's op-ed in the LATimes talking about Saddam's WMD, have you?

So why, if things are so tough for African Americans, do the Democrats still want to keep them as victims?
=========================================

Posted by: kim | March 16, 2009 at 08:28 PM
--------------

Wilson: "The assertion that Hussein might share weapons of mass destruction with a terrorist group, however, is counterintuitive to everything I and others know about him."

Re: keeping blacks as victims--that's a Republican meme, used in the attack against liberal attempts to improve the lot of African Americans, and designed to draw attention away from the fact that Republicans regularly kick blacks when down for political gain.

Whether liberal efforts have been good or bad in sum for the well being of African Americans is open to dispute. But the fact that the Republican Party has actively courted white voters by stoking their fears of an oppressed minority is not in question.

And irony of ironies, many of you call yourselves Christian.

[Jane]

Does anyone know why Nick is so angry?

[Captain Hate]

Nick's been working in the unventilated meth lab too long.

[Rick Ballard]

Respondents to the Two Minute Hate Call issued in the 0845 Fascist Directive have qualified for their positions by failing multiple intelligence tests.

I'd just like to thank Bgates once again for Trollblocker3. The pine scent is remarkably refreshing, although not 100% effective in masking the effluvium.

[Pofarmer]

and Nixon and the rest of the Republicans took their opportunity to get the white vote by pandering to white racial fears at the expense of blacks,

I'll admit, this is a new one to me. Examples?

against liberal attempts to improve the lot of African Americans,

How?

and designed to draw attention away from the fact that Republicans regularly kick blacks when down for political gain.

When?

[Pofarmer]

knowing they would demand that Blix's investigations be allowed to continue,

Which were only going to continue with a few hundred thousand U.S. troops in the region and a couple of carrier battle groups in the gulf, just in case, with no end in sight, yeah, that wouldn't have created any tensions in the region whatsoever.

[narciso]

Yep, we would have ended up in the same situation, that supposedly gave Bin Laden
his justification, to attack us in the first place, it's only been a few hours and
I'm already as annoyed as with TCO.

The Democrats are often against law enforcements efforts against the criminal element, like James Q. Wilson's 'broken window theory, personal self defense against criminals, pro choice educational policies for those trapped in substandard schools, trade in anti American, anti Western diatribes that focus hatred upon society (Wright, Sharpton, Jackson, Sims)
and now they are for extremely regressive
energy and tax policies.

[Captain Hate]

Johnson did the right thing and passed the Civil Rights Act

Lyndon passed it all by himself, eh? In what alternate universe is this regarded as "history"?

[Nick]

and Nixon and the rest of the Republicans took their opportunity to get the white vote by pandering to white racial fears at the expense of blacks,

I'll admit, this is a new one to me. Examples?

against liberal attempts to improve the lot of African Americans,

How?

and designed to draw attention away from the fact that Republicans regularly kick blacks when down for political gain.

When?

Posted by: Pofarmer | March 16, 2009 at 09:07 PM
-----------------------------
(1) Lee Atwater--former RNC: "You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Second, How have Democrats attempted to improve the lot of African Americans? The Civil Rights Act, Johnson's war on poverty (which did reduce the poverty rate nationally and among African Americans), and by the many nefarious schemes alleged by your fellow travellers to be attempts by Democrats to trick African Americans into voting for them.

Third, just read the Wikipedia article and follow the links. Educate yourself on what's being done with your acquiescence.

Finally, will someone please explain how the this financial crisis belongs to Barack Obama, and not George Bush? That claim was made upthread, against all reason, and yet nobody but me called the commenter on that absurd idea.

[kim]

Look, Nick, Saddam paid the families of terrorist bombers. Citing Joe Wilson, in the pay of the Arabs, as a source for the intentions of Saddam is kind of silly. What did you think about his contention that Saddam had biological and chemical WMD and that he would use them on our troops. What do you think of the way he changed his tune after not much stuff was found? Oh, why do I ask; you've bought the media spin hook, line, and sinker.
============================================

[Nick]

knowing they would demand that Blix's investigations be allowed to continue,

Which were only going to continue with a few hundred thousand U.S. troops in the region and a couple of carrier battle groups in the gulf, just in case, with no end in sight, yeah, that wouldn't have created any tensions in the region whatsoever.

Posted by: Pofarmer | March 16, 2009 at 09:09 PM
-----------------

The point is that Blix only needed a couple months to complete his inspection and determine that Ritter and others were correct in asserting that Saddam had no weapons.

Better jaw jaw than war war, as Churchill said. We'd have saved several trillion dollars and perhaps a million lives, including many American lives.

But then Bush would have been a one term president, and many of you would not have had the opportunity to question the patriotism of people like me who called B.S.

[DebinNC]

"Rub raw the resentments of the people; search out controversy and issues."

We need to keep the Alinsky rules list handy. It will explain so much.

[kim]

Barack Obama, and his pals in the Congressional Black Caucus, and his pals Barney Frank and Chris Dodd blocked Bush Administration attempts to regulate housing, thus leading to the mess we are in. Furthermore, his ham-handed efforts since inauguration have lead to the crisis of confidence we have now.

What about Bush's Administration caused the worldwide failure of regulation that led to the banking crisis? Why is this Bush's problem, other than that your Dear Leader claims it so to distract from the pusillanimity of his own team?
==================================

[Pofarmer]

Finally, will someone please explain how the this financial crisis belongs to Barack Obama, and not George Bush?

Take a look at the Dow about the time Obama sealed the nomination and look at it today.

Take a look at the tapes, I think it was in 05, of the Dim's dressing down 'Pubs for even SUGGESTING that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might need stronger reins.

Take a look at the FACT that Barack Hussein was on the legal team that FORCED Citi to make loans it didn't want to make.

The Civil Rights Act, Johnson's war on poverty (which did reduce the poverty rate nationally and among African Americans),

And, where are we now Nick? I roomed with a Black guy for a year in College. From KC, MO. Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Dad was an engineer, he was in engineering school. His friends loved to talk about coming up with "Black Power" products to help the brotha's, whatever that means. Why not come up with products to help everybody? Oh, and I was driving a 4 door cavalier with 150K on it and several of those guys were driving BMW's and Mercede's. Yes, they had raised being aggrieved to a high art. Steele is spot on, whether you like it or not. The Conservative positions is that ANYBODY should be able to succeed based on the merits of their actions and not the color of thier skin.

[kim]

So, Nick, you prefer Saddam's Iraq to the Iraq of today? Hard as it may be for you to swallow, Bush's effort in Iraq has been a magnificent success, such that it may be difficult for Obama to blow it there. Don't worry, he'll manage to so elsewhere, easily. What's your defense of Obama wanting the surge to fail just so it could hurt Bush?
======================================

[bgates]

will someone please explain how the this financial crisis belongs to Barack Obama, and not George Bush?

Obama is the President, and his party has majorities in both houses of Congress. Before that, he was a Senator in a Congress in which his party had a majority in both houses.

Before that, Bush was a President whose party had majorities in both houses of Congress, it was 2006, and the economy was still in decent shape.

Of course there were problems even in 2006. The system is designed to frustrate change. Republicans couldn't just pass any legislation they liked, they were subject to Democrat filibusters. To have complete one-party ownership of federal law requires the kind of majorities that Obama/Reid/Pelosi have right now.

[kim]

This is sophistry, Nick. Explain Wilson's op-ed a little better than just citing his insight into Saddam's character. The key to that op-ed is its insight into Wilson's character. And yours too, by the way.
=================================

[Pofarmer]

But then Bush would have been a one term president, and many of you would not have had the opportunity to question the patriotism of people like me who called B.S.

I don't question your patriotism, but I do question your brains.

Apparently you've forgotten Kerry/Edwards trying to run to the right of Bush on Iraq in 03.

Surely somebody has that long list of quotes.

[Pofarmer]

So, does Nick live in some parallel universe where we HADN'T been jaw jawing Saddam and the UN for, what, 12 years and how many umpteen toothless resolutions, which was all about to go down the drain, at which time the Duelfer report indicates that Saddam was primed and ready to start back up ALL of his programs?

[Jim Ryan]

And irony of ironies, many of you call yourselves Christian.

Nick is the kind of troll who can't escape their self-loathing without the catharsis afforded by hating others. In order to achieve climax, he has to imagine hateful things about them. The resentment and self-righteous indignation are a facsimile of self-love; in the heat of the moment it's hard for him to tell the difference. He likes to think that God smiles on those who piece together a coherent narrative in which Republicans are wicked and ignorant villains. From his imagined place at God's side he feels himself afforded the opportunity to sneer at the religious life of others. Afterward, there is the shame, and the self-loathing returns. The cycle repeats. For the KKK it's blacks. For Nick it's GOP. Others choose still different fetishes and totems.

Send better trolls. The dark and angry ones are boringly maudlin.

[Nick]

Finally, will someone please explain how the this financial crisis belongs to Barack Obama, and not George Bush?

Take a look at the Dow about the time Obama sealed the nomination and look at it today.
------------------

The Dow is not the cause of the financial crisis and is irrelevant in this context.

What is relevant is that the Bush administration went to Congress BEFORE the election and told them they needed to pass the TARP or the financial system was going to collapse. Within days.

That happened 8 years into a period when Bush had control of the regulatory arm of the government.

This is Bush's crisis, not Obama's.

[kim]

That's right, Pofarmer. As a matter of fact, I was in the 20% who believed at the time that we should continue jawing rather than invading. I changed my mind after Duelfer's report and Claudia Rossett's reporting about the Oil for Food scandal. My opinion has been confirmed by the recent translations showing that Saddam bluffed everyone, including his own henchmen, into believing that he had WMD, in order to keep the Persians at bay. Nick forgets that Plame's CIA was telling Bush that it was a slam dunk that Saddam had WMD. And he probably did have more than we ever found. Joe Wilson and the Democrats who attacked Bush after we didn't find much WMD are cowards and traitors who would have been hanged a century or two ago, and would have been drawn and quartered a few centuries earlier. Nick has just absorbed the self-defeating leftist propaganda that is a prescription for suicide. And Jim Ryan nails him, too.
=================================

[kim]

Oh, no, you are wrong there, Nick; the DOW has a lot to do with the crisis of credit and confidence that we now have. And the unemployment and the hoarding of guns and money, but, heh, not of lawyers. This is the Democrats doing.

And please don't talk about Bush's failure to regulate; we've talked about how Frank and Dodd and the CBC thwarted his efforts to regulate the housing market, the root cause of the mess.
========================================

[Nick]

So Nick, you prefer Saddam's Iraq to the Iraq of today? Hard as it may be for you to swallow, Bush's effort in Iraq has been a magnificent success, such that it may be difficult for Obama to blow it there. Don't worry, he'll manage to so elsewhere, easily. What's your defense of Obama wanting the surge to fail just so it could hurt Bush?
======================================

Posted by: kim | March 16, 2009 at 09:36
---------------------------

The present condition of Iraq isn't justification for a $3 to $5 trillion dollar expenditure, nor a million lives. And it certainly is not an excuse for the deceit which was used to draw the public into supporting that war. Not only the WMD claims were fabricated, but so was the notion that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

Also, Iraq has not been a 'magnificent' success. The financial cost has been exhorbitant. The outcome remains dubious despite your best cheerleading. What happens once we leave? If nothing else Iraq will gravitate to Iran's influence (predicted by many before the invastion). Remember we were told this could be done in a few months and that it would pay for itself--both disastrously wrong.

I do live in an alternative universe--one where Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11, where the TARP was demanded by Bush during his term, where the cost of the Iraq invasion was in the trillions and not the tens of millions.

Like the man said, you can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

But keep up with the ad hominem attacks and arm chair psychology. It shows you nothing substantive aside from a blatant denial of reality.

[kim]

And every day, as Obama dithers and distracts, or his teleprompter does, it is more and more Obama's problem. And he wants to unnecessarily raise the price of energy, a highly regressive and recovery killer tax, and throw money at socializing education and health care while he stumbles drunkenly around the real problems.

More than four months after his election and he's filled one position at Treasury? With a crook and a retard? Come now, keep blaming Bush and the world will laugh at you.
============================================

[kim]

Your million lives is a made up Lancet canard. The present condition of Iraq, steadily improving and a bellweather for moderate Islam has been worth the price, which is far less than your 5 trillion dollars. The metric right now is about one American life for three thousand enfranchised Iraqi voters, a stiff but fair price. And you'd justify a continued Saddam regime? In Hell you would.

You have also absorbed the leftist fiction about Iraq drifting into the Iranian orbit. Sistani is a quietist, which means he believes in the separation of church and state, and the Iraqis are Arabs and the Iranians are Persian and never the twain shall meet.

It's you who is delusional. You bought the standard lying, losing, leftist line and so has Obama. We are in a real mess, now.
==========================================

[kim]

You've not been paying much attention lately to Iraq. The Iraqis are seizing control of their own country and no matter how precipitously Obama pulls our troops now, they will probably make a success of the nation. It is a triumph of moderate Islam, and far preferable to the terrorist supporting, extremely sadistic monster who ruled it before.

It's hard to believe that a liberal, a real liberal, could have the views you do. Then again, you sound more like a sick progressive who is happy to give up ethics and intellect in the pursuit of power.
=======================================

[Captain Hate]

The present condition of Iraq isn't justification for a $3 to $5 trillion dollar expenditure

lol wut? I think President DynOmite's magic stimuli have done bamboozled Nick into thinking that the Iraq war expenditures have grown from beeyuns to treeyuns.

[matt]

Nick;

You schmo, the Russians, Germans, British, French and Israelis all agreed that Saddam had WMD. That is pretty much all of the competent intelligence services in the world. When interrogated he admitted it was in his best interests to deceive everyone including his own generals and scientists about the extent of his programs. The UN was monitoring him until they pulled out because of the deceptions being practiced, and they agreed on the existence of WMD programs.

One clown with a gallon jug of anthrax powder can take down a major city or small country. A single modern nuke has the power of 100 Hiroshimas. All you have to do is dial up the Megatons. I studied this shit. It is real. That was the eventual fear. He had the means. He had the motive. He had the intention. He had the track record. Occam's razor.

Iraq was never likely involved in 9-11, but they were the prime enemy, along with Iran, in the terrorist support network. And there was that little war we had in 1991 as well...the boots on the ground view is that Iraq has been a success. Even a liberal is safe in most parts of the country now.

It's a cold, hard frickin world out there, and our enemies still hate us just as much as when Bush was president. They just figure they can roll Obama better. It is the useful idiots who enable the people who wish to do us harm that depress me.

[hit and run]

where the TARP was demanded by Bush during his term

Bush DEMANDED it!!! And with a 28% approval rating, he could roll whatever opposition he had, Democratic majorities included!

In fact, when candidate Obama gave a speech on the steps of the capital in Springfield, "I don't oppose all TARPs. What I am opposed to is a dumb TARP. What I am opposed to is a rash TARP", no one listened.

Or wait. He didn't give any speech against TARP. He didn't oppose TARP. In fact, he voted for TARP.

But was that only because Bush demanded it? I mean, what if it is Bush even now that is demanding that Obama keep 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Maybe it is Bush that is demanding that Obama keep his options open on enhanced interrogation techniques, on secret CIA prisons, on rendition, on claiming he is closing Guantanamo even as he "studies" the issue for a year...

Holy carp, Nick, I think you are on to something. Obama is STILL caving to Bush's demands.

Shadow presidency.

[kim]

Excellent, matt, and omigod how funny, h&r.
==========================================

[MayBee]

I love you, H&R

[hit and run]

That's without even mentioning how Obama ceremoniously redirected a brigade headed for Iraq to Afghanistan (Iraq, bad, redeploy! Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terror! The new, improved Surge! Good for a bump in some poll somewhere!!!)... only to quietly, secretly, and unceremoniously http://www.mudvillegazette.com/031615.html>just get another brigade in their stead.

Obama's zero sum game in Iraq?

Bush, again!!!!