House of Eratosthenes

Republicans have a good case to make to African American voters about how the GOP is the real party of empowerment and opportunity, and how the Democratic Party is only interested in empowering itself at the expense of minorities. So much so that it will attack those uppity enough to think for themselves.

On education, for instance, Democrats side with mostly white teachers’ unions against black parents who want their children’s schools to be held accountable for student performance — finally purged of what a Republican president called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” The educational reform law, No Child Left Behind, has the support of the NAACP, but is fiercely opposed by the teachers’ unions.

Many African Americans also find appealing the GOP’s adherence to personal responsibility, lower taxes, smaller government, and traditional moral values.

But Republicans never get around to making that case to the black community, because too many of them are busy making jackasses out of themselves and coming across as thickheaded, insensitive, and mean-spirited racists. The election of the first black president only made matters worse, as some conservatives, particularly at the local level, responded to this historic event by taking political discourse into the gutter with jokes and sophomoric stunts that don’t amuse but offend…

After the bullet list, he tosses out the meaningless bromide that “Republicans don’t have a monopoly on racism.” That’s Rule Number Four, you’ll recall, from How To Motivate Large Numbers of People To Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On: “Make a Big Show out of Conceding Points That Don’t Really Mean Anything.” Makes you look all even-handed and what-not.

Trouble here is, the bromide is not meaningless. The dust-up between Hillary and Obama last summer was heated, sustained, and showcased in a most unflattering light the condescending attitude the central liberal-democrat power structure has toward minority groups, both female and of-color. The comparison being made, therefore, is between Republicans — who can name as their fellow party members, some isolated individual head-cases possessing some appallingly poor judgment — and democrats, who seem to be philosophically determined to use anyone non-white and non-male as sort of a political fuel. Their message seems to be “Ask not what your political party can do about the injuries you’ve suffered as a minority, ask instead what the injuries you’ve suffered can do for our party.” We know from last year’s melee that that there’s some kind of a complex “Superdelegate” hierarchy involved with these minority classes, almost like something out of Dungeons and Dragons; blacks have more “hit points” than women, but just barely.

This Navarette fellow seems to have lost track of his own argument. He’s trying to make the case that there is some asymmetry between how Republicans and democrats treat minorities. But according to the evidence he himself brings to the table, the demeaning remarks exist on both sides. The beneficial legislation that offsets the political damage done by such demeaning remarks — also — exists on both sides.

The difference? It seems to me the democrats who are in charge now, when they talk about becoming a color-blind society they can’t possibly mean it. Witness the 5-4 Ricci decision by the Supreme Court earlier this week. Barack Obama’s nominee replaces the retiring Justice Souter, who was one of the dissenting four; in fact, Judge Sotomayer contributed to the prior ruling on this case, which was overturned. The case was all about stopping a promotion exam in the middle and changing the rules if & when it looks like the wrong people are winning. It was all about setting up a routine promotion process as a heated contest between whites and non-whites — artificially injecting into the process a sense that what’s good for this race over here, must be bad for that one over there. And, also, a sense that if your skin is the wrong color, and you play by the rules and “win,” it becomes necessary to have a do-over.

That the Supreme Court lowered the kibosh on this, has ticked off the folks who won the elections eight months ago…and it’s ticked ’em off mighty well. The democrat party approach to this seems to be that this was not a good decision by the Supremes, and it illustrates why we need more liberals nominated to the High Court. So we can keep playing favorites. We’re not, in spite of all the platitudes so ritually tossed out, ready to get “past it once and for all.” These are not sins “of the past.” We have to keep a thumb on the scale.

I think that’s the real divide. What are these wild-eyed crazy bigoted conservatives saying about it? That you shouldn’t change the rules in the middle of the game; if the test scores came out a certain way, you should just let them stand. That if your skin lacks pigment, you still have the same right to petition your government for your grievances as anybody else. Gosh, y’know…I think to a lot of people, that just makes sense. It’s not that extreme of a position.

So I agree with the Navarette editor guy. Except I would amend the advice, slightly, to say Republicans should get rid of their bigots. Their judgment seems so questionable that their assets as political decision-makers, must be doubted. Maybe once they are kicked out for good, they can join the democrat party…which seems, from where I stand, ready willing & able to consume all the poorly-thought-out racial and gender stereotypes, that any twisted and diseased individual cares to put to paper or voice.

They can afford to so consume. They aren’t called out on it.

Ruben.

Most Republicans arent’ bigots. D*ckweed.

Sorry. Just disgusts me. Especially considering …

Which party is actually historically The Party of Racism.
- philmon | 07/01/2009 @ 14:04
Dude, it’s called a rationalization. This guy doesn’t want Republicans to win. He just wants to rationalize his own vote against the policy he knows to be good. What’s the point of taking advice from someone who wants you to lose?
- JohnJ | 07/01/2009 @ 14:49
There was a discussion I had last fall with a couple of co-workers. One a Democrat transplanted here from the Northeast, the other a Missouri boy who isn’t so much a Democrat, but he did vote for our Democrat governor. He’s what I’d call center-right.

At any rate, when I pointed out the things contained in the link in my comment above, the answer came back “well, they switched roles since the 1960’s.”

I don’t buy that.

What happened is that the racists switched parties. Not because the Republicans were suddenly racists, but because A) the Democrats switched to minority advocacy where Republicans stuck to the equal treatment under the law argument, and B) people aren’t one-dimensional, and the racists had other opinions that were more conservative in nature as the Progressives gained dominance in the Democratic party.

So they have come and pitched their tents on the fringes of our camp. We can accept their support where they agree with us, but of course the vast majority of us who tend to vote with the Party of Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr, the party of the first black congressmen — all ex-slaves …. those of us who have always embodied the “All Men Are Created Equal” arguemnent … are kinda stuck with them. We must make it clear to them and to our detractors that that point of view isn’t welcomed in our tent. And it’s up to us to try to change their minds. Remember, these are the holdouts whose minds we couldn’t change when they were Democrats.

And then of course there’s my own anecdotal observation that I know several fairly prominent Democrats in my county who are some of the most racist people I know.
- philmon | 07/01/2009 @ 15:07
Absolutely. The Democrats have consistently called for more government intervention, and they don’t really care about what race wins. So, sure, Republican anti-intervention seems racist to people who think that the government needs to intervene to end racism.
- JohnJ | 07/01/2009 @ 15:17
I think you got to the nub of it with this:

“Ask not what your political party can do about the injuries you’ve suffered as a minority, ask instead what the injuries you’ve suffered can do for our party.”

If the Dems have evidenced anything in the last 40 years, and most especially in the last election cycle, it’s a profound cynicism regarding “whatever it takes.” The central anomaly in the current political climate is that conservatives continue to employ morals and logic against an opponent who blithely lies about the weather.

Talk about asymmetrical.
- rob | 07/01/2009 @ 15:42
If the Dems have evidenced anything in the last 40 years, and most especially in the last election cycle, it’s a profound cynicism regarding “whatever it takes.” The central anomaly in the current political climate is that conservatives continue to employ morals and logic against an opponent who blithely lies about the weather.

I’d liken it to the War on Terror, actually. On the one side, you have a side which adheres to the laws of civilized warfare, which also has to potential to unleash unimaginable firepower at a time and place of its choosing. Which, however, chooses not to because it is afraid of the backlash following the considerable collateral damage. (I liken this to all the political hay we could have made out of this Democrat scandal or that one, but chose not to because we were more concerned about being liked than about getting back into power.)

On the other side, you have an ruthless enemy that isn’t afraid to say or do “whatever it takes” to win. This can include hiding behind civilians, producing miracle ballot boxes from a car trunk, shooting from inside “holy” buildings, registering fraudulent voters, packing bombs studded with nails and rat poison inside a dance hall, or using the court system to tie up the electoral process for months with ceaseless, petty (and false) claims of vote-rigging, intimidation, or election stealing.

It might explain, frankly, why the Left is so soft on terrorists. The latter reminds the former of itself.
- cylarz | 07/02/2009 @ 02:40

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Republicans Should Stop Being BigotsWednesday, July 1st, 2009

Republicans Should Stop Being Bigots
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009