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On my way to Gen Con with my family, with a short detour to bankruptcy court on the way for a client. (Ah, for those halcyon days of yore when a week’s vacation for a me meant a week’s vacation!) While I had the time this morning I decided to post this brilliant piece by John Hawkins at Town Hall. Something to recall as liberals play the only card they have left, the race card:
1) Liberals aren’t held to the same rules as Republicans: When liberals say racist things, it’s just excused out of hand as if it’s no big deal. If Dick Cheney had said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man” instead of Joe Biden, you’d read about it every time he criticized Barack Obama. When Christopher Dodd said, “I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation,” it was shrugged off. On the other hand, Trent Lott ended up resigning from the GOP leadership for making very similar comments about Strom Thurmond.
2) Minority racism must be ignored:According to Rasmussen polling, “Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American Adults think most black Americans are racist, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 15% consider most white Americans racist, while 18% say the same of most Hispanic Americans.” This isn’t coming out of the ether. Black Americans voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton because he was black. If George Zimmerman had been black and Trayvon Martin had been Hispanic, most black Americans would have been indifferent to the case or would have supported Zimmerman. This is one of the great ironies of the liberal obsession with racism. While they can turn practically anything into evidence of Republican racism, the most grotesque examples of racism from minorities are just shrugged off.
3) You pay no penalty for falsely accusing people of racism: False accusations of racism can do just as much damage as actual racism. People can be ostracized for it, lose endorsement deals or even lose their jobs over being falsely accused of racism. Yet, the only reason you’ve heard of people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Touré, and Melissa Harris-Perry is because they’re willing to accuse people of being racists on the flimsiest of pretexts. It’s tempting to compare these race-hustling poverty pimps to the KKK, but the more appropriate analogy is the Spanish Inquisition. The attitude is, “So what if we unjustly accuse a lot of people as long as we get a few heretics in the process?”
4) Outrage matters more than facts: It doesn’t matter what Bush actually did in New Orleans or that the local government failed the people of the city; it matters how people FEEL about it. It doesn’t matter that Democrats have run Detroit since 1962; it matters that people FEEL Republicans are responsible. It doesn’t matter that Trayvon Martin wasn’t really a twelve year old kid and that he was slamming George Zimmerman’s head into the pavement; it matters that Zimmerman’s acquittal FEELS symbolic of law-abiding black Americans being profiled because so many other black Americans are criminals. Once an accusation of racism is made, facts are treated as if they’re of secondary importance to FEELINGS.
5) It’s okay to discriminate against white Americans: It’s unbelievable that in 2013, we still have race-based discrimination in America and liberals are perfectly fine with it. The rationale for what should be an incredible violation of the equal protection clause in the Constitution? It’s that whites are doing better than blacks are as a group. That’s probably a cold comfort to the son of a white single mother making minimum wage whose son loses out to one of Obama’s daughters because he happened to be Caucasian.
Go here to read the brilliant rest. Racism has an ugly history in this country. The current manifestation of this ugliness is the attempt by most liberals to profit politically by appeals to racism.
J. Christian Adams: President Alinsky Threatens Americans With Rising “Social Tensions.” “Chaos Umpire sits, And by decision more imbroils the fray. By which he Reigns.”
“About 52% of whites and 38% of blacks think race relations are positive, according to the poll by Hart Research Associations and Public Opinion Strategies. In January 2009, it was 79% of whites and 63% of blacks. This signals (for those without a clue) worsening race relations: Hope and Change!”
I read that the smartest democrat woman on the Planet in a speech to her adulators praised Medgar Evans, for advancing the racist “ball.”
Salena Zito, “Washington’s media class spends much of its energy inciting political divisions or writing about them, dedicating great gobs of print, airtime and social media to chopping up Americans by race, political party, culture or religion.”
I’d run across this article already. My bet is that it explodes through the internet. I think I’ve reconciled myself to all of these irregularities on the playing field except for #3. The implication of it is that serial accusers don’t really care about racism, and if that’s true, it’s hard to attribute any virtue to them at all.
When Cardinal Dolan dealt the race from this very same deck against the sate of Arizona, I don’t remember Donald or anyone else in the Catholic blogosphere expressing any concern about it. I guess in their world,playing the race card is only a bad thing when certain people do it.
IOWAHAWK: Key issues of the American left:
2007: War, Deficits, Civil Liberties
2013: Impertinent Rodeo Clowns, Gang Bangers’ Civil Liberties to Bang.
Tweeted Re: banning-for-life the Obama rodeo clown: “Above all else, the Devil cannot stand to be mocked.” – C.S. Lewis
When Cardinal Dolan dealt the race from this very same deck against the sate of Arizona, I don’t remember Donald or anyone else in the Catholic blogosphere expressing any concern about it. I guess in their world,playing the race card is only a bad thing when certain people do it.
Come again?
The implication of it is that serial accusers don’t really care about racism, and if that’s true, it’s hard to attribute any virtue to them at all.
What someone once said about Gus Savage applies: “half of it is real feelings; half of it is just shtick”.
Art
When AZ passed SB 1070 Cardinal Dolan equated it with the actions of the KKK and the Know Nothings:
http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=36322
No one in the Catholic blogosphere said anything about it. If that’s not playing the race card what is?
1. You have some exceptions (Harold Pollack, Jeralyn Merritt), but as a rule soi-disant liberals are not in our time purveyors of a perspective on public policy. They are purveyors of a long-running adolescent commentary on competing and jostling subcultures and inveterate poseurs. Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed remains after 18 years a fine diagnosis of the pathology of political discourse.
2. Bad attitudes among blacks are an offense, not a threat. The trouble is when you have school administrators and government lawyers giving life to bad attitudes.
3. Well, no. The whole point is to harass the hoi polloi. Fair dealing and decency have nothing to do with it.
4. George Zimmerman – he’s the new Sarah Palin. Striking attitudes against him is a necessary gesture for liberal journalists (bar those who are working criminal defense lawyers) and social-climbing Republicans. It has been amusing to watch this crew move from one square to another on the board as the factual basis of what they had to say collapsed. (It is maddening to see the rest simply rehash discredited nonsense). They have been reduced to arguing that justice demands feral young men get one free beatdown of those they fancy have looked at them cross-eyed. The courts are not yet that insane; Judges have to walk through downtown parking garages to get to their reserved spaces.
5. Wage earners and salarymen with butch jobs are at the receiving end of the injuries inflicted by our increasingly deranged system of labor market signaling systems. These are the sort of people about whom attorneys and hr directors and the higher-education blob care nothing.
No one in the Catholic blogosphere said anything about it. If that’s not playing the race card what is?
Mr. McClarey has a law practice to run. He does not necessarily notice every idiot thing uttered by one of the 200-odd bishops in North America. The same applies to Tito Edwards, Deal Hudson, Austin Ruse, Jimmy Akin, &c. Others have a very particular vocation int their public advocacy and discussion that does not include much if any commentary on topical questions of that sort (the late Ralph McInerney, for example, or Wesley Smith). If you wanted to know what David Mills or James Hitchcock or Brian St. Paul had to say about that, you might have e-mailed and asked them.
Whatever Art.
These guys find plenty of time to not only rail incessantly about the bad behavior of others outside their circles, turn a deaf ear when those inside their circles act the same way, and demonize anyone who dares point that out. This is not an issue of “I don;t have time,” Somehow I suspect you already knew that.
What are you talking about? There is a huge mass of media out there and public figures of all sorts saying all manner of things. Did David Mills or Austin Ruse notice or read about what Cdl. Dolan said?
“Did David Mills or Austin Ruse notice or read about what Cdl. Dolan said? ”
What does this have to do with anything?
I am beginning to think you are intoxicated.
You have been complaining that so and so did not comment on Cdl. Dolan’s remarks. A necessary antecedent to that is that they noticed Cdl. Dolan’s remarks in the newspaper. Another antecedent is that they make it their business to offer general topical commentary. A third antecedent is that they take some interest in the matter at hand or that they do not have other things taking up their time and attention. Again, if you have a complaint that Brian St. Paul is not offering a forum for complaints about Cdl. Dolan’s remarks, you ought to e-mail Brian St. Paul. Complaining someone did not comment on x is generally a waste. There are 100,000 wretched things in this world that someone does not notice or think to remark upon.
There are 100,000 wretched things in this world that someone does not notice or think to remark upon.
But when it is done by those who are prominent in orthodox Catholic circles like a Cardinal Dolan or even a Mark Shea for that matter, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Nor is it without ill effect. And these are far from isolated incidents. It is a chronic problem in orthodox Catholic circles. Prominent figures in orthodox Catholic circles can behave like left wing hack jobs and not only are not held accountable by their colleagues, but are protected and even allow their publications to be used as venues for their bile.
Complaining someone did not comment on x is generally a waste.
Remember that the next time you want to complain about the mainstream media not reporting on something.
….Are you seriously claiming that every nutty thing Mr. Shea says is commented on here?
Good heavens.
I know the general questionable level of informed opinion of our Church leadership on illegal immigration has been brought up several times; I’m not going to go back over three years in our archives to see what was said here at that time in response to a blog post, but less than three months ago the subject came up and was dealt with again.
I will say Paul’s post was a good beginning on the subject of the bishops’ bad faith arguments on the immigration issue. The same could be said for Motley Monk’s post about how much federal money the USCCB gets and how the lion’s share goes to immigration “services”, This makes the fact that the Catholic media outlets that claim to be about Catholic orthodoxy and an honest search for the truth have a serious responsibility to raise concerns about how the bishops are approaching this issue all the more clear.
Is that an apology, or admission of being somewhat mistaken?
No, why would it be? Those two posts, as good as they are, are just a drop in the ocean on this blog alone let alone the entire Catholic blogosphere and Catholic media landscape.
Ah. One of those standards where you just complain about other folks not doing exactly as you want, when you want, rather than doing it yourself; any counterpoint that isn’t exactly what you want done is insufficient.
Furthermore, I don’t remember either of these two posts pointing out the race card that is often dealt by the bishops in regards to this issue and other issues like capital punishment. And that was my original criticism anyways.
We spend more time focusing on rational arguments than talking about this or that person who said that or this, unless it’s a matter where someone in the popular culture brought up a subject.
Incidentally, here is the blog post you’re harping on– please note the comments at the bottom– and it does not play the “race card.” It uses history to build a narrative of fear-of-other, with “other” being immigrant.
Unless I’m supposed to be able to pull the “Irish” race card?
“Incidentally, here is the blog post you’re harping on– please note the comments at the bottom– and it does not play the “race card.” It uses history to build a narrative of fear-of-other, with “other” being immigrant.”
Drawing parallels of the KKK is playing the race card. It’s the same attempt to freeze any rational argument on this issue. And it is drawn from the same playbook as those on the left.
We spend more time focusing on rational arguments than talking about this or that person who said that or this, unless it’s a matter where someone in the popular culture brought up a subject.
Actually, a great deal of time is spent “talking about this or that person” which is fine in itself. It’s just that there is often a bad case of Selective Outrage Syndrome as to who. Certain Catholics, both clerical and lay, prominent in orthodox Catholic circles act in a manner no better than many of the worst elements on the left, but are given a pass from much of the Catholic blogosphere, including TAC.
By the way, the last post concerning Mark Shea was Donald’s sorry attempt at whitewashing Mark’s conduct when Mark made his last non-apology apology. Beyond that, if you were to judge Mark’s behavior on the basis of Donald’s post, you would wonder what Mark had to apologize for.
Drawing parallels of the KKK is playing the race card.
No, it is not.
Here is the entire mention of the KKK, from the link above, and in keeping with what actually happened:
the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s who spewed hate against blacks, Jews, Catholics, and “forn-ers”.
You do not get to make up your own facts, nor dictate what others do or what they meant in flat contradiction to observable facts.
What is it of late where I end up having to defend folks I disagree with from those supposedly on “my” side?!?!
Blacks are a race, yes, Jews, part race and part religion. And foreigners. Playing the ethnic card and the race card are substantively the same. Either way, hurling false accusations of bigotry against the State of AZ on the part of someone of Dolan’s stature is a scandal. Orthodox Catholic silence on that is also a scandal.
He drew an incorrect conclusion from the information he had access to– via the mainstream media, most likely. Amusingly, not that different from what a lot of extreme libertarians I know believe– that all immigration is the same, and that culture doesn’t matter.
As evidenced by your silly characterization of Donald’s post about Mr. Shea, you mistake not sharing your personal judgements for actual failures.
He drew an incorrect conclusion from the information he had access to– via the mainstream media, most likely.
Let’s see, trusting the same MSM that often mischaracterizes the Church. Really? Common sense should have told him not only that but that no Republican Governor in his/her right mind would sign a bill into law that would have any whiff of the kind of bigotry he characterized that law. I’m sure he also knew that a copy of the law is available on the web. And he, as well as the AZ bishops could have contacted Governor Brewer and got her side of the story. If they had. they certainly couldn’t have come up with the characterization they did which they later claimed the law was a threat to religious liberty. even if they disagreed with the law.
As evidenced by your silly characterization of Donald’s post about Mr. Shea, you mistake not sharing your personal judgements for actual failures.
Well, here is the closest Donald comes to critiquing Mark’s behavior:
“It is difficult to blog without sharp elbows being thrown and I think it safe to say that in Saint Blog’s Mark has had two of the sharpest elbows.”
Really Foxfier, Mark’s biggest problem is that he has the “sharpest elbows” at St Blog’s? You know that’s not the case. I know that’s not the case. And Donald knows that’s not the case. So, my “silly characterization” is right on.
Really Foxfier, Mark’s biggest problem is that he has the “sharpest elbows” at St Blog’s?
… Are you really that obtuse?
After several re-writes, that is the most polite way I can put it. Then again, the problem is that you seem unable to recognize “polite” when it’s painted hot pink and is doing a dance on a table yelling “I am being polite.”
You’ve made it perfectly clear. You don’t like it that people disagree with you, and you’re willing to impute whatever motives you feel like on those who fail to do what you want.
Got a lot more in common with Mr. Shea than I’d be comfortable with, for sure.
Oddly related:
So imagine my surprise yesterday to see a post on the Bar from someone accusing Baen of lying about never accepting manuscripts from “new” writers. His proof of this was that there were no “new” authors listed on the schedule for the last year or then next few months. When some responders pointed out that there were new authors on the list, he came back and basically moved the goal posts. He said these authors weren’t “new” because they were known to be writers in other areas: gaming, non-fiction, etc. What he was talking about were authors who had never been published before, ever. He went on to basically say the slush pile was just a ploy by Baen to build brand loyalty.
Now, this poster did admit that he’d tried going through the slush process but had been turned down. He complained about how long it took (but when someone checked the time involved, it was within the time frame Baen tries to stick to). What got me about his comments were that he was there to rant and each time someone responded with proof that his premise was wrong, he basically said, “but that’s not what I meant. This is what I meant.”