Archive for the ‘Racial Tension’ Category

That Would Be Sufficient Reason

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

More wisdom posted by me, at your Sotomayor News Update Center…a place formerly known as FARK. It’s a generic comment that couldn’ve been placed under any one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of links that have gone up over the last few days.

On her qualifications, I don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other. She seems decidedly average and ordinary, by design, like if there was something too truly remarkable about her judicial & logical reasoning ability she would’ve been eliminated.

But it’s a HUGE red flag to me that the very people who want her seated, like, NOW, this week, this afternoon would be better — are the same ones submitting a FARK link about Sotomayor twenty times an hour around the clock. Very few things in life scream Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain louder than that.

On the “Latina” thing: I can just see the man-and-God conversation:

Man: All these centuries rolling on by. When are you going to bless us with harmony and equality and banish the tension from our racial/gender differences to the ash heap of history once and for all?

God: When you stop bringing those differences up, stupid!

Anyone who thinks the Supreme Court should include a black seat, a woman-seat, a Hispanic-seat, a Jewish seat and/or a disabled-seat…should really just stay home and watch reruns on election day. They’re placing the responsibilities of special agendized advocacy groups, onto the arbiters in the middle. Judges and justices aren’t supposed to be advocates. As things sit now, I don’t see a reason to vote against Sotomayor, but if she’s coupled-up with an agenda of turning neutral arbiters into advocates, then that would be sufficient reason.

Article was already “red-lit” before I made my comment…which I’m positive will be subjected to respectful and thoughtful treatment by the intellectual giants there. “Red-lit” means it was un-approved for publication to the general public, so you need to have a TOTALFARK subscription just to see the thread. You can get one here.

I have no idea if that one idea of mine is going to sit out there by its lonesome, or if it will kick off a huge thread-post melee that will stretch on for miles and days. I really don’t know. I really don’t care.

No. I really don’t care. I’m pretty much just sounding off, on this one.

This Vaccine Against Scrutiny

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

The Daily Gut, issuing what I’m afraid is going to be the final word on the Sotomayor nomination for quite some time. Really. There’s really nothing more to be said.

So far, every single headline I’ve seen mentions the woman’s race – which, as you know, is by design. It’s a terrific strategy, this vaccine against scrutiny. Simply make sure you nominate anyone who is the “first” of anything and you create an impenetrable cone of immunity around the nominee (protecting mainly against the media, and of course, conservatives). You could say this strategy worked with great success during the last presidential election – that if Barack wasn’t black, he would have just been another white policy wonk – a less persuasive version of John Edwards, without the wayward weenie.
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The bottom line is, when a person’s “story” is the story, it’s purely a diversionary tactic to take you off the ideological ball. It’s a clue to everyone – especially the media – that this time you should do more than order the commemorative plates.

You Knew When You Saw the Word “Racism” in the Headline…

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

…that the meaning of that word was going to be expanded. Explosively, beyond all linguistic usefulness. Par for the course, for the Huffington Post.

Its responsible liberal editors need to speak out IMMEDIATELY against their liberal contributors in their own ranks using this awful “ism” word as an excuse to provide cover to lawbreaking illegal aliens.

Responsible members of the Republican party need to speak out IMMEDIATELY against the conservative commentators in their own ranks using swine flu as an excuse to spew out racist hatred.

Radio, TV and newspaper personalities have jumped on the illness as a platform to attack “illegal aliens” for being responsible for carrying the disease across the Mexican border and infecting innocent Americans.

Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such claims, talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, radio and Fox TV personality Glenn Beck, and columnist Michelle Malkin are spreading them faster than the contagion.

“Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it,” blares Michael Savage.

“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration,” writes Michelle Malkin.

“What happens if there’s a rash of deaths in Mexico… and if you’re a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn’t you flood this border?” announces Glenn Beck.

What color, exactly, is “America deserves to have a border”?

More to the point — if America can’t have a meaningful border right now…then when can she?

And do you really think, Ms. Fuller, that this country’s citizens are so dull-witted and stupid that they can be lulled into holding their own nation’s laws as meaningless — just because they’re afraid someone will think they’re racists? Only if they already have reason to cling to this kind of fear; some kind of skeleton to keep shackled up in their closets.

And what kind of guilt trip keeps you imprisoned in its invisible gilded cage, for that matter, that you feel compelled to demonize others this way. Simply for insisting our immigration laws ought to matter? That our border should mean something? The more I see of your ugly words, the more it looks like a guilt trip, laid down for those who are already guilty, by those who are similarly guilty. What are you hiding? Does it have something to do with your perception that all those who illegally cross a border must be of one special race, and all those who would rise up in support of that border must be some other race?

The rest of her essay is far less offensive…but no less ignorant. It all rests on this flimsy foundation: Ms. Fuller thinks of germ warfare as a brand-new, untested, and fanciful technology. It’s the usual left-wing claptrap: She’s formed her own opinion about how likely or unlikely something is, although she can’t really substantiate it — and you’re required to share your opinion or you’re a stupid racist hick moron. And she has nothing to say to such morons. For surely she must realize, if you do not buy into her mistaken beliefs about germ warfare…completely…if you show the least little bit of skepticism, or pause just a little bit before accepting it uncritically…her entire argument is, shall we say, rent asunder. And that includes her ugly slur toward Savage, Beck and — hah! — Malkin.

These liberals calling Michelle Malkin a racist bitch crack me up. Haven’t they seen a picture of her? Seriously. I know they put pictures of Malkin in the sidebar. But those are editors doing that. For all I know, the people who actually write this drivel must picture her, in their minds’ eyes, as Ann Coulter’s twin sister or something. And they probably do. Not a single one of them has ever impressed me as being particularly knowledgeable or well read, about their chosen subject matter or about anything else.

It’s worth an eyeball-roll and nothing more. Until, that is, you recall that people just like her, are the ones who won the elections and run our entire government, including our immigration and defense services, now.

It’s not just stupid. It is that, plus exceedingly dangerous.

Update: You see the little game being played here?

Thing I Know #272. When people accuse you of doing something or being something and it isn’t true; when it comes as a surprise to you that anyone would think such a thing about you; I’ve found it is a mistake to put any effort into proving them wrong. If they’re sincere, something is coloring their perception, and whatever it is, it’s outside of your control. If they’re not, then they’re trying to get you to do something that’s probably contrary to your interests. Either way — you aren’t going to change their minds. Don’t try.

Thing I Know #273. This is the flip-side to TIK #272. When you want someone to do something, and you don’t have the authority to force them to, it’s contrary to their interests, and they’ve figured out it’s contrary to their interests or they’re plenty bright enough to figure out it’s contrary to their interests — accuse them of something. It’s your only option. Make sure they aren’t guilty of it. If they’re guilty, they’ll resign themselves to the fact that you’ve figured them out; if they’re not guilty, they’ll do anything you want to prove it. Then you just tie that in to what you want them to do.

Accuse people of something. Make sure they aren’t really guilty of it. Get this one message across to them: I haven’t made up my mind you’re absolutely guilty, but I haven’t made up my mind you’re absolutely innocent either — I am in a state of doubt about you. Act like you care about this, just a little bit less than they do…and don’t forget to fasten the things you want them to do, however laughably and however nonsensically, to the things you think they will want to prove to you. This is how every single unscrupulous-but-effective salesman does his mental gymnastics. I think you are, or have done, something bad…but I’m just not sure…so here is your chance to prove your worthiness to me.

This is not how we became as great a nation as we are. We need to stop falling for this garbage.

Update 5/1/09: Thing I Know #248 is even more apropos:

Guilt is the final refuge of really bad ideas. When somebody accuses you of something and you have no idea why they’d think this of you, look at what they’re trying to get you to do. And you’ll realize, not only is it a bad idea, but there’d be no way to get a man to do it, if he felt good about himself.

The thing-to-get-people-to-do, in this case, is to offer up the United States of America as the one single, solitary sacrificial lamb on the face of the globe — the one country that cannot have a meaningful border. Russia can have one. Everyone in Scandinavia can have one. Each country in Europe could have one, if it wanted one. African countries can certainly have one. Only America shall be denied this basic attribute of sovereignty.

Like the TIK says — no man would sign on to this if he felt good about himself. Without guilt, the product cannot be sold.

Cultists

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

What Has That To Do With Being the AG?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Obama’s new Attorney General Eric Holder says we’re a “nation of cowards” because even though our workplace is integrated, our backyards are not…when we have our barbeques.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” said Holder, nation’s first black attorney general.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

Complete speech is here. I don’t understand what this has to do with heading up the Justice Department. Neal Boortz offers

He’s the first black Attorney General. And apparently he isn’t going to let us forget it.

Ah. Well good, thanks for clearing that up.

But Jonah Goldberg, oh dear, came up with a couple of pesky problems about this:

First, I think this is nonsense as we talk about race a great, great, great deal in this country. Endless courses in colleges and universities, chapters in high school textbooks, movies, documentaries, after-school-specials and so on are devoted to discussing race. We even have something called “Black History Month” — the occasion for Holder’s remarks to begin with — when America is supposed to spend a month talking about the black experience.

Second, to the extent we don’t talk about race in this country the primary reason is that liberals and racial activists have an annoying habit of attacking anyone who doesn’t read from a liberal script “racists” or, if they’re lucky, “insensitive.”

Thus “cowardice” is defined as refusal to do as your told when that would in fact be the cowardly thing to do.

I have another comment to make: Nouns and adjectives are important.

That’s a critique. Against Holder. Because I can’t help noticing, the bits of his speech that have elicited the greatest controversy, are sprinkled with nouns and adjectives that mean the opposite of what they are cosmetically intended to mean. As Goldberg has pointed out, the Attorney General is making the point that we don’t talk about race in this country when the truth is we talk about it to excess. Maybe we don’t do enough about it…that would’ve been a valid point. But to insinuate that we don’t talk about it is just plain silly.

Coward…as Goldberg points out, a coward would be someone who shuts up and does as he’s told because if he doesn’t, he’ll be called a racist. I would further add that it’s rather cowardly to stand ready with that R-word, to brandish it like a club, ready to play whack-a-mole with anyone who doesn’t toe the line.

Holder goes on to say, “…if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.” I doubt like hell Attorney General Holder wants a “frank discussion”; if he does, he’s just playing more of his little opposite-game, using words for the exact opposite of their intended meaning.

Because a frank discussion is like the one Boortz scribbled down:

Allow me a little input here. I’ve been talking for a living for about 40 years … so perhaps I can put a little light on this subject.

Let’s say that I go on the air today to talk about the anti-achievement policy that so permeates urban black communities. What if I resurrect some of those stories from sources such as Time Magazine detailing the anti-learning culture in America’s urban high schools. Learning, you know, is a white thing. Across this country there are young black men and women who won’t study, won’t answer questions in class, won’t do homework, and won’t try to do well on tests because their friends will think they’re trying to “act white.”

What if I were to gather some statistics detailing the fact that blacks commit violent crimes way out of proportion to their percentage of the population? How do you think that is going to go over?

Now just why would I bring these subjects up on my show? I like to illustrate that these problems are not race-based, they’re culture-based. I like to show that some people get outraged when these problems are based on culture rather than race. Why? Because if you’re part of the problem you can change cultural mores – but you can’t change your color. Showing these problems to be culture-based erases black’s claims to victimization.

Trust me … I try to bring these things up on the air, and I’m a racist. Nation of cowards? Hardly. There are a lot of people who are ready to address these issues – but as soon as they do the “racism” word is pulled out. End of conversation.

In the words of Jack Woltz: “Let me be even MORE frank”: What is a country with a black President doing with an affirmative action program written down, or put into practice, anywhere? That would be “frank.” Is that what Holder had in mind? Somehow I doubt it. Somehow, I think Holder was thinking about something else.

What Holder was thinking about is exactly what Holder was supposed to have been bitching about. Cowardice…used as a tool. Virtual electro-shock therapy. But this is a far bigger issue than just race (although that’s plenty big enough). Everywhere you look nowadays, anytime someone says they want to have an “honest discussion,” “open dialogue,” “frank exchange of ideas,” et al, that’s the exact opposite of what they have in mind.

…this nation has still not come to grips with its racial past nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have.

Like your boss says, Mr. Holder: Be the change. Get away from the stinking bromides. The delta between what we’ve done, and what we need to do, has something to do with “com[ing] to grips.” What are these grips? How come you’ve veered off into some other critique right before you’re about to tell us what these grips are?

What authority figures like Eric Holder want, is more of this hot-stove, within-the-lines, “don’t do it because I said so,” orbito-frontal cortex thinking. They don’t want free ideas, they want ideas carefully corralled, like cattle, through the synapses we all have that inhibit our actions without comprehending the word “because.” He ends up using the words “frank conversations” to describe things that aren’t conversations…they’re lectures…and are anything but “frank.” Since this is the central thrust of his speech, he ends up meaning the exact opposite of what he’s saying, starting at the top, and continuing all the way down to the bottom. And the bit about insinuating we somehow aren’t talking about it enough, is sky-high absurd. It borders on mental incapacity.

But outside of the connection Boortz made, what does any of this have to do with being the Attorney General?

This Is Good LIX

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Not “good lix”…it’s the fifty-ninth thing I found that’s really, really good.

FrankJ’s fantasy about the conflict about those Senate doors, and Rod Burris, to whom they have been shut, then opened, then shut, then opened again…

Al Franken shoved the aide out of the way. “You said when I take my seat, you’d have all the black people gone! I’ll hurt you! Grwaerree!” He came at [Harry] Reid flailing his arms.

Reid shielded himself. “Calm down, Al Franken! Don’t hurt me! By the time you take your seat, we’ll have this taken care of!”

Franken calmed down a bit. “You better, or me hurt you!” He spotted a piece of paper on the ground. “That’s a vote for me!”

Reid looked at it. “That’s a receipt from Taco Bell.”

“It’s a vote for me! Me hurt you you say otherwise! Grwaerree!” He charged at Reid, flailing his arms again.

Franken/Coleman/Minnesota = Bush/Gore/Florida – transparency. I wonder how Minnesota residents are dealing with that new rep; same shenanigans going on, but when the democrat party says “don’t worry, we’ll go into this dark tent we set up your parking lot with this carful of ‘lost’ votes and…uh…one last thing, how many votes did you say our guy needed again?” the State of Florida plays host to airplane-load after airplane-load of lawyers from both camps, and starts escalating the matter through the court system.

Minnesota, on the other hand, just says “Oh, you will? That’s really super. Yaw! Just let us know when you’re done finding…or counting…or punching…or whatever it is you do in that dark tent, democrats. Oh, and thanks again for sorting this out for us! Really swell!”

Last (Phony) Outrage of the Year: 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Because, as some astute readers have figured out, I come from a technical background that dates back to boyhood…like Rambo said about being a killing machine, “you can’t just shut it off.” So — in all walks of life — I demand specificity. Especially with regard to things that have an impact on other things.

This bacterial infection called political correctness, has been fought and fought and fought, within an inch of its life, but not fully driven from the host. So it’s done what bacteria do when you don’t take the full dose of antibiotic. It’s survived, adapated, come back with a vengeance, and now it means business. Twenty-first century political correctness is not dead. It’s stronger than before. It’s harder to fight than it was before, because it’s agile and refuses to be nailed down.

It ends careers by saying “I’m offended” and nothing else materially important.

That satisfies us. We shouldn’t find this satisfactory; we shouldn’t even find it tolerable. For God’s sake, if you’re going to remove things from our view that we wanna watch, and destroy lives on top of it, simply by saying something…have the decency to say something. “I’m offended,” what in the hell is that supposed to mean? That’s not even good enough to make me wait a couple seconds before brewing my morning coffee, let alone join your stupid boycott.

With regard to this phony-baloney made-up “scandal” involving whats-his-name…Chip Saltsman. I would like to submit this as the single most sensible thing said, thus far.

Most of the outrage is contrived and some of it is, well, outrageous. Blogger/journalist Tommy Christopher calls Saltsman a “turd” for distributing the CD. You’ll get no apology from me for believing that anyone who uses that word personifies it.
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Relative to experiences with racism, I’ll go toe to toe with anyone who wishes to engage in the game of one-upmanship; I’ve got five decades of personal experience with the beast and this ain’t it. There isn’t even a hint of it here.

And the second most sensible thing said — very narrow contest there, by the way — came from yours truly as a reply to some of the righteously indignant protesters commenting at the bottom of that guy’s page. Now, I have not been wrestling with such a beast, I’m a white guy, six feet tall and straight, still in possession of all twenty-one digits, skilled tradesman, high school graduate, protestant. I have no minority status I can claim whatsoever.

But I do have a question to ask that is legitimate for all of us to ponder. Not only legitimate — there’s just no getting around it. We need to have this answered.

The controversy is over whether people should take the outrage seriously. Can we, then, define the outrage? Is that too much to ask?

1. The word “negro” offends me, and by extension, the song offends me, and by extension, anybody’s decision to distribute the song, defend the song, be in the same room as the song…well, you get the drift.

2. I am not offended personally but I imagine someone, somewhere, whether I’ve personally verified this or not, is offended, and I’m going to exhibit truckloads of theatrical outrage on behalf of them because I’m just that kind of a caring person.

3. Words like “negro” have, historically, been mines in fields, waiting to go off to devastating effect if someone gets too close to them. That translates to power for people like me. I see this as a proposal to de-sensitize society toward the term, which would defuse that mine, and neutralize this power. That’s MY power. That’s the source of my outrage.

4. Combination of #2 and #3. Other people have been powerful because of the claymore effect of words like these, and I sympathize with them personally or politically, so I don’t want to see them lose that power. That’s the outrage I am showing.

5. None of the above. I just hate Republicans.

Whoever’s logging on to blogs like this one, breathing their fire, et cetera, I’m going to want to see you pick one out of the above five before I take ONE WORD you say seriously. Before I even think about it.

But don’t worry. I’m only speaking for myself.

And anyone else with so much as a lick o’common sense.

After I hit “submit” I thought of a sixth one.

See, Rush Limbaugh, the very poster-child of right-wing talk radio, has been playing this song parody for awhile now. Therefore, if you can bully enough people into thinking there is something hideously offensive about this song, and weave their egos into that realization so they labor under the delusion they made up their own minds about that without you bullying them, you know what you can do?

You can make all of right-wing talk radio look like some venomous arachnid doing whatever arachnids do under great big rocks that shield out all the light. Eww, look at this scary right-wing talk radio show that’s been talking about “negroes” all these years, and we didn’t know what was going on until this guy handed out a Christmas CD to his Republican buddies. What in the world could be scarier? A vast network of Information Superhighway traveling racists, hiding in plain sight. Sort of a Ku Klux Klan living in the age of the innerwebs. They been walking among us, and we never even knew! Think of the revulsion you’d feel upon learning of a nest of baby scorpions living in the pillowcase your face hits every night. Imagine that kind of primal nausea, directed toward the injury of one political party, for the benefit of the other. In American politics, that is a Weapon of Mass Destruction…especially if large numbers of people can be tricked into feeling that kind of nausea.

You know, just some propaganda to get out there. To topple that frightening, intimidating, all-powerful Republican machine that ++snicker++ runs Washington.

The democrat party won every single thing it could possibly win, except for Saxby Chambliss’ seat. They nearly got a filibuster-proof Senate…and think about that for a minute or two, what in the world did they want to do in our interest, that they can do with sixty seats, that they thought they wouldn’t be able to do with fifty-nine?

Point is — given the way the elections turned out, it is beyond bizarre that they’re still scrounging around looking for one more branch, twig or matchstick of power they can toss on their big bonfire. It’s patently illogical. Or at least I hope it is. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me to think they’ve got some strategy they’re working on, that somehow depends on this kind of propaganda being pushed out, with the allocation of power being left where it was after those elections. It’s really the same thing as the filibuster situation. What are you planning to do, that you can do with your political opponents bulldozed under the bedrock with salt sprinkled on top of them…that you can’t do, even while you’re running all of Washington, with some viable un-stigmatized opposition able to speak out against you?

This country was founded on the principle that no one single man, or single cadre of powerful men, should be able to dictate everything, free of question or criticism.

So before you get too worked up about that CD because someone else wants you to — demand an answer to my multiple-choice question. Why not? It’s the least you should be demanding. The very least. Leave the question of whether it’s outrageous or offensive, to some other day. First define why we’re even considering it. There’s no reason not to.

Kwanzaa is Over

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

It really is just a memory and nothing more (hat tip: Attack Machine, via Maggie’s Farm).

Let’s make affirmative action next. Our President-Elect is a black guy, after all. Why would such a program be needed by a country with a black President? It’s possible for anyone to do anything, regardless of skin color, no dream is out-of-reach…or else, that’s not the case. Gotta be one or t’other, it can’t be both.

And, now, it can’t be “t’other.”

We do such a good job of jettisoning things that have helped so many people in the past. Let’s toss something overboard that hasn’t been helpful to anyone at all, ever, not even once, except cosmetically. Just once, for a change of pace. To show we can.

Web Browser for Blacks

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Firefox isn’t black enough.

I’ll do a better job of checking it out later…it seems to be serious.

Hat tip: Boortz.

You know, as a computer networking professional, I have always considered the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) to be a little bit on the milquetoast side as well…just sayin’.

Racism Persists!

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

The Associated Press has finally come up with an answer to that most awkward of questions: How come a nation with a black President has an Affirmative Action program in place? At all?

Because racism persists, that’s why.

The day after Barack Obama was elected president, Kari Fulton heard a white colleague proclaim that racism in America is dead.

She cringed, worrying that it might be a sign of flagging interest in the fight against discrimination.

“In reality, racism is still very much alive and well,” said Fulton, who graduated last year from Howard University, a historically black college in the nation’s capital.

Warner Todd Huston at Stop The ACLU is having none of it:

And how does young Kari know this? At 23 she never lived through Jim Crow. She doesn’t remember the days when there were few blacks on TV and blacks in music were segregated to separate genres, not mixing with white singers. She wasn’t around when black CEOs didn’t exist and no blacks roamed the halls of Congress or the White House without pushing a broom. So, how does this 23-year-old girl know that “racism is alive and well”? Because she is a black activist, that’s why.

Well, I wouldn’t bet a lot of money that racism has been banished forever. Sure, it’s still around…in the same way all kinds & types of other prejudices are still around. Blacks are lazy, religious people are mean and nasty, men wage wars on other men because they get some kind of sexual thrill out of it, Republicans represent the interests of the greedy corporate types — those are all prejudices that persist in the minds of the intellectually lazy. They’re all still around.

I notice something else a little peculiar about this.

If, before anyone seriously thought of electing Barack Obama President, I were to step out in the limelight and say “the purpose of the modern black civil rights movement is to control what people think” — well, the first thing that would happen would be that I’d be punished. Lose my job, lose my career, lose whatever anyone can take away from me…probably not go to jail, but a lot of folks would want me to.

Point is, what I had just said, would be denied. By many. Eagerly.

No, no, no, they’d say, the point of it is to help out people who are caught in the bottom layers of society solely because of the color of their skin. To give them help, since they can’t advance any other way. You’ve got it all wrong, it’s not about controlling what people think.

Now the advancement is complete.

We’ve got a black President.

And whatever was militant before He was elected, has to stay just as militant after He is sworn in…not because it’s impossible for people to advance if their skin is the wrong color…but because racism persists.

Somewhere.

So, it always was about controlling what people think. The movement must endure because some people have racist thoughts in their heads.

I hope it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, with all the excitement ahead of us, what an incredibly weak argument this really is. Some people have racist thoughts. Yeah. Some people…eat their own feces. Name something, and whatever it is, I can find “some people” who think it.

That doesn’t mean we should set aside jobs for people of a certain skin color — in the same breath as bragging about how color-blind we are, lying to ourselves and everyone in earshot.

Someone with her whole life ahead of her, who’s worked so hard to associate her worth as a person with black-activism, heard “racism is dead” — and she didn’t like it. She represents, perhaps, millions of others who have the same concerns. Their medication has passed the point of becoming an addiction. If you don’t see that as a red flag, there is something wrong with you.

Racism is a Big Problem

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

…but not necessarily in the way we have been bludgeoned into conditioned to think.

Karol had an experience in baggage claim. Head over for the comments. I had to lift in the whole post because I couldn’t see a way to tease it…

Checking in to the Chelsea in Atlantic City on Friday, I looked over at a baggage cart and saw a bag with a McCain/Palin button. I turned around to see who it might belong to and behind us in line were two black girls. One saw the button at the same time I did. The conversation:

Girl 1: Is that your bag?
Girl 2: Yep.
Girl 1: Is that a Obama/Biden button?
Girl 2: Uh, no, it’s a McCain/Palin button.
Girl 1: What??! How can you support them? You’re a person of color! I know you don’t really mean it, tell me that button is just for show!
Girl 2: I like Palin! She’s a working mother!
Girl 1: Oh no, no no no, I know this is just for show, ain’t no way you’re supporting them. You’re black!
Girl 2: Don’t make this into a racial thing!

At this point, against my better judgement and against the IC’s very loud wishing that I don’t turn around, I turned around and said “I should’ve brought my Palin t-shirt.”

Girl 1: Look, she doesn’t really support them. She’s just doing that for show.
Girl 2: No I’m not! I love Palin!

I turned back around to IC’s pleading eyes saying “please don’t get involved”. They continued to argue. Girl 2 lost her footing a little bit when she said “tell me you’re not better off than you were 8 years ago” (sort of a bad argument to make at this moment of financial collapse even though it has near zero to do with Bush) and Girl 1 said “I’m also better off than I was 50 years ago, and even better off than when we were slaves, what’s your point.”

It degenerated from there but I can’t even imagine the pressure black people must feel to support Barack Obama based strictly on his race. It’s completely acceptable for Girl 1 to say “you’re a person of color, how can you not support the black man?” in a lobby full of people. Imagine the flip side, a white person chastising another white person for daring to support the black guy. Racism may still exist, but it’s not the kind we’re used to. This kind is considered ok. That’s a problem.

I have nothing to add. Except, for those who need to learn, it’s better to learn late than not at all.

Jesse Jackson’s Hot Mic

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Might as well take my turn talking about it.

The first thing I notice, is how similar is the media’s reaction to a radical hardcore left-wing liberal getting caught saying what he truly feels, compared to a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. No protagonist; it’s nobody’s fault; both events are things that just “happened.” Well, in the natural weather phenomenon it’s the incumbent Republican President who somehow made it happen, but give the Jesse Jackson thing time. That’ll be George Bush’s fault too. You know if we don’t obey our instructions to forget about it, toot-sweet, someone in some strategy room somewhere will be brainstorming on a way to hold the current President responsible for Jesse Jackson’s latest embarrassment.

And that brings me to the second thing. Like Officer Barbrady said, “move along, there’s nothing to see here.” What a wonderful thing it must be to be Jesse Jackson! You get to express your profound regret that you got caught saying something, and this massive public-relations tsunami goes out…everyone should pretend it never happened. This is why democrats tend not to stand for anything. There are, in fact, deeply held principles in their camp; all these principles do not agree with all other principles; this causes deep divides and schisms that are well worth discussing.

But it would hurt both sides within the democrat camp to permit any discussion of them. So they remain undiscussed.

Here, the divide is over — and this brings me to the third thing — what is it we’re talking about when we use the word “responsibility?” Truth be told, this nation is chock full of reasonable, moderate-to-conservative people who call themselves “democrats” and look at the R-word the way any conservative Republican does: Responsibility is something inextricably intertwined with the decisions you want to make. Authority, autonomy, control, it’s-my-turn-at-bat…having sex with a good-lookin’ woman…driving a car. These all carry responsibility.

Well the truth of the matter is, Rev. Jesse Jackson represents millions of people — of all skin color — who don’t feel that way. To them, “responsibility” is a burden that bears down upon undesirables. Those who are seen as oppressors within history’s backdrop, people who run corporations, rich people, straight people, white people, males, white-straight-males, oilmen. We/they have the “responsibility” to provide…and there, there’s this huge exploding list. Jobs. Food. Daycare. Minimum wage. Education. Healthcare.

Obama just said “black people” — clearly, in Jackson’s mindset as well as in Sen. Obama’s, the useful meaning of this phrase is something that could be best worded as “our primary beneficiaries” — have responsibility. And Jackson was none to fond of this. On Planet Jackson, there’s the folks who’ve gotten away with stuff and are about to get their come-uppins, and there’s the folks who’ve been trampled and now get to live in utopia. And the latter of those two should not have to worry about any responsibilities, because you saw how he reacted when someone suggested something different.

My suggestion? Let’s go ahead and disagree about what responsibilities are. Let’s go ahead and disagree about whether Obama would be a decent President, or whether Jesse Jackson is good for America. Disagree about all that — but let’s agree the Officer Barbrady approach doesn’t fit in here. No need at all to “move along” from what apparently divides the Obama and Jackson camps within the democrat party.

This is a debate well worth having. What is responsibility? Are you burdened by it by the things you do, or by who you are? Is it a way for people to earn the privileges and the stature they want in life, to change what they want to change and achieve what they want to achieve — or is it punishment to be meted out to dirty rotten creepy jerks (DRCJs) who are somehow associated with historical skulduggery and need a good whallopin’ of some kind?

Because I don’t think this is a “black” thing at all. I think there’s millions of people who feel, when they see themselves or any of their peers or perceived constituents saddled with any kind of “responsibility,” for any reason at all, their first instinct is to cut somebody’s nuts out (or off). They seem to be angry people who have something to say. I’d like to know more about what they’ve got to say. I’d like everybody to hear it — right before it’s time to go into a voting booth and punch a ballot. Then we could show what we think of it. I think that would be a good thing.

Update: As a general rule, when a topic can be easily distilled down into a single intangible noun — Bill Whittle has an essay about it, and if that is the case it is an essay well worth reading. However, next month it’ll have five years of dust on it. Five years old, and solid gold:

Political Correctness, Deconstructionism, Trans-National Progressivism, Liability mania, Crime and Punishment, Terrorism, Welfare, Gun Control, Media Bias, Affirmative Action, Abortion, Education Reform, Social Engineering — all of it — will divide people according to their idea of Responsibility. [emphasis Whittle’s]

This helps to (partially) explain something I’ve often noticed about abortion, environmentalism and secularism. We have people who think humans have a “responsibility” to be stewards of the earth; we have other people who insist there is no such thing as God. There are people who believe when a woman becomes pregnant, it is the responsibility of both parents to carry the child to term.

Now, imagine yourself as an alien who is skilled in the concepts of human behavior, but wholly unfamiliar with our customs. You could be Mork from Ork, you could be My Favorite Martian, you could be Jeannie coming out of her magic lamp after two thousand years. All things dealing with contemporary events and prevailing notions, you need to have explained to you.

I think Whittle’s essay falls short here. You would have to logically predict, would you not, that the people who believe in God are the ones who insist we have a responsibility to act as watchful stewards over the planet. You would become confused even further once you were informed that our religious people are the ones (quite rightly and sensibly) who insist pregnancies are initiated by a Higher Power and it is a transgression into the glorious jurisdiction for any mortal man to abort a woman’s pregnancy. In fact, if one of your earlier introductions to this was through the Book of Genesis, you would become even more confused:

1:28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Once your “Master” or your earthly host got done explaining to you — no, actually, it’s our secularist types who insist we have this responsibility — you’d be mixed up about it for, I expect, an entire year or more. Yes space-alien-man, the abortion/pregnancy thing works exactly the way you inferred; secularist types insist there is no deity to be offended and it’s all about “choice.” But on the environment and “global warming” the whole thing takes on a hundred and eighty degree twist.

So this is where I part company with Whittle: The left does have a concept of responsibility. And they believe in free will.

What decides these issues for them is that they believe free will is only practiced by collectivist groups. In fact, it is a consistent trope of leftist thinking that free will does change the outcome of important things, and should. That they must bring it about.

But then they go on to believe, quite consistently, and often against the historical evidence, that this can only be done through “coming together.” An individual can’t “go it alone.”

I commented earlier this week that if global warming, for an example, was settled science as we are consistently told it is — we would handle it much the same way we handle science that really is settled, such as with regard to Mad Cow Disease. Grabbing hold of everyone we know, everyone within earshot and line-of-sight, and bullying them around until they thought of the subject matter the way we do… that wouldn’t have anything to do with what had to be done. Instead, we’d delegate responsibility for the outcome of the incident, to those who are best qualified to affect that outcome. And then we’d go about our lives hoping for the best. Nothing grassroots about it.

True leftists like Rev. Jackson, simply put, don’t believe individuals can have responsibility — except, as I wrote above, as punishment for historical wrongs. The more noble variant of free will, the kind that has to be embraced in order to enact positive change…that is reserved for groups.

Whittle goes on with an observation about an old speech made by Abraham Lincoln, that deals with the toxicity of the mindset disclaiming the virtue of noble, individual, free will:

Many years before his election as the nation’s 16th President, this man, Abraham Lincoln, spoke at the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838. It is worth our time to whisper these words aloud, to ourselves, to be sure that we understand what he is saying across a gulf of a century-and-a-half of differences in rhetoric and speech.

He said:

We, the American People, find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them — they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader — to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it? — At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? — Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

The idea of individualism, of personal responsibility, is the centerpiece, the granite foundation, of the very idea of a free people. For that reason, it is under direct attack on many fronts from people, who, through motives well-intentioned or ill, find such an idea intolerable because a nation of individuals is immune to repression, coercion, social engineering and control by the elite. The threat, as Lincoln so eloquently foresaw, comes from within and it is here, now, well-established and growing.

We have to fight back. We have to fight back hard.

We have to fight back now.

So you see how responsibility for personal defense ties in with this. And this speaks to why, when responsibility and free will become intertwined with accountability, for someone to take on the heavy burden of overseeing the outcome…this is a responsibility, along with many others, that cannot be delegated to a group. For groups are notoriously lacking in this accountability. That’s why the environment and other endeavors are wholeheartedly embraced as “responsibilities” by the left that in so many other areas, rejects the concept of free will. When responsibility has to do with finger-waggling, the left likes responsibility just fine. Unplug your toaster! Change your light bulbs! Drive a smaller car!

And it’s quite reasonable for you to pick up an undertone in selectivity about the finger-waglees. The left spends a lot of time and a lot of hot air talking about how, in these efforts, “we all” need to “come together.” Well, as always seems to be the case, “all” doesn’t mean “all.” We see that when environmentally-conscious politicians drive to their speaking events in SUVs that get six miles a gallon or less; we see it in the celebrities who believe in “responsible gun safety,” whose bodyguards carry concealed weapons.

That, right there, is why Jesse Jackson wants to cut off Sen. Obama’s nuts. Noble responsibility, the kind you intertwine with an outcome-changing effort that is truly great, is a group thing; it is to be invested in a group, so that when a bad plan turns to crap it’s nobody’s fault. The pejorative cousin, the “You Hafta Worry About This Because You’re A DRCJ” (dirty rotten creepy jerk) is an individual thing, but it isn’t there to achieve anything. It’s there to weigh people down, to punish them.

Whittle’s right. This mindset that individuals are incapable of embracing glorious and productive free will, the kind of free will that is necessarily involved in accomplishing great things, is treacherous, toxic, and will eventually kill us if we let it. We have to oppose it at every turn.

TV News Cameras Were Rolling

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Rottweiler brings us a link to a story that ought to be truly amazing and depressing…but, on the plus side, as he points out it looks like we can declare racism officially dead.

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”

And I’ll bet you thought you had to have an education to become a county commissioner. Mr. Price was then advised that Mr. Mayfield had not yielded the floor, and could he please allow his fellow commissioner to continue with his comments.

Oh wait, no, that’s not what happened at all.

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

When I think back to my professional career in network security, how we’d go back and forth debating the merits of a “black list” of network ports or web URLs versus a “white list”…oh, mercy me. Glad I wasn’t working in the DFW area, I guess.

As the story continues, it looks like we have a clue as to what might have set things off here, and what needs to be fixed to make everything all white again:

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster’s, is perhaps “the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape.”

Other county officials quickly interceded to break it up and get the meeting back on track. TV news cameras were rolling, after all. [emphasis mine]

Evidently, the panel of esteemed county commissioners aren’t quite grown-up enough to handle that just yet. Without having met Commissioner Price, I can’t really guarantee the meeting would stay “on track” if you closeted those cameras, perhaps putting a courtroom sketch artist in their place. But it’s something worth trying…and I think I can promise if the cameras do stay, he’ll become outraged at quite a few other things. Whether his future outbursts will make more sense than this one, is anybody’s guess.

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.

If Your Child Doesn’t Like Spicy Food He’ll Become a Racist

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Really.

The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

FacepalmThis could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can “recognise different people in their lives”.

I’m just loving what comes next…

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children “reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes”.

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: “Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case.”

File this one under “everyone deserves tolerance, respect, understanding and acceptance, and we’ll oppose at every turn anyone who dares to disagree.”

There are only two things I can’t stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures… and the Dutch. — Nigel Powers, Goldmember (2002)

H/T: Debbie Schlussel.

Angry Black Women

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Myself, and others, have noticed something that is more-or-less a constant in left-wing talking points. Said talking points have a proclivity for going through the motions of edifying and elucidating, providing information where it did not previously exist, but when you take them apart factually it emerges that the talking points are just instructions to people to think certain things, with veiled and emotionally-charged scoldings directed at those who are not willing to so think. With little or no factual foundation whatsoever.

In response to that, the left-wing intelligentsia has worked overtime to answer this to charge, and little by little, refute it.

Whoops, no, waitaminnit. No they haven’t, and no they aren’t.

Cal Thomas, call your office. You’re in t-r-o-u-b-l-e…………

…wait until you read Thomas’ response to a comment by Jane Hall. Here, she notes that republicans will try to take down Obama by portraying Michelle as an angry black woman.

JANE HALL, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: I think one way that people who are going to try to defeat Obama is to somehow prove he’s other — he’s not one of us. If they can’t prove he’s a Muslim, then let’s prove his wife is an angry black woman. I think it’s going to get ugly. I don’t think John McCain will sanction it. I think McCain — it’s my opinion he will generally try…

Even though Hall wasn’t suggesting that people ought to portray Michelle as an angry black woman, Cal Thomas seemed to take Jane Hall’s statement as an endorsement of sorts, and here was his utterly reprehensible sexist and racist response to Hall:

THOMAS: I want to pick up on something that Jane said about the angry black woman. Look at the image of angry black women on television. Politically you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She’s always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry about something. They’ve had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women.

So now Thomas[,] in addition to smearing Obama, Hillary, and Michelle, smeared all black women as “angry black women,” including such notable angry black women as Maxine Waters, who is “always angry every time she gets on television,” and Cynthia McKinney, who is “just another angry black woman.

Apparently not satisfied with offending just those women, he goes on to smear black newscasters on local news broadcasts as angry black women who “are usually angry about something”; he smears angry black women whose sons have been killed in drive-by shootings; and then he notes matter of factly that black women “are angry at Bush.” Since most black women are democrats, Thomas has just smeared millions of black women as “angry black women.”

So in the parlance of hardcore leftists who write for DailyKOS, “notice” is a verb enjoying synonymous equivalence with “smear.”

You know, I hadn’t…er…noticed it before Cal Thomas pointed it out. But I do have recollections of black women who aren’t angry, and each and every single one of them is a person I know from talking face-to-face. Electronic media is a very different thing, because in that forum there are powerful nameless faceless people who get to decide what I’m ready to see. And for reasons I don’t quite understand — or maybe I do, and that’s a loathsome thought by itself — these nameless faceless people seem to think the black woman I’m ready to see has to be angry, or else I have little interest in seeing her.

So you KOSsacks are upset with Cal Thomas for pointing it out, huh. That’s about as clear a case as can be imagined of killing the messenger. It seems to me your beef ought to be with whoever’s made the decision that such currency is involved in the stereotype of the Angry Black Woman (ABW). Why does this image travel so fast and so far? In fact, does it? Are we really that ready to digest it, or is this a stereotype that’s being foisted onto us?

You know how I see this…dialog…for lack of a better word? It might surprise you how you come across, KOSsacks. Here, you seem to be pretty enthused at times about viewing things from the perspective of other people, let’s show you how it looks from mine.

WATERS, MCKINNEY, M. OBAMA, et al: Grrrrrr!!!!

THOMAS: Huh. Seems whenever someone wants to show me a picture of a black woman, it’s always an angry one.

DAILYKOS: We’ll show you! Grrrrrr!!!!

I mean, that pretty much captures it. Face it — other than thundering away with your well-practiced theatrical indignation, you’re not proving anything here whatsoever.

Unless it’s something like — you don’t have to be black and female to be angry? Is that the point? Or is it the same ol’ same ol’ purely-populist mob-rule “I find this deplorable and can I get an Amen here?”

Frankly, if there’s some other sentiment you’re wishing to trot out into the public venue to have evaluated by others, obsequious rage seems to have fallen away as the preferred vehicle for conveying it. Yeah it’s pretty tough to bust loose from that after half a century of brandishing it as the only tool worth using in your chest. But using one tool in the chest, is a sign of intellectual laziness. Mr. Thomas is indicted, here, by you, for the a crime that is the essence of the exact opposite, which is intellectual vigor; he noticed a pattern, took in some more data, found the pattern to be substantiated, and noted his observations publicly.

So are you deliberately promoting an atmosphere of intellectual laziness and discouraging one of intellectual vigor? Or are you doing it by accident? Either way, it’s rather telling that you could have challenged what he noticed, and instead like a cowardly prairie dog, have chosen to disappear into that mob-rule-hole of “that’s icky, all in favor say aye.”

From where I sit, women of color are counting on someone to engage in an exercise more forensically taxing…and it seems Cal Thomas is the only one who has delivered. I’m not a black woman, angry or otherwise — but I am a white guy and you know what? We have some ugly stereotypes of our own. We can’t jump, we’re klutzy, we don’t know what’s going on and we don’t care, our wives have to do everything for us from vacuuming the carpet to changing the oil in the car, our kids talk back to us and call us by our first names, we’re such spineless cowards that we let ’em…we never admit it when we’re lost…

Believe me. If a nationally televised commentator like Cal Thomas takes the time to point out “look at the image of the klutzy white man” the last thing I’m going to do is be insulted. I’ll probably search my archives to see if he plagiarized some of the things I’ve had to say, and if I found in the affirmative, better than even odds I’d donate the material to the public domain retroactively and write up a brand new post giving him a big gushy thank-you.

Update: Broadband-and-TV company is doing some work on our connection which yesterday went in the crapper. Things seem to be ship-shape with our home equipment, but the equipment just beyond our doorstep is either overworked or failing. It’s the switching equipment that services about ten or twenty customers in our area, of whom about half a dozen of us have reported problems.

Anyway, during the ten minutes or so I had to halt the blogging and let the planet spin onward without the benefit of my perpetually injected blogger wisdom, I started doing some chores, which included helping my gal out of the shower & drying her off, since one of her arms is out of commission. Surgery last week. Long story.

And of course the bedroom television set was frozen because the equipment was down. Guess what it was frozen on. Michelle Obama. Giving a speech. She looked very, very upset and angry.

That’s a randomly selected frame. Interesting.

KOSsacks, I hope you’re not holding your breath waiting for that Cal Thomas apology.

Why Talk Radio is Racist

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Via Boortz, an interesting observation of an annual gathering of talk radio hosts. There’s some big money in talk radio, but if you think that translates to the players having a good understanding of and respect for market forces…well…your thinking would appear to be in need of a re-think.

The Lighthouse Theater on Manhattan’s upper east side was jammed packed Saturday afternoon for what Talkers magazine’s founder Michael Harrison billed as “the most important session” of the annual gathering of talk show hosts from across the nation.
:
By my estimation there was one conservative, one center-left moderate, and four liberals on the panel. The task was simple: to engage in a discussion of ideas as to how non-dominant voices could be used in the medium of talk radio today.
:
When [Jesse Lee] Peterson invoked that name of [Al] Sharpton and later Jesse Jackson he irritated the remaining two panelists Charles Ethridge a weekend co-host on New York’s KISS-FM, and Coz Carlson WWRL’s morning host also based in New York. Immediately the scene turned into five on one.

Immediately Mr. Ethridge claimed “racism” in the agencies that “buy” black owned stations, and what they are willing to spend as compared to “white” stations. Claiming that the “system” allowed stations who performed better in the ratings to only “earn” .92 for the “earnings” of 1.27 for “white” stations.

Once the panel considers what exactly is to be done about this racism, it gets even more interesting.

Calling Bob Herbert of the New York Times

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

Columnist Bob Herbert has made a career — a career! — out of the notion that the Republican party wins elections by agitating redneck racists. This much is not surprising to me. There is racism out there; there are also people out there who like to labor under the delusion that Republicans have a monopoly on it. There may not be enough racists to keep a columnist in business, but there are plenty enough among those who sustain the delusion to do exactly that, and with a hunger to constantly read about it.

No, what’s surprising to me, through the years, is how little evidence he’s used to keep this afloat. It comes down to 1) a speech Ronald Reagan gave in Mississippi, which must be interpreted exactly the way Herbert wants it to be; and 2) an interview Lee Atwater gave a college professor, with no other witnesses present. Just those two things.

Why link. Seriously, why bother. It’s what the man does constantly; it’s his business; he has nothing else to offer. You want a link, just watch him and wait awhile. It won’t be long.

Mr. Herbert, call your office. Your finely honed journalistic investigative talents are needed…just not where you expect them to be.

“There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me…Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign … that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing.”

The speaker is Congressman Rob Andrews, who challenged Sen. Frank Lautenberg for the democrat primary nomination for Lautenberg’s seat, and lost.

[Andrews] disclosed he received a phone call shortly before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary from a top member of Clinton’s organization and that the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning over Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.

He says he’s speaking up now because “”I didn’t want people to think I was trying to win over Obama supporters in the primary.”

One guy, applying his interpretation to things, saying stuff. Plenty enough for Bob Herbert to discuss, heatedly, for a quarter of a century or more.

When it comes from the right place, anyway. Wonder if he’ll follow up. Heh.

H/T: Ace.

Which Is Worse?

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Dominique is challenging readers of Down With Absolutes with the question that has been plaguing the democrat nomination process all year long…and she’s emphatic it doesn’t have anything to do with the election. I have a lot of trouble seeing that, but okay.

Question Of The Day – Sexism vs. Racism

A lot has been made of -isms this primary season. We’ve been having an ongoing, sometimes heated, debate about it in the Marshall household. Which is more prevalent? Are they equally bad? Is one tolerated more than the other? Is one considered more serious than the other? If so, is that a good thing?

I compared that to shooting yourself in the head through the left temple or the right one.

If I’m pressed to answer, I’d have to embark on a thought process that’s just — well, let’s have at it. Okay, I’m hiring for a position, and I can arbitrarily dismiss women from my pool of candidates, or black people. Sooner or later these will both be mistakes, because I’ll run into a competent person otherwise qualified, and dismiss them because of their sex/color. So, uh, I calculate something like…one out of four black guys is qualified, but one out of five women is qualified. So sexism isn’t as bad because I can dismiss more candidates that way without mistakenly pitching out someone who was otherwise qualified.

On the other hand, if more women are applying than black people, maybe it would take me less time to run across the competent woman against whom I’m going to discriminate. So golly. Maybe I should consider becoming a racist instead.

See what I meant about shooting yourself through the right side or left side of your head? Both are irrational and self-destructive. I really don’t want to re-type the following comment, because it kind of makes your head hurt reading it let alone writing it, but it sums it up solidly…

I would suggest that, if there is no intent to select a presidential candidate based on “which-is-worse,” and there is no intent to ignore one or the other as being less serious — the question is completely useless and meaningless.

Note to future generations, in case your textbooks are cleansing this. It is well known in the here & now, that it has become an effective Republican tactic to let this thing play out and hope for it to be played out in the limelight as much as possible.

Feminist activists trying to portray women as having more acute grievances than black people; black people trying to portray themselves has having a better group complaint than women. It’s all about claim on the democrat side of the ballot. Just like Yorkists and Lancastrians fighting over who has a stronger claim to the throne. Jockeying for a coronation based on pity. Complaining. Weakness. Whining.

We’ve carved our way deeply into the longest presidential election in our country’s history, without any prominent democrat saying one word about how the country would be governed should this-or-that democrat be elected — save for:

1. I’ll “negotiate with our enemies”;
2. “Healthcare for everyone”;
3. Blah blah blah something about the “Bush Administration.”

In other words — thanks to a question that happens to be identical to the one Dominique asked, our democrats have shown the very opposite of leadership.

Republicans haven’t been too much better. They’ve noticed their approval ratings have been dipping, and so they have worked their asses off to act more like democrats…which has brought their approval ratings down even more.

Here’s what kills me, though. What’s wrong with discrimination, no matter what kind, is that before you see all the things that make up the person you see the group identity of that person…which is like one page out of a great big book. But the minute we “recognize it” and “treat it as a serious problem” what do we do? — We see people not as people, but as members of groups.

It’s like we promulgate the disease, in hopes of finding a cure.

The pervasiveness question makes me laugh even louder…and more sadly. Someone says “It’s Still Out There” and we’re all just supposed to — whoa boy. We’d better get rid of it!

That’s silly. Just about everyone who would insist “we have to get rid of it” would agree, in this country, you have the right to do stupid things. Well, that’s the thing. When you look at discrimination, that’s what you’re looking at: People doing stupid things. And if they have a right to it, that means it’s going to be around. Forever. It’s a consequence of free will.

You want people making decisions who aren’t serving in Congress — or you want people making decisions who are? Eh…the people who are outside of Congress have a much higher “approval rating” with me, thankyewverymuch. And yeah, I say that as a straight white guy. What of it. People discriminate against me whenever they want to, so yes, I know what I’m talking about.

Stuff White People Like #101: Being Offended

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Comedy gold, and I’ve come to expect nothing less. Naturally, I’ve highlighted the especially good parts:

To be offended is usually a rather unpleasant experience, one that can expose a person to intolerance, cultural misunderstandings, and even evoke the scars of the past. This is such an unpleasant experience that many people develop a thick skin and try to only be offended in the most egregious and awful situations. In many circumstances, they can allow smaller offenses to slip by as fighting them is a waste of time and energy. But white people, blessed with both time and energy, are not these kind of people. In fact there are few things white people love more than being offended.

Naturally, white people do not get offended by statements directed at white people. In fact, they don’t even have a problem making offensive statements about other white people (ask a white person about “flyover states”). As a rule, white people strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people.

What comes next…even better still. Read the whole thing.

We’ve Been Had

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

Phil notices that Christopher Chantrill described it adroitly at American Thinker:

We thought that we were parties to a bargain: that if we shut up and truckled to the liberal race bullies sooner or later we would emerge from the post civil-rights era and its hypocrisies of affirmative action and diversity and we would ascend to the sunny green uplands of post-racism.

Now we hear the ravings of Reverend Wright and realize that we have been had. While we were buttoning our lips and attending compulsory diversity seminars liberals were not holding up their end of the deal and neutralizing the Reverend Wrights of America and their vicious racist bile. On the contrary, liberals were pumping them up!
:
I don’t think we yet realize what a watershed moment this is in American politics. All of a sudden the veil has been ripped away from a sacred mystery and a horror revealed to an innocent world.

The unpleasant truth here is that, in public policy as well as in personal affairs, there is only one way to “get over” anything nasty, no matter what it is, and that is to stop talking about it.

It sounds like the essence of cowardliness. But the truth of the matter is that it is the essence of cowardliness to avoid admitting it, and to babble onward about great-great-grandpa owning slaves, or women being oppressed for five thousand years, or you didn’t know which way to put the lug nuts on the spare tire when we got that flat on our honeymoon, or you sleep with all my friends, or you didn’t pull out your credit card to “support” me in my multi-level marketing business…or…or…or.

I wish I could jot down something to the effect that we are simply sloshing through this kind of cowardliness, the inability or unwillingness to recognize that to indulge in idle chatter about past episodes of chaos and inequality, is to wallow in them.

In fact, the situation is much worse than that. We aren’t just sloshing through. It’s a rising tide. We were waist-deep in it yesterday, and now it’s up to our ears.

Multiple times a week, now, I hear the word “discussion” being used to propose something that isn’t a discussion at all. The word “dialog” is abused more feverishly, recklessly, and sadistically. I see it in Barack Obama’s call for a “dialog on race” — did anyone, anywhere, think a genuine dialog had anything to do with what he was requesting of us? I see it in Jimmy Carter’s trip to go “talk” with the Hamas leadership — if it was such an amazing victory, and so clearly the right thing to do, then what in the hell did they talk about? I know about a wreath being laid at Arafat’s tomb, and I don’t know of anybody who knows any more about the details than that. But they’re ready to defend it…and re-define the word “idiot” to apply to anyone who disagrees.

I see it in the drive to take down Saddam Hussein and put a new government in his place. Or rather, the attacks on that historic decision. “Diplomacy” would have been a better way to go, I’m told. Really? Isn’t that just a lot more talking about stuff? Wasn’t that already being done?

Forgive me, I grew up in the seventies when it was very fashionable for the middle class to start going to “therapy” to “talk” about their “problems.” Being an unsociable little kid, rather than a well-connected and talkative grown-up, I came to rely on my senses and common sense in coming to grips with what was going on. I noticed everyone I knew, knew several people who were going to therapy or were going to therapy themselves. And were all “making progress” toward solving…you wouldn’t believe what a gamut of problems they were “confronting” in therapy. No finish line crossed. Ever. Nothing actually buttoned-up and put-away.

So after three decades and change, I’m well acquainted with this. Talking-about-talk, to me, is just a huge red flag. Now that I’ve got a head full of gray hair and the center-of-gravity of my lifespan is now in the rear view mirror, I see I’m still waiting for talk-about-talk to lead to something productive and good…ever. I’m still virginal to that. So people talking about solving problems by talking-em-out, to me, is a harbinger of extreme waste. It is a sign that a problem is about to not get solved — and some snake-oil salesmen are going to want immediate credit for solving it anyway.

I’ve never seen it fail.

Maybe we should have a “dialog” about that.

Kesting Press Conference

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Via Boortz: Enjoy.

Your background is here.

Incoherence has a new name.

I Made a New Word XV

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

bo∙lus∙te∙mo∙lo∙gy (n.)

A portmanteau of e·pis·te·mol·o·gy:

…a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864).


…and bo∙lus

A soft, roundish mass or lump, esp. of chewed food.

Bolustemology, therefore, describes a system of intelligences and beliefs that cannot be justified or proven by any means intrinsic to the consciousness that maintains such things, because they have been pre-chewed and/or pre-digested by someone else. Bolustemology is soft and squishy intellectual matter, warm, wet, smelling of halitosis, more than likely infected with something. When you offer it to someone, you may be offering to put forth the effort they themselves cannot sustain, so that they can be nourished. But it’s far more likely that you’re engaging in an exercise to make them feel fed, without doing the necessary chewing…because you don’t want them to.

Very few among us will ‘fess up to consuming bolustemology, so infatuated are we with the fantasy of thinking for ourselves about everything. But at the same time very few among us can speak to the issue because most of us have not bothered to become bolus-aware. This is demonstrated easily. Last month, for example, Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama was forced by the inflammatory words of his bigoted pastor and spiritual mentor, to speak to the issue of racial disharmony. And so, swaggering to the podium as if it was his idea to do this, he droned on in that Bill-Clinton-like crowd-pleasing way of his for a few minutes, after which we were offered prime tidbits of bolus such as

Obama speech opens up race dialogue
Will it stand alongside the great speeches in US history?

:
Several students of political rhetoric suggest Senator Obama’s moving speech in Philadelphia Tuesday could stand with some of the great speeches in American history.

True, say some, the Democratic presidential candidate was forced into giving a speech that would explain his relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the outspoken minister of Obama’s church, known for some antiwhite and anti-American sermons.

While argument continues over whether Obama’s explanation was sufficient, his speech did seem to achieve this: It has sparked a conversation about race relations, one of the frankest Americans have had since the civil rights era.

And

The Obama speech was also a topic of discussion on Wednesday at the Washington office of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy and social welfare group. Hispanics can be white, black or of mixed race. “The cynics are going to say this was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on,” said Janet Murguia, president of La Raza, referring to the political fallout over remarks by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which prompted Mr. Obama to deliver the speech.

But Ms. Murguia said she hoped that Mr. Obama’s speech would help “create a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed” and “can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions, both overt and as an undercurrent, that exist around race and racial politics.”

If there are any facts to back up this conclusion that the Obama speech stands alongside the great speeches of U.S. history…that it opens up a “race dialog”…that it creates a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed…or where they can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions that exist around racial politics…such factual foundation is missing from the stories I’ve linked, altogether, and it’s missing from every single other item of discussion about this speech. The facts simply don’t back up any of this. Nor can they, because this is all a bunch of stuff that would be judged by each person hearing the speech. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. And the ivory-tower types writing about it in such sugary tones know nothing about this, nor can they.

No, the factual foundation says the “cynics” are quite correct. Obama’s speech “was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on.” In fact, you don’t need any cynicism to conclude that. All you need to have is a decent and functional short-term memory.

But our High Priests of journalism, rushing to the press with their editorials built to be printed up in the wrong sections of the respective papers, weren’t interested in factual foundations, logical conclusions, et al. Nope, that’s all out of scope. They were all about bolustemology. About pre-chewing the food for others. About bludgeoning and cudgeling. About giving total strangers instructions about what to believe.

Obama may very well have given his speech in service of purely altruistic and idealistic motives. In doing so, he may very well have accomplished his stated goal of “opening up a national dialog” or some such…created a sounding board of safety for those who otherwise would have felt threatened participating in such an exchange. All those things could, in theory, be true. But all who desire to think independently for themselves, or at least to be thought of by others as capable of doing this, should be offended at the manner in which these cognitions were being handed to them. Valid cognitions have no need for pre-chewing. Each thinking recipient can figure it out for himself or herself. Yet, here, the pre-chewing was rampant.

I have some less subtle examples of the same thing in mind, in case the race-dialog item fails to illustrate the point properly. Michael Ronayne, about whom we learn via Gerard, distills the latest eco-bullying episode for us quite elegantly:

For the background, you can turn to JunkScience, which has a decent write-up including the e-mail exchange between a BBC reporter and a climate-change activist, reproduced in entirety here:

I have been emailed the following correspondence, purportedly between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. It would appear that the result of the email exchange between the activist and the reporter was that the BBC changed its story. In particular instead of reporting the story as received from the World Meteorological Organisation, the BBC modified the story as demanded by the activist who was concerned that in its original form it supported ‘the skeptics’ correct observation that there has been no warming since 1998.

From Jo, April 4, 2008

Climate Changers,

Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it’s been subject to spin or scepticism.

Here’s my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for, but I’m not really sure if the result is that much better.

Judge for yourselves…

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Dear Roger,

Please can you correct your piece published today entitled “Global
temperatures ‘to decrease’” :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm

1. “A minority of scientists question whether this means global
warming has peaked”
This is incorrect. Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

2. “Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007”
You should not mislead people into thinking that the sum total of the
Earth system is going to be cooler in 2008 than 2007. For example, the
ocean systems of temperature do not change in yearly timescales, and
are massive heat sinks that have shown gradual and continual warming.
It is only near-surface air temperatures that will be affected by La
Nina, plus a bit of the lower atmosphere.

Thank you for applying your attention to all the facts and figures available,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Dear Jo

No correction is needed

If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will
decrease, that’s what we will report

There are scientists who question whether warming will continue as
projected by IPCC

Best wishes
RH

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Hi Roger,

I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who
may wish to add to your knowledge.

Would you be willing to publish information that expands on your
original position, and which would give a better, clearer picture of
what is going on ?

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands
of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that “global
warming finished in 1998”, when that is so patently not true.

I have to spend a lot of my time countering their various myths and
non-arguments, saying, no, go look at the Hadley Centre data. Global
Warming is not over. There have been what look like troughs and
plateaus/x before. It didn’t stop then. It’s not stopping now.

It is true that people are debating Climate Sensitivity, how much
exactly the Earth will respond to radiative forcing, but nobody is
seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased
global temperatures.

I think it’s counterproductive to even hint that the Earth is cooling
down again, when the sum total of the data tells you the opposite.
Glaringly.

As time goes by, the infant science of climatology improves. The Earth
has never experienced the kind of chemical adjustment in the
atmosphere we see now, so it is hard to tell exactly what will happen
based on historical science.

However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming.

Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door
open to doubt about that.

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:57 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

The article makes all these points quite clear

We can’t ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of
increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media

Best to tackle this – and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored which makes them v
suspicious

Roger

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:12 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Hi Roger,

When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you
glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg “Really
?” or “Wow !”

You don’t read the whole article, you just get the headline.

A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say,
and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you
have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and
e-mail their mates and say “See ! Global Warming has stopped !”

They only got the headline, which is why it is so utterly essentialy
to give the full picture, or as full as you can in the first few
paragraphs.

The near-Earth surface temperatures may be cooler in 2008 that they
were in 2007, but there is no way that Global Warming has stopped, or
has even gone into reverse. The oceans have been warming consistently,
for example, and we’re not seeing temperatures go into reverse, in
general, anywhere.

Your word “debate”. This is not an issue of “debate”. This is an issue
of emerging truth. I don’t think you should worry about whether people
feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that
the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate
plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

Respectfully,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : “Global temperatures ‘to decrease’”

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

Remember: Challenge any skepticism.

Now look at that graphic up there carefully: Blue is the old stuff, green is the post-capitulation, post-bend-over, post-take-it-up-the-chute-from-Ms.-Abbess stuff. And then read the nagging again…carefully. Jo Abbess doesn’t take issue with the facts presented, for she can’t — they’re facts. Facts iz facts. She objects to the conclusions people may draw from them, and nags this guy until he changes the presentation to her liking, so people will draw a conclusion more in line with what she expects. She’s trying to sell something here. Challenge any skepticism.

There are other examples around, if you simply take the effort to become bolus-aware and look around. There is, for example, the sad tale of Richard Warman. His Wikipedia page contains four major categories as of this writing: Legal activism; Canadian human rights tribunal; Political activism; References. Who is he? The wonderful glittering text in the main article informs us…

He is best known for initiating complaints against white supremacists and neo-Nazis for Canadian Human Rights Act violations related to Internet content. In June 2007, Warman received the Saul Hayes Human Rights Award from the Canadian Jewish Congress for “distinguished service to the cause of human rights”. He holds a BA (Hons.) in Drama from Queen’s University, an LLB from the University of Windsor, and an LLM from McGill University.

He’s a Nazi hunter! Wow, what a great guy! And he’s got letters after his name and everything.

But a quick visit to the “Talk” page reveals some intriguing conflict:

You removed what I believe were valid entries in support of the of criticism of Richard Warman.

You claim that the entries are not “encyclopedic”. Please explain what you mean, provide an example, and a Wikipedia reference in support of your position. Note also that one of the references was to another article in Wikipedia.

I am going to assume for the moment that you are acting in good faith, and will not censor valid criticism. Then there should not be too much difficulty in finding criticism of which you approve, since Richard Warman’s complaints before the CHRC are currently one of the most widely discussed topics on Canadian blogs. I provided just two references, whereas there are hundreds of others.

The entries you removed are:

Critics have charged that Warman abuses the intent of the Canadian Human Rights Act by personally appearing as the plaintiff in the majority of CHRA section 13 “hate speech” cases which have been brought before the Commission, a former employer of Warman. – – Critics further charge that many CHRC “hate speech” complaints such as Warman’s have had a chilling effect on the human right to freedom of expression.

I look forward to your prompt, reasoned response. Thank you.

Another piqued Wiki contributor writes in with an inflammatory sub-headline:

Bias in article maintenance and corrupt admins

This article is being maintained by politically motivated individuals trying to protect the information from being changed at all costs by removing any reference to well-sourced articles that don’t shed good light on this individual. These same individuals and admins have engaged in slander in other articles

What are these unflattering tidbits about Mr. Warman? Well, it seems lately he is in conflict with Ezra Levant, having served papers on the publisher. Levant paints a different picture of the former Human Rights Commission lawyer:

Today I was sued by Richard Warman, Canada’s most prolific – and profitable – user of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. As readers of this site know, Warman isn’t just a happy customer of section 13 and its 100% conviction rate, he’s a former CHRC employee, an investigator of section 13 thought crimes himself. In fact, he was often both a customer and an investigator at the same time.
:
It’s impossible to criticize section 13 without criticizing Warman, because without Warman, section 13 would have been defunct years ago – almost no-one else in this country of 33 million people uses it. I’d call it “Warman’s Law”, but I’ve already given that title to another law enacted because of Warman. Warman’s Law is a law brought in by the B.C. government specifically to protect libraries from Warman’s nuisance defamation suits. (We should find some way to set up a Warman’s law to protect universities from Warman, too.)
:
The more I learn about Warman, the more I write about him. And, like the CHRC, he hates public exposure. Earlier this year, Warman’s lawyer served me with a lengthy Libel Notice, which I posted to my website here, with my commentary on it here.

Again — you may read all of the above and end up still a big, slobbering fan of Richard Warman. You may decide to dismiss all of the reservations people like Levant have against him…which might be fair, since Levant is a defendant and Warman is a petitioner. You should expect that inviting Levant and Warman to dinner on the same night and seating them next to each other, would be a plan deserving of a re-think or two.

But…wouldn’t you want to know some of the less flattering things about Mr. Warman? Especially if you’re sufficiently interested in him to go look up the Wikipedia entry about him? Well, it turns out at least some of the Wikipedia admins don’t seem to think so. They think you should only know the flowery parts. Or at least, they’ve so far come up with some wonderful excuses for excising anything else from the article.

Hell, I’d sure want to know about this:

* Complaints filed to CHRC: 26
* Former employee and investigator at the Canadian Human Rights Commission
* In December 2006, the Law Society shows he works for the Department of National Defence
* Education: degree in Drama from Queens University
* Member: Law Society of Upper Canada and EGALE Canada
* Gave a Keynote speech to the Violent Anti-Racist Action
* Warman is a frequent poster on “Neo-Nazi” Stormfront website
* Warman is a frequent poster on “Neo-Nazi” VNN website.
* Pretends to be a woman named “Lucie”
* Has signed his posts with “88” (according to Warman means: Heil Hitler)
* Has called Senator Anne Cools a “nigger” and a “c*nt” on the internet

And I’d want to know what Mark Steyn had to say yesterday:

He has been the plaintiff on half the Section 13 cases in its entire history and on all the Section 13 cases since 2002. There are 30 million Canadians yet only one of them uses this law, over and over and over again, which tells you how otherwise irrelevant it is to keeping the Queen’s peace. Section 13 is, in effect, Warman’s Law and the CHRC is Warman’s personal inquisition and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is Warman’s very own kangaroo court. Whether or not the motivations were pure and pristine when this racket got started, at some point his pals at the CHRC and the “judges” of the CHRT should have realized that the Warmanization of Section 13 doesn’t pass the smell test: Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done, and when you see what’s done at the CHRC you understand it’s a cosy and self-perpetuating romance between a corrupt bureaucracy and its favoured son.

But the over-zealous Wiki editor(s) says no. They’re taking the Soup Nazi approach with these nuggets of unflattering information about Mr. Warman. Not-a For You!

Lying by omission — that’s a perfectly good example of bolustemology.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Matthew LaClure. He’s just like Richard Warman, it seems…standing for our rights, in his satin tights, and the old red white and blue-hoo-hoo-hoo…

Matthew LaClair, of Kearny, NJ, stood up for religious freedom and the separation of church and state in the face of ridicule and opposition. During his junior year in high school, Matthew had a history teacher who promoted creationism and other personal religious beliefs in the classroom. When Matthew confronted the teacher and asked the school officials to address this, he became the target of harassment and even a death threat from fellow students. Despite this opposition, Matthew worked with the ACLU of New Jersey to make sure that the First Amendment is respected and upheld at his high school. Matthew won the battle at his school and thanks in large part to his advocacy, the Student Education Assembly on Religious Freedom was created at his high school so that all members of the school community will understand their rights and responsibilities.

There follows an essay from the young LaClair about what he did, what happened to him as a result, and how it changed him. I suppose it might be encouraging to some who share his and the ACLU’s values, such as they are…but regardless, you have to notice the phrase “civil liberties” is peppered throughout, with negligible definition about what exactly this two-word cliche is supposed to mean.

I hope that what I did encourages others to stand up for civil liberties. I want to take what I have learned from this situation and apply it to other situations I will experience in my life. I now have a greater chance of making a bigger difference in the world, and I think that the experience will serve to expand my abilities further.

To figure out what “civil liberties” he’s droning on about, you have to consider what exactly it was that he did. And what he did was…start mouthing off at teachers when he was asked to stand for the pledge of allegiance. So the civil liberties in question would be…uh…the civil liberty to sit there while everybody else stands. Well, gosh, it turns out to the extent kids have that civil liberty post-LaClair, they had it before he ever came along. How about the civil liberty of doing that without some strutting martinet getting in their faces about it? Well, no change there either.

In the final analysis, the ACLU is making their apotheosis because Master LaClair mouthed off like a little brat. Any fantasy involving any more nobility than that, is bolustemology and nothing more.

But what’s he done for us lately, you might be asking? Glad you asked. Matthew LaClair, who has no axe to grind here, nosiree, has again impressed certain segments of the halfway-grown-up community by making a big ol’ racket about…exactly the same kind of stuff as last time.

Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen’s criticism is well-founded.

They say “American Government” by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review the book, as will the College Board, which oversees college-level Advanced Placement courses used in high schools.

Matthew LaClair of Kearny, N.J., recently brought his concerns to the attention of the Center for Inquiry, an Amherst, N.Y., think tank that promotes science and which has issued a scathing report about the textbook.

“I just realized from my own knowledge that some of this stuff in the book is just plain wrong,” said LaClair, who is using the book as part of an AP government class at Kearny High School.

Yyyyyyeah. Uh huh. Just kind of blundered into that one, huh? Kinda like Murder She Wrote…have to wonder what dead body you’re going to find next week.

Just plain wrong. How interesting. Especially when one takes the trouble to actually read the report from the Center for Inquiry.

Unlike Matt LaClair, I’ll encourage you to do so. But just in the interest of saving time, the report boldly confronts six distinct areas of “just plain wrong” ness: global warming; school prayer; same sex marriage; constitutional government and “original sin”; the meaning of the Establishment Clause; and the significance of the Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari.

Of those six, the fourth and last are the two items that represent, in my mind, what you might call “a real stretch.” The CFI takes issue, there, with small snippets of the textbook in question, and reads meaning into them so that the whistle can be blown. For their criticisms to stand, a certain interpretation has to be applied to these snippets. The fifth objection is probably the most durable because it’s clear to me it is the best-researched. But here, too, the phrase “last minute” has to be given a literal interpretation (in the context of the time frame in which the First Amendment was ratified in the late eighteenth century) — so it can be properly debunked. So with all of the final three of the subjects, the authors of the textbook under review could respond to the CFI solidly and plausibly by simply saying “that isn’t what we meant.”

But it’s with the first item that my interest was really aroused:

The textbook‘s discussion of the science of global warming is devastatingly inaccurate. As explained below, the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence establishes that global climate change caused by global warming is already underway and requires immediate attention. The international scientific community is united in recognizing the extremely high probability that human generated greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide as the major offender, are the primary cause of global warming and that this global warming will produce harmful climate change.

And much later…

In brief, debate within the scientific community over the existence and cause of global warming has closed. The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring and that human generated greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide as the major offender, are the primary cause of well documented global warming and climate change today. These conclusions are detailed in the landmark 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific body organized to evaluate the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change.

Have you got any red flags raised when you read hackneyed phrases like “overwhelming weight”? If so, maybe you’re on the road to becoming bolus-aware. If not, then maybe you aren’t. Perhaps all six of the objections are legitimate, meritorious, and productive. But it’s easy to see the CFI report seeks — not to inform, but — to bully. To intimidate. To coerce. To get the whole world running the way certain people want it to…and since Matt LaClair is one of ’em, naturally he thinks they’re wonderful and vice-versa. None of this changes the fact that this is all pre-chewed pablum.

Notice — none of these observations have to do with truth. They have to do with who is recognizing it…and the subservient role others are invited to fill, as they are beckoned to slavishly follow along. The only other important thing to remember about this is that once one person is caught up in the undertow, he’ll piss rusty nickels to get everyone else sucked down with him. People who suck down bolus, don’t want to see anyone else do any chewing.

Oh, but I do have one thing to point out that deals directly with truth: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not a scientific body, it is a political one.

The common perception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of an impartial organisation that thoroughly reviews the state of climate science and produces reports which are clear, accurate, comprehensive, well substantiated and without bias.

One only needs examine some of its procedural documents, its reports and its dealings with reviewers of the report drafts to discover how wrong this impression is.

The IPCC is not and never has been an organisation that examines all aspects of climate change in a neutral and impartial manner. Its internal procedures reinforce that bias; it makes no attempts to clarify its misleading and ambiguous statements. It is very selective about the material included in its reports; its fundamental claims lack evidence. And most importantly, its actions have skewed the entire field of climate science.

As the saying goes, I’m much more concerned about the intellectual climate. Happy reading.

Class dismissed.

Update 4/11/08: You know, it occurs to me that even with all the examples above of strangers figuring things out for us and telling us what to think, not even handing us the glimmer of factual foundation so we could at least go through the motions of coming to the conclusions they want from us on our own…and with all the other examples we continue to be handed on a daily basis — Iraq is a quagmire, Boy Scouts is a hate group, etc. etc. — for some among us, the point still might not yet be pounded home. When you aren’t bolus-aware, you are very easily convinced of some things, but it’s an endless chore to bring your attention to certain other things.

It further occurs to me that it doesn’t need to be this complicated. Not even close.

We have three clear front-runners for the President of the United States in ’08, one Republican and two donks. Can there possibly be any example of our societal gullibility, than what follows. The one Republican is, by far, the most liberal left-wing Republican in the entire Senate. The two donks are, against all odds, the most liberal left-wing donks in the entire Senate.

If what I have used all those paragraphs to describe, above, is not an epidemic covering all the mass between the great oceans, lately reaching “I Am Legend” proportions and intensity…you would be forced to conclude that that is just a cohweenkadeenk. The odds? My calculator says one in 124,950.

Whereas…

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

This one is required reading. An Open Letter to the democrat Party.

“We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:

Whereas in the early 1600’s 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development,

Whereas reconciliation and healing always begin with an apology and an effort to repay those who have been wronged,

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,
:
Whereas after Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of African Americans, he banned African American newspapers from the military shortly after taking office because he was convinced the newspapers were communists,

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law, opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues.
:
Whereas the Democratic Party’s use of deception and fear to block welfare reform, the faith-based initiative and school choice that would help African Americans prosper is consistent with the Democratic Party’s heritage of racism that included sanctioning of slavery and kukluxery, a perversion of moral sentiment among leaders of the Democratic Party whose racist legacy bode ill until this generation of African Americans,

Now, therefore, for the above and other documented atrocities and accumulated wrongs inflicted upon African Americans, we demand a formal written apology and other appropriate remuneration from the leadership of the Democratic party.

There’s a lot more. I think you should go read it.

You know, it’s about bleepin’-bleep time. On the subject of race, we have this habit of beating up on the same-ol’ same-ol’ just because…because. Y’know? But when you look into the facts of it, time after time the most deplorable racist actions have been put in play by the democrats.

What have the Republicans given us as far as racial division? Well, I seem to recall sometime in the last five or six years, a prominent Republican was caught saying something nice about an old man on his hundredth birthday. I mean, shocking. Yes, surely that compares with putting a sheet over your head and using physical intimidation, up to & including lynching, to stop persons of color from voting. As the democRATs did.

Think I got this from the Rottweiler, but I can’t find it there now.

It bears repeating: About time.

Let’s Get Rid of Some Words

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, occasionally invents new words. We did it here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

This morning I’d like to propose something different. Let’s get rid of some words.

Namely, these two: “unite” and all derivatives, “unify,” “unity,” etc…and “divide.”

Scrap ’em.

They don’t mean anything anymore.

I’ve really had it up to here with being told what a wonderful speech was delivered by He Whose Middle Name Must Never Be Used. It has really gone around the bend. Even in Bob Herbert-land, it has become a special brand of nonsense.

The speech, which has gotten wonderful reviews, should be required reading in classrooms across the country — and in as many other venues as possible. With a worldview that embraces both justice and healing, Senator Obama is better on these issues than any American leader since King.

Unfortunately, what is more likely to happen is that the essence of the speech will be lost in the din that inevitably erupts whenever there is a racial controversy in the United States.

The fundamental message that Senator Obama is trying to get across is that the racial madness that has perverted so many elections needs to stop — and stop now.

And the best way we can do that, is to toss His Obamaness out on his ear. And toss now.

HateSen. Obama’s reverse-racist pastor got caught spewing his vitriol on YouTube…thank heavens we live in the age of YouTube…and they’re telling me Obama addressed this with a wonderful speech that helped “unify” the country on the subject of race. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe his speech was all about how all black churches have hateful crap like this and us “typical white persons” should just learn to deal with it. That, in 2008, crap-hockers like Herbert tell me, is “unifying.”

Not only is it divisive, but beneath the glaring incompetence at recognizing the difference between those two, which Obama evidently has — I struggle to think of a personal attribute that would more effectively disqualify a candidate from any important office.

Obama’s a poor leader, plain and simple. His qualification for the office he currently seeks — for any occupation — is that he has a golden throat. Fine. Let him sell cleaning solvents and exercise equipment on infomercials at three in the morning. He can do that all week, and then on Sunday go back to those “services.”

How embarrassing. People are dividing us and we’re calling them “uniters” — and the worst part is, it seems we’re just following through on something we’ve been doing for forty years. They make their careers out of telling us how different we are due to the color of our skin, and we reward them by allowing them to continue those careers as long as possible, becoming as rich as possible.

Hey, maybe if I was Obama I’d want my cut too. But I think we should stop looking at this garbage and thinking of it as unifying…in any way at all. We’re being divided. Divided, by racists and hucksters who want us to be divided. And then they tell us they’re unifying us.

Beyond ridiculous.

Everyone Gets a Raw Deal

Monday, March 24th, 2008

The post previous to this one inspected the possibility about whether the CIOs in our information management businesses might be causing the problems…about which…they do their grumbling. Said problems having to do with this alleged “IT skills shortage.” My answer boils down to Yes, but not in the way most people think. I believe a trend exists wherein everything in Information Technology is being distilled down to a step-by-step process, with no problem-solving skills necessary, no knowledge about how things actually work necessary. The goal is to make all skills economical — portable — easily transferred to the next person. And, IT being a big thing, all skills within it simply don’t translate that way. They’re trying to put fifty pounds of potatoes in a twenty pound bag. So yes, we should blame the CIOs.

I hope people found that one to be thoughtful. A lot of people decide this stuff with feelings, and you know, that’s the second sign that you are going insane.

What happens when you go insane? You can’t make decisions that are beneficial or productive anymore…or at least, are beneficial or productive on a frequency greater than random chance. You leave it to others to make things better, as a best-case scenario — worst-case scenario being, you jump in and bollux it all up for them.

And here’s a great example of that: Via ZNet Cartoons, via Alas! A Blog!, via Glenn Sacks writing in Men’s News Daily:

Niiiiiiiiicccceeee……….

Why do I find this cartoon to be insane? Because it derogates the accomplishments of white people, indeed is calculated and designed to do that very thing, and I’m a white person? No. Because it fails to navigate the first triad and it cannot culminate into a thought that will navigate that triad: FACT…OPINION…THING TO DO. The fact it seeks to point out is that white people benefit from racism without knowing it. What opinion are we to draw from this? That white people are, typically, less competent than they believe themselves to be? I think even among people who sympathize with the cartoon, most of them would be reluctant to jump to that conclusion. They’d need to see a few more facts.

And forget about the Thing-To-Do. Just forget it. What are we to do about this? Well gee, affirmative action with quotas might seem like the only reasonable way to go…that might seem like a sound plan…to people who feel their way around problems rather than thinking their way through them. All those who seek to define a goal before they make their plans, so they can assess their progress toward that goal…abandon all hope ye who enter here. What are you trying to do? Make everyone the same? Lay the smack down on whitey? Give persons-of-color opportunity? Cool down racial tensions? People who want the first two to happen, can’t say how that helps anyone. People who want the third thing to happen, can’t say how that’s supposed to work, over the long term. And people who want the fourth thing to happen, by supporting quotas in college admissions, hiring and contracting, work diligently against the goals they say are theirs.

Over on Alas!, there are just shy of a hundred comments about this cartoon. I’m particularly interested in #5, #6, #8, #10, #16 and #47.

Sailorman doesn’t seem to think too highly of the comic. He ‘fesses up that he can’t draw, but if he could this is the strip he’d do in response…what follows is a panel by panel description of what happened to the white folks and their ancestors — the darker side.

Jake Squid calls him a “right-winger.”

Sailorman points out that Squid is engaging in ad hom; Jake Squid denies it, then engages in it again.

Ampersand, who seems to be the CEO of the blog, does some backpedaling…

Sailorman, I’m not sure where the cartoon said that white people have it easy, or don’t work for what they get. The person was offered “a foot in the door,” not the keys to the executive washroom; the white couple was given a mortgage, not a free house.

What the cartoon does say (in my view) is that white people have it easier than black people, and that the system works in a way that makes it easy for white people to be unaware of how they’ve benefited from racism. I don’t think believing that requires believing that white people are handed the world on a silver platter.

I call it backpedaling because if one accepts the point of the original cartoon, and from that does navigate the first triad of fact/opinion/thing-to-do, albeit in an insane way — it’s almost certain that whatever navigation that was, it just got scuttled by Ampersand’s miniaturization of the original point that was being made. White people are being given, not free stuff, but opportunities. Oops. Well, here’s news for Ampersand — a lot of people who saw the cartoon and liked it, it doesn’t seem at all a logical leap to say, thought the stuff that belongs to white people should be taken away from them. What else is to be done? We shouldn’t do that? The cartoon seeks only to make white people more thankful for the opportunities they’ve had? Eh…if that’s the case, it’s not that good of a cartoon, because it doesn’t seem to stop there. I’m pretty sure Jake Squid isn’t stopping there. He thinks you’re a “right-winger” if you simply bring up some historical points the cartoon might’ve forgotten to mention.

Leora, also, doesn’t find much use in Sailorman‘s point. But interestingly, when she discusses why this is, she makes his point all over again for him. Read her entry, all the way to the last paragraph:

What this comic (and Sailorman’s response) reminded me of is a very personal interaction I have in my own life. It is not exactly the same, but humor me on this analogy, ok?

My sister and I are both white females, both came from working class parents with a strong work ethic, and are both first-generation college educated with advanced degrees. Inasmuch as we can be similar, we are as sisters. The main difference in our lives is that she is able-bodied and I am disabled. (I am very obviously vision and hearing impaired.)

My sister is a very hard worker and has a successful career. I would not say that she hasn’t “earned” her successes because she put her nose to the grindstone, made the right decisions to get to her goals, and met her goals by working hard.

The difference between her and I is that she has always had the OPPORTUNITY to work hard. For her, say the goal is “D”. If she worked hard at A, it would get her to B. If she worked hard at B, it would get her to C. If she worked hard at C, it would get her to D. She pretty much has always had the benefit of the assumption that A B C=D. There was an obvious return to her investment.

For me, A may or may not = B, which may or may not get me to C, etc. And the time I will have to spend at any one of these steps (working just as hard or harder than my sister, is usually longer and may offer me less return on my investment.)

To use real life examples: My sister could earn money in high school by babysitting or doing high school fast food jobs. It was relatively easy for her to get the opportunities to work hard. I sat around a lot in high school earning way less money because people were less inclined to hire a deafblind babysitter or fast food worker. She had the opportunity to work hard.

She was in honors programs and I was in special ed, which didn’t even allow me to take the qualifying tests for honors programs. She worked hard in her honors programs because she had the opportunity to work hard.

She got through college more quickly than I did because she was able to work to pay for college at a much increased rate than I did. I did work, in high school and college, but I spent much more time job hunting and doing volunteer work to get my foot in the door or begging for more hours than she did. She did work hard to put herself through college, as did I, but the benefits allowing her to work hard gave her more opportunities.

Most notably, she got many jobs and internships, etc. by word of mouth. Someone would recommend her and she would get hired. I had people who were also willing to vouch for me, and they would come back to me apologetically saying that they put in a good word for me but that the other person said that they just didn’t know if they could see themselves hiring a disabled person.

In her case, with all of these opportunities to work hard, she was able to build on her success over time. In my case, any accomplishment I earned in the past by hard work was not likely to count for anything past my disability. Her past accomplishments led to more opportunities to work hard and earn more successes. I have to start over proving myself at every opportunity as if I have no past. I have to defend myself for things that may or may not happen in the future. I have no past and no future in regards to earning things, her past accomplishments are step ladders for her and no one expects her to prove that she will never make a mistake in the future she cannot foresee.

So, I have never understood this argument that sailorman gives. No one is saying that white people didn’t work hard to earn their successes. But don’t they understand how fortunate they are to have those opportunities to work hard? And how frustrating it is when you want to work hard, you have the skills, you have played by the rules, yet there is no return? Working hard and earning success is a privilege that is not afforded equally to everyone in society. Why is that so hard to understand?

As an interesting epilogue here, my sister has now reached the proverbial glass ceiling in her career. She is finding that she has reached a point that she cannot move out of. A B C is no longer easily equal to D. She is seeing younger, less qualified men jump past her in promotions and opportunities. And I’m sure they worked hard, too.

So the privileged sister peaked out, and now must take her turn on the sidelines watching men leapfrog over where she is, just because they’re MEN. “And [Leora’s] sure they worked hard, too.” Uh huh…and I’ll tell you something else, Leora: Those men had to put up with a lot of guff that didn’t get in the way of your privileged sister…or you. They could have had their careers destroyed by some underachieving woman, not even all that good-looking, or for that matter even having anything to do with the guy at all — going to Human Resources and saying “when he walked into the room he made me feel uncomfortable.”

One wonders, further, how many opportunities this privileged sister had that were denied to the men who are now passing her up, back when it was fashionable to hand the plum assignments out to the gals. Can anyone deny there is such a force of nature at work here? We’re seriously considering putting a woman in the White House this year — a nasty, toxic woman who has accomplished very little, and doesn’t seem to have a kind word to say about anyone except when it’s in the context of bashing someone else. And for that matter, does Leora really expect me to think it is never in vogue to hand things out to a disabled person? It hasn’t happened in her case? Shenanigans. What if we went and talked to the privileged sister? What would she say?

I’m sure if we tallied up the unfair advantages and got into a subtraction game, net-for-gross, Leora’s point would still stand. But…a subtraction game is useful only if you’ve validated that you’ve collected everything that should go into it. In this case, there’s no way to validate it. We live in a big complicated world full of people gaining “unfair” advantages all the time. And there’s another question to be pondered — aren’t we supposed to be working together for some things? When did this become a competition against each other?

My point is that all this stuff is useless. All these arguments to be made are “valid,” on the most superficial level anyway, because they all have a kernel of truth to them. But just a kernel. You can’t really do anything with any of them…all they say is that this class of people, or that class of people, got a raw deal.

I like the idea of white people being more thankful for the advantages they’ve had — but that’s good advice for anyone isn’t it? Here and there, I know I’ve had benefits because of the friendships I’ve had, as well as whatever class to which someone thinks I’m a member. I’ve been hurt too — passed over for opportunities that went to persons far less qualified.

You really open a Pandora’s Box when you say because Morgan was passed over for something, Morgan is owed something by someone. We just shouldn’t get into that. Nobody owes Morgan anything…because everyone gets a raw deal. And it logically follows that for whatever opportunities I have had come my way…I don’t owe anybody anything either. Just some gratitude toward those who made it possible. Anything beyond that, we have to get into the whallopin’ countin’ business. Oh no, to make up for past opportunities he shouldn’t have gotten, we gave this guy three whallops, now we think on it some more we see he only had two whallopin’s comin’. He gets one back, so who does he get to whallop?

And once you start that crap, it never ends. Worse still, someone has to get the job of figuring out how many whallopin’s so-and-so has comin’ to ’em. And ultimately, that is a position involving so much power, we shouldn’t want anyone to have it.

Does that make someone angry?

Then that would be a sign someone is participating in the formation of our public policies, and they aren’t engaging any spirit of compromise before doing so — they just want things their way, period. If we’re looking for something somewhere that needs fixing, I think we should start there.

One-Line Thoughts on Race

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

I won’t be able to explain the times in which we live to my grandchildren. Or to a Rip van Winkle Buck Rogers type who woke up in these times after snoozing for generations. Or to a space alien who just landed here.

When we use the word “diversity” we apply it to things that are not diverse.

When we point out diversity is the source of our greatness, we proceed to talk about mediocre things and not great things.

When someone announces his intent to achieve racial unity, we know in the instant he says it he’s going to work to divide us.

When someone posts a job and uses those magic words “equal opportunity employer women and minorities encouraged to apply” — same breath — we no longer wince at the contradiction; to the contrary, we accept this as natural.

We argue with people who think “affirmative action” has something to do with racial quotas. Then we argue with the affirmative action people, if they make a move to leave the quotas out of it.

We claim to be color-blind when, in the instant the words are used, it’s implicitly understood we’re about to be anything-but.

We claim not to tolerate discrimination, when the one thing that will really get our cackles up is someone forgetting to discriminate.

We’re supposed to be gliding gradually toward racial unity, but we’ve been gliding in that direction for a very long time.

And the people who claim to be bringing us closer to it, seem to be working hard at pushing it farther away.

I also notice a lot of them are male…liberal or liberal-leaning…with northern or New England roots…and whiter than ivory.

There’s a remote chance in my declining years I will be called-upon to explain this, to make sense of it. I can’t do it now and I have strong doubts I’ll be able to do it then. I can only wish for a long life to those who are working so hard to keep things the way they are, so that they’ll be around to help me out with it, to jump in when my wrinkly old face is giving that deer-in-the-headlights look.

Because I’ve always been completely-freakin’-lost on this stuff. All of it.

Race Nonsense

Friday, March 14th, 2008

Ever notice the racial tensions between blacks & whites are consistently brought up to bolster ideas that have nothing whatsoever to do with black/white racial tension…and that, seemingly without exception, are spectacularly bad ideas?

I was noticing that when, fresh off watching this video from over at Rick’s place (which you can really watch just about anywhere by now) concerning Barack Obama’s race-baiting whitey-hating spiritual advisor Jeremiah Wright…

…I stumbled into an article about this guy, Van Jones, who is considerably sweeter. At least on the surface. But like Jeremiah Wright, he seeks to inflame racial tensions within an issue that has nothing to do with race. At all.

You know, I don’t think that’s very sweet. At all.

“Try this experiment. Go knock on someone’s door in West Oakland, Watts or Newark and say: ‘We gotta really big problem!’ They say: ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta really big problem!’ ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta save the polar bears! You may not make it out of this neighborhood alive, but we gotta save the polar bears!’ ”

Mr. Jones then just shakes his head. You try that approach on people without jobs who live in neighborhoods where they’ve got a lot better chance of getting killed by a passing shooter than a melting glacier, you’re going to get nowhere — and without bringing America’s underclass into the green movement, it’s going to get nowhere, too.

“We need a different on-ramp” for people from disadvantaged communities, says Mr. Jones. “The leaders of the climate establishment came in through one door and now they want to squeeze everyone through that same door. It’s not going to work. If we want to have a broad-based environmental movement, we need more entry points.”

Mr. Jones, who heads the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, which helps kids avoid jail and secure jobs, has an idea how to change that — a “green-collar” jobs program that focuses on underprivileged youth. I would not underestimate him. Mr. Jones, age 39 and a Yale Law School grad, exudes enough energy to light a few buildings on his own.

One thing spurring him in this project, he explained, was the way that the big oil companies bought ads in black-owned newspapers in California in 2006 showing an African-American woman filling her gas tank with a horrified look at the pump price. The ads were used to help bring out black votes to defeat Proposition 87. That ballot initiative proposed a tax on oil companies drilling in California, the money from which would have gone to develop alternative energy projects. The oil companies tried to scare African-Americans into thinking that the tax on the companies would be passed on at the pump.

I know it sounds very positive and productive to “[help] kids avoid jail and secure jobs,” and maybe I’m cynical but that just raises enormous red flags with me. I don’t know a lot about Van Jones, but one thing I know for certain is that he isn’t cool with the idea of helping a kid avoid jail and secure a job…and then go on to evaluate, independently and free from coercion, whether or not the polar bears need saving. He’s just used an elaborate salesmanship technique to connect environmental-socialist causes with skin color. He’s got a big beef with the fact that the “big oil companies” managed to point out that gas taxes are passed on to the consumer — and when you think on it awhile, how in the world could they not be? — and the argument was found to have some merit. By the wrong color of people.

Van Jones, one may soundly conclude, thinks that if your skin is dark you are his. Something is terribly wrong if you, a black person, decide the polar bear thing in a way different from the way he would…if you decide the gas tax in a way different from the way he would…and what else?

I don’t see a lot of difference between Jones and Wright. One’s slicker than the other; that’s all. From where I sit, the oppression of Jesus by the Romans doesn’t have any more to do with a racial divide, than saving polar bears. This is a problem. This is a sickness. There are reasons why it’s an exploding epidemic, but the fact remains it’s an exploding epidemic and we need to treat it.

Now that we’re exploring issues of racial divide all over again, I think 2008 would be a great year to demand out of anyone with an idea they think is worth arguing, at least, an idea unrelated to blacks-n-whites: Let’s see if you can make it sound convincing while leaving skin color out of it. If you can, maybe it’s something worth considering. If not, then piss off.

If it’s a wonderful idea, you can make it sound wonderful without injecting the most emotional issue of modern times into your presentation of it.

But I know that we’re not likely to demand this, and so we’re about to be buried in this nonsense. For years, if Obama is actually elected, which seems a sure thing now. Socialized medicine, socialized education, gun control, higher taxes, giving more money to union thugs and tort lawyers, appeasing terrorists — none of which have a damn thing to do with black-versus-white, but all of which will be presented that way so we can drum up popular support for the very worst ideas possible.