House of Eratosthenes

Beinhart’s article was posted to Common Dreams today. It’s called “Foaming Republicans” and it seeks to tell people, presumably non-Republicans, what makes Republicans do the things they do. There is not a single word in Beinhart’s angry screed about how he comes to know the things he does; I’d like to presume he stopped some Republicans in the street and asked them, or failing that, conducted some kind of survey, or maybe a study. I could presume that, I guess. It would be purely a matter of faith.

Except for one thing. Beinhart says Republicans have a “fear of dark people.”

Fear of dark people is the impulse that�s most denied. Overt racism is rare indeed. Though the spectacle of Fox News�s John Gibson urging white people to have more babies lest the lesser breeds outbreed us, came close in his smiley, Christian way.

This is where I did something Beinhart didn’t want me to do. I watched the clip to see what Gibson had to say. And what he had to say was this.

To put it bluntly, we need more babies. Forget about that zero population growth stuff that my poor generation was misled on. Why is this important? Because civilizations need population to survive. So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can’t carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way — a slogan for our times: “procreation not recreation.” That’s “My Word.”

There’s not a word in what Gibson said about white people having “more babies lest the lesser breeds outbreed us.” Nothing that even comes close to the sentiment. Nothing to even imply that white people are in some breeding competition with non-white people, nor that they should be. None of these things. Sorry, it’s just a fact.

Bottom line, you can take what Gibson said as being racist, if & only if you read things into it that aren’t there. This is like pronouncing a ball as incapable of rolling down the hill, if only it is square, when it isn’t.

I don’t understand what the purpose is of Beinhart’s litany. It seems to be an education for liberals on what makes conservatives tick. I’ve encountered a lot of liberals; very few of them are the least bit intimidated about probing conservatives, interrogating them, out-shouting them, conducting inquisitions on them — and, failing to extract the confessions they seek, just coming to whatever conclusions they want about the conservatives anyway. So I fail to understand the demand.

Perhaps the article was posted not because of intensity of demand, but because of intensity of supply. Therapy for Beinhart himself, in other words. If that’s the case, one has to wonder what kind of value such words would have, for anyone.

Pardon my “foam.”

Gibson himself got seriously exercised about the Lefty rants. As a matter of fact, a couple of days after the “make babies” My Word, Gibson took the Lefties to task for misquoting him in another My Word segment. Unfortunately he didn’t name names, not that it matters, I suppose. I don’t think Beinhart was subject to Gibson’s wrath (although B. deserves it) as this happened some time ago.

Larry Beinhart *appears* to foam much more, and much more often, than your average, garden variety Rethuglican, IMO. Perhaps he does have an over-supply!

🙂
- Buck Pennington | 06/05/2006 @ 07:15

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Foaming Republicans?Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

Foaming Republicans?
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006