Something Someone Else Said

"In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention," -Christopher Hitchens, Slate, commenting upon the cultural insecurity of Beck and Palin followers at the prospect of their soon being outnumbered by immigrants and minorities.

Oh, the persecution a conservative white heterosexual Christian must endure in America today. Victims, victims, victims; always the victims.

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Something Insightful Someone Else Said

"There have been three big conservative outrages that have choked the airwaves over the past couple of weeks. #1 was about a bunch of scary black men, the New Black Panther Party. #2 was about a bunch of scary Muslims who want to build a triumphal mosque on the sacred soil of Ground Zero. #3 was about a vindictive black woman who works for the government and screws the white people she deals with. The running theme here is not just a coincidence." -Kevin Drum, Mother Jones.

American Power And A Wager Accepted

Yes, that's right: my conservative counterpart Don Douglas of American Power has accepted my wager (the above image has been changed to two white guys shaking hands because... I don't know, for some reason Don's really sensitive about being black or something and he hates that I know he's black I guess. You tell me; I can't figure it out) although he did attempt a bit more obfuscation first:

JBW: I thought you were done with the blog? It must be more than babes that keeps bring you back, LOL?

We have a bet, remember? I'll take a C Note if the GOP picks up at least one seat in Congress this fall. If Obambi's so great, the Dems should have no problems holding their majority, and in fact should gain seats. If they do, I'll pay you ...

Which I had to answer with some cajoling and good natured ribbing:

The entertainment value is just too good to ignore, Don. And I think I've addressed your "I bet Obama can't stop the sun from rising tomorrow" counter-bet before. This is a simple bet between two guys who disagree about politics. Nobody is going to think any less of you if you lose; losing publicly is certainly a risk I'm willing to take.

So I'm having trouble divining the reason for your slightly absurd behaviour on this count. Is it that you're just cheap? I could understand that but if it's the case just cop to it, don't make up ludicrous counter-wagers just to avoid throwing down a Benji.

You have until midnight at the end of July 4th to take the bet. Man up, man.

Admittedly this worked better than my usual tactic of taunting him and making fat jokes, although he's still having trouble letting go of his dumbass counter-offer:

JBW: We'll bet, fine, but after November. I'd be surprised by then if you still expect Obama's reelection, that is, after the Dems get slaugtered. Until, then, are you sure you don't want to shake on $100 that your party expands its majority in Congress this fall?. You seem so confident?

But no matter because the challenge has been met. I set the terms of our wager:

There's much difference between confidence and detachment from reality, Don. I'm confident that the Dems (they're not "my party" by the way, I'm an Independent and they are sadly my only alternative to Repubs in many cases) won't lose either of their majorities, not that they won't lose any seats. Midterm elections historically don't turn out like that and you know it. You're a political scientist: don't play dumb about poli-sci 101.

Of course I could be wrong about November and the Dems might get slaughtered as you predict. In fact, it was definitive predictions like that that confused me as to why you wouldn't bet on it but no matter: we now have a bet! $100 American, I'll take Obama and you'll take whomever the Republicans decide to run in 2012. With my guy destroying the country at such a fast clip all you'll need to beat him is a warm body in a suit, I'm sure.

You now have 2 years, 4 months and 18 days to convince as many people as possible to back your guy/gal. If I win I'm going to spend your hundred dollars on an incredible bottle of vino (I know a place where I can get Opus One relatively cheap). Oh, and good on ya for stepping up. You just went up a notch. See you in 2012.

And there it is. I'll be honest, I've had easier times talking women into sex than I had convincing this poli-sci prof who seems to be supremely confident that Obama and the Democrats are headed for a crushing electoral defeat to put a few bucks down on the outcome of a race but maybe I'm just losing my touch. I am confident that Obama will win reelection but as Don says it's still a long way off but as I say that's what makes it interesting. Plus I got some good advice from bad ass martial artist and tax dodger Wesley Snipes:


So wait, is Snipes a racist now or merely "obsessed with race"? I'm sure Don could tell me.

Four Moral Issues Sharply Divide Americans

It seems that there are some things we still really butt heads on. From Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans generally agree about the morality of 12 out of 16 behaviors or social policies that sometimes spark public controversy, with sizable majorities saying each is either "morally acceptable" or "morally wrong." By contrast, views on doctor-assisted suicide, gay and lesbian relations, abortion, and having a baby outside of marriage are closely divided -- the percentage supporting and the percentage opposing are within 15 points of each other.

That the cultural taboo of having a baby outside of marriage is one of these four most controversial issues surprises me a bit. I suppose it shouldn't, as I assume much of the disapproval comes from biblical and other religious circles and we're a nation of mostly religious Christians but it still just seems a largely outmoded concern to me. I'm guessing that attitudes on race also have something to do with it since blacks and Hispanics have significantly higher numbers of unwed mothers per capita than whites. I had assumed that we'd gotten past this particular social stigma but I guess there are always going to be reasons to disapprove of others' behaviours.

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Rand Paul Isn't A Racist, He's Just A Dumbass

How can someone be this clueless about politics whilst running for the Senate?

Tea Party hero Rand Paul scrambled Thursday to tamp down the growing firestorm over his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The new Republican Senate nominee from Kentucky released a rambling statement amid calls to explain comments that he would have opposed a central tenet of the landmark law: forcing private businesses to integrate.

"I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination," Paul said Thursday.

In interviews Wednesday, Paul said that while he opposed discrimination, he thought "a lot of things could be handled locally."

The remark was at odds with history: Before the 1960s civil rights laws, white segregationists had an iron grip on local and state governments throughout the South.

It seems to me that Paul is trying to have an intellectual and philosophical argument as he's running for office in the real world and that intellectual honesty, while surprisingly refreshing, is biting him in the ass as a result. His main point is that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was obviously a good thing and ensured equal rights for all Americans but that it also impinged on the individual rights of business owners and others by forcing them to accommodate black people and other minorities as well as whites. And this is all true. His problem is that he's arguing historically unpopular points and he's being extraordinarily tone deaf about the impact of those points at the same time.

Yes, the Civil Rights Act did limit personal freedom in certain ways but those limits were made necessary by a national history of slavery and a time of extreme racial tensions. It's all well and good to argue that Libertarian principles and personal freedom should be the goal of a truly equal society and if this were a purely academic argument set outside of history and culture it might sound pretty convincing but we've already tried that philosophy out in the crucible of the real world and it failed miserably. The freedom to discriminate against anyone as it applies to one's place of business led not to more equality but rather to more racism and more oppression of minorities and as time went on it became obvious that only the federal government had the ability to adequately right these historical inequities.

We see the same denial of historic evidence as it pertains to the war on illegal drugs: even though we have a perfect historical corollary in the failure of Prohibition to show that this attempt at social engineering categorically does not work there are still millions of short-sighted individuals who simply refuse to examine history and make this logical deduction. The difference here is that while supporting the failed drug war is still a popular political stance to take in many circles speaking out against the Civil Rights Act, even if just in theory, is an extremely unpopular thing to do in practically every venue and it's almost unthinkable if one wishes to be elected to national office. Regardless of the intellectual point that Paul is trying to illustrate (and I understand and agree with that point, if only on principle), to try and make it during a national Senate bid is naive at best and politically suicidal at worst. In the end I doubt that Paul will lose this race because people perceive him as a racist as a result of this controversy; whether he loses it because he's proven himself a clueless dumbass remains yet to be seen.

[Update: Ezra Klein has a few questions concerning Paul's strict Libertarian views:

...unfortunately for Paul, this isn't over. Not by a long shot. There is a category of scandal that I call "area politician believes kooky but harmless thing." A candidate who thinks he was abducted by UFOs would fit here. It's weird, but it doesn't have many implications for public policy. What's gotten Paul in trouble, however, is that he's so skeptical of government power that he's not even comfortable with the public sector telling private businesses that they can't discriminate based on race. That, I fear, does have public policy implications.

For instance: Can the federal government set the private sector's minimum wage? Can it tell private businesses not to hire illegal immigrants? Can it tell oil companies what safety systems to build into an offshore drilling platform? Can it tell toy companies to test for lead? Can it tell liquor stores not to sell to minors? These are the sort of questions that Paul needs to be asked now, because the issue is not "area politician believes kooky but harmless thing." It's "area politician espouses extremist philosophy on issue he will be voting on constantly."

This is the problem with pure Libertarianism and it's the reason Libertarians never get more than a few percentage points in elections: their principles are largely untenable in the real world. Personal freedom is a great thing and I'm all for having hypothetical intellectual arguments but allowing institutional racial discrimination or going back to the gold standard are absurd ideas in a modern society. Plus, Paul isn't even as ideologically rigid as he comes off: he has lately said that he would not leave abortion to the states, he doesn't believe in legalizing drugs like marijuana and cocaine, he'd support federal drug laws and he's ignored the regulatory and safety corner cutting that allowed the BP disaster to occur in the Gulf by stating that "sometimes accidents happen". The only thing worse than a strict unbending Libertarian is someone who arbitrarily believes in personal freedoms only when they suit him personally. And we've all seen what that looks like, haven't we?]

[Update II: One of Andrew Sullivan's readers sums up the position of intellectual theory versus real world practice better than I:

There are no purely intellectual positions for people who wish to be elected to government office. The consequences of their philosophies must be their responsibility. Balancing intellectual ideals with the reality of human action is what we expect from our leaders.

People tell me all the time that I should run for some type of political office, and I echo Sullivan in replying that this is one reason why I haven't. Yet.]

McCain Wants To Complete The Danged Fence

In an attempt to out-right-wing his right-wing competitor for the Republican nomination in Arizona John McCain is trying really hard to get tea party Republicans to vote for him:


McCain's campaign insists that his enthusiasm for a border fence in this ad is consistent with his stated views on the issue in the past but this excerpt from a 2007 Vanity Fair article about him makes me wonder:

...in Milwaukee, in front of an audience of more sympathetic businessmen, McCain had been asked how debate over the immigration bill was playing politically. “In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base,” he said. “In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you’ll pay a heavy price.” Then he added, unable to help himself, “By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I’ll build the goddamned fence if they want it.”

So apparently he's now decided that pandering to that galvanized base is way more important than not alienating those Hispanics, at least in a hotly contested Republican primary. Remember when people used to talk about John McCain's integrity without laughing? Sad and pathetic.

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The Gringo Mask

Highly recommended for anyone traveling through or residing in Arizona for whom the authorities might have a "reasonable suspicion" of not being a white person and thus perhaps not an actual American. I'm just glad I was born looking as American as I do.

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Something Someone Else Said

"Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose." -Tim Wise, Ephphatha Poetry.

He posits several other examples that force one to view the recent anger on the right in quite a different light if the tea at their parties was black. There are corollaries on the other side that Republicans will inevitably point out and they should but that will make these examples no less poignant. I encourage you to read the entire piece here.

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Something Someone Else Said

"I don't know. I do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like." -Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, when asked what criteria will be used to establish reasonable suspicion of someone's legal status after signing a bill Friday that requires police in her state to determine whether a person is in the United States legally.

Now I'm all for securing our borders. As I've said before, both Republicans and Democrats have been dragging their feet on border and port security for years now and it's made us less safe as a country but I just don't see how this new law is going to work:

The bill requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there is reason to suspect that they're in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.

The Republican governor also issued an executive order that requires additional training for local officers on how to implement the law without engaging in racial profiling or discrimination.

"This training will include what does and does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States," Brewer said after signing the bill.

"Racial profiling is illegal. It is illegal in America, and it's certainly illegal in Arizona," Brewer said.

The rules, to be established in by the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board, are due back to her in May. The law goes into effect 90 days after the close of the legislative session, which has not been determined.

Now of course race will be one of the most important components of AZPOST's criteria for identifying illegals. We know that the vast majority of illegal immigrants in Arizona are Mexican so the police are obviously going to be looking for people with dark skin and black hair but beyond that what else can they possibly do? Short of constraining their search to people who are actually caught in the act of climbing over the border fence and to anyone else wearing a sombrero or colorful wrestling mask there's pretty much no other way to determine who's here legally and who isn't just by looking at them. The aforementioned stereotypical headgear aside, illegal immigrants look just like legal immigrants and American citizens of Hispanic descent and I highly doubt that instituting a "know 'em when I see 'em" policy of differentiation will fly legally. So what other criteria can they possibly use that constitutes a "reasonable suspicion"? Is this essentially just giving the police the power to harass and racially profile brown people for being brown people or am I missing something here?

American Power Slips The Bonds Of Reality

Recently a reader on this site left me the following comment:

Please tell me that Don is a made up character; that he doesn't exist. I find it hard to believe that there is someone, breathing God's good air, that thinks like that. Really?

I replied that Don(ald Douglas, my curvy conservative counterpart of American Power) is indeed real but that if he wasn't I would have to make him up just for the laughs, and Don is keeping his hilarity streak alive with his latest and lengthily titled rant against yours truly, "James B. Webb All-Talk (Non) Political Analyst Pwned: Word Bro ... Atheist Megalomaniac EPIC FAIL on Intellectual Substance". All right, let's fisk this bitch:

OPEN LETTER TO JAMES B. WEBB: WORD TO THE WISE, EXTENDED VERSION (SO BE WISE)

James (OR WHATEVER YOUR REAL NON-COWARD NAME IS), FWIW (a reponse to your sterile big talk):

You told me not to comment on your blog some time ago, and I have observed your rules. But when Repsac3 stalks and taunts American Power with genuine racist insults, when he refuses to observe my rules and common decency, you're down with that ... of course you're into racist photoshopping and cyberstalking, so NST, yo!

I'll get to the "real non-coward name" stuff a bit further down but as to my "sterile big talk" Don is referring to a comment I left at his site on a post about how he has officially banned friend of this blog and proprietor of American Nihilist Repsac3:

...end of an era, Reppy. Good night, sweet prince...

Don, despite the ongoing program of intolerance and radical totalitarianism I rock at Brain Rage you are still totally welcome to leave comments there, no matter how many people say how stupid, and frankly too easy to poke fun at, you are. I personally believe that comment censorship, especially within the political blogosphere, is one of the lowest forms of cowardice one can betray and I refuse to indulge in it. You know what I'm talking about...

And I don't blame you for moderating or disabling comments to avoid debating me: I wouldn't want to debate me either. Snoogans.

Now I don't remember telling Don not to comment on my site but as Reppy says in his own response to Don's open letter he's probably thinking of last year when I told him not to leave off-topic comments and links here but I don't want to make fun of an old person who's memory is slipping so I'll just point to the comment above in which I welcome Don's comments with open arms. And as to Don's charge of "racist photoshopping" I know which picture he's referring to and I'll admit that perhaps he has a point:
So I would like to offer the following: I want to formally apologize to Jabba himself and any other Huts who were offended by my Photoshop portraying him as that particular member of the human race. It was not my intention to insult this proud race of intergalactic gangsters and I will happily double the bounty I've issued for Megan Fox encased in carbonite. Bargon u noa-a-uyat.

Frankly, son, you're nothing but a child to me, with an overdriven playground gotcha mentality. Fact is, every single time I've argued substantive points you've ignored them and moved on predictably to insults and snarks: On the budget deficit you blamed Bush and FAILED. On my post on faith, morality and fighting Satan, you dissed it without a single mention of the issues ... FAIL. On Sean Trende's RCP analysis on the November congressional elections? Ignored it again ... FAIL.

Now perhaps my "overdriven playground gotcha mentality" hasn't made this clear in the past but I could really give a damn what Don thinks of me. I was going to refute the three examples he mentions here but I'm kind of in a hurry as I write this so I'll let readers decide for themselves whether or not I've thoroughly addressed Don's arguments in the past but just to cover my bases I'll also use Don's favorite rhetorical device to devastating effect: FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! Booyah.

And you recently wrote at my blog:

"I'm not suggesting that the left isn't responsible for many acts of hate and violence in the world. I'm just pointing out the stupidity of the myopic worldview that one side of the ideological aisle is so much better/worse than the other and regardless of which side says it (and I hear it from both on a constant basis) they always sound like uninformed children when they do."

Actually, the contemporary left's entrenched ideological culture of violence is unmatched on the conservative right. And I responded to you with a link to Jamie Glazov's, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Glazov's book is deeply argued and written from personal experience of tyranny and terror. His parents were Soviet dissidents. Their lives were put on the line for speaking out against the Communist Party in 1968, when Jamie's father signed the famous "Letter of Twelve" human rights manifesto. The forward to the book was written by R. James Woolsey, who was President Clinton's Director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995. United in Hate received critical reviews from both sides of the spectrum, and retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInery called the book "a must-read if America is to survive the global war against Radical Islam." In short, this is serious stuff, worth engagement.

And what was your response to the citation for United in Hate? Totally predictable:

That's exactly what I mean when I talk about uninformed children, Don. Thank you as always for illustrating my point.

Breathtaking juvenile anti-intellectualism topped with a staggering heaping of brain-addled stupidity.

The comment I left was referring to one of Don's commenters making the inane statement "Violence is the hallmark of the Left" and posting several instances of violence perpetrated by people on the political left. I refuted this by similarly posting several instances of violence caused by people on the political right. Don then tried to refute me by linking to the above book at Amazon.com, so I rightfully lumped him in with the other people I was referring to as uninformed children for insisting that one side of the aisle is so much better/worse than the other. Put simply:

Interchangeable American Power Commenter: The left is horrible and violent.

JBW: Well, there are bad people on the left but there are also bad people on the right and people from either side who say otherwise are fools.

IAPC: The left is horrible and violent and here's a list of examples.

JBW: Again, both sides have bad people on them and here's a list of similar examples from the right.

Don: The left is horrible and violent and here's a book that claims as much.

JBW: Wait, all you did was point to a book that says the same thing the commenter above just said. How does that refute what I just said about both sides including bad people?

Don: Check and mate.

JBW: You're a fool.

I'm not saying that the book isn't as incredible and persuasive as Don claims it to be because I haven't read it and I don't plan to (predictably, all of the "critical reviews from both sides of the spectrum" I came across were on right-wing websites) but by merely pointing to another list of examples about how bad the left is he only proved my point about partisan foolishness and his calling me juvenile or stupid isn't going to change that.

But that's to be expected from someone who's not right in the mind, oddly consumed by some kind of big man syndrome (when in fact nothing seems to warrant such a psychology, which thus raises appropriate and characteristic questions of megalomania).

And let's not forget your online perversions and stalking. When called out on these you own them with insecure phony laughter and some backslapping with your braindead followers in the comments at Brainrage.

Claiming that I'm "not right in the mind" is the pot calling the kettle black (uh oh, is that RAAACIST!?) and I have to ask: what exactly is "big man syndrome"? Is he setting me up to make a fat guy joke? And perhaps I am a bit megalomaniacal but I'd argue that most people who blog are to an extent. I've addressed his whiny, PC claims of perversions and stalking before and I do indeed own them but I assure you that my laughter is very secure and completely genuine. While we're on the subject of perversion though let me just point out that my blog isn't the one with a picture of a porn star in the sidebar (Who's Nailin' Paylin? is a cinematic tour de force if you're interested, Don). Also, Brain Rage is two words, old man.

So, JBW, let's be real, okay. Honestly, you're but a lost child to me. I'm a Ph.D. professor with 15 years experience teaching. I'm a father of two who's been married for 16 years. I've traveled widely and have nearly lost my life. But credentials, wisdom, life failings, and experience mean nothing to you, BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT ALL ALREADY.

Didn't he use that "child" line once already? And yes, he's a Ph.D. professor yet he can't spell or debate his way out of a wet paper bag. And a wife and two kids? Wow, Don got married and reproduced; that's quite a feat. He must be the envy of every man he knows. I've actually traveled to over a dozen countries myself and have I ever written here about the time I had a threesome with a stripper and a nineteen-year-old girl who looked just like a young Denise Richards? It's a true story: you see, I was bartending one night and... Come to think of it, I'm not even going to try to compete with Don here. A wife and two kids. Man... Oh, and credentials, wisdom, life failing, and experience do mean something to me: just not Don's. And I obviously don't "know it all already" but I'm not going to waste time trying to learn about these things from a serial liar with a victim mentality.

Anyway, I understand the sources of your disrespect (hey, four years of college and you've got knowledge), but it's obvious to anyone who's been around the block a couple of times that you're all talk and little action. And the fact that James B. Webb is not your real names adds a hilarious touch to any mention by you of the word coward. So, here's a bet. You will not come out and identify yourself, and you will not meet me for a beer where you express a little humility and respect for someone who ought to be, frankly, your intellectual mentor. I'm in the O.C. Name the bar, on a weekend evening, and we'll meet.

So, what do you say big boy? You have my e-mail. Send me your name, phone number, and a location, and we'll meet like men ... instead of playing meaningless tit-for-tat on blogs that few people actually read.

Donald

I'm not really sure what he's trying to say here. Is he implying that people with college degrees who lack PhD's aren't intelligent or well-educated? And the source of my disrespect is pretty much just the things Don writes on a daily basis. To wit: his newly minted claim that James B. Webb isn't my real name. I had to read that line a couple of times to make sure that he was actually claiming such, and without any shred of citation or proof but in the face of such a compelling argument I suppose I can't continue with this charade any longer. Admittedly, James B. Webb is just a clever pseudonym I employ online to hide my true identity: Lance Thundercock. Wow, it feels really good to finally have it out in the open like this. What, you don't believe me? Well here's definitive proof that Don isn't just some chubby deranged paranoiac with a persecution complex:
I'll bet all of you jerks who like to make fun of him are feeling pretty damn stupid right about now, huh? Speaking of bets and stupidity how about Don wagering that I won't travel 400 miles to have a beer with someone who has at various times called me stupid, human defect, intellectually impotent, morally depraved, weightist-wanker, poser-boy, sexist weightmaster prick, Barebacker, young cocky sucker, ass, Master Enforcer for the Annihilation of Non-Hypocrisy, idiot, adolescent dork, atheist online-troll sex-predator, bereft of moral virtue, small-penis prick, fail, loser, sorry-assed punk, communist, nihilist, and RAAACIST!? Yeah, I have a feeling Don's gonna win that one.

Oh, and he wraps his post up by playing the Black Flag song "No Values" because I assume he thinks that it describes me so touché, mon gros ami:


[Update: Apparently I told Don directly that I blog under a pseudonym (I didn't but why let reality influence what one writes?) and now it appears that he has some problems with the color of my skin. But isn't that RAAA...]

Tea Party Racism And The Black Vote

James Taranto, the editor for the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page, lays out his theory for why the tea party movement has come under fire for accusations of racism:

The political left claims to love racial diversity, but it bitterly opposes such diversity on the political right. This is an obvious matter of political self-interest: Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Even in 2008, the Democrats' best presidential year since '64, if the black vote had been evenly split between the parties (and holding the nonblack vote constant), Barack Obama would have gotten about 48% of the vote and John McCain would be president.

To keep blacks voting Democratic, it is necessary for the party and its supporters to keep alive the idea that racism is prevalent in America and to portray the Republican Party (as well as independent challengers to the Democrats, such as the tea-party movement) as racist. The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country and thereby necessitated an intensifying of attacks on the opposition as racist.

The title of his piece is "Why the Left Needs Racism" but it seems to me that the entire premise for his article is somewhat based on a racist assumption, or is at the very least intellectually insulting if you're a black American. That premise is that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic because they've somehow been tricked into thinking that the Republican party and its affiliate members are racist. That's it: black people were tricked a long time ago and that's why they vote the way they do. It couldn't possibly be because of Johnson's Great Society or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act or the expansion of entitlement programs for those lower on the socio-economic scale or affirmative action laws or hate crime legislation or gun control laws or reformation of drug laws because everyone knows that black folks don't care about any of that stuff, right? And the added fact that the current incarnation of the Republican party is older, whiter and more Southern than it has been in generations isn't exactly sweetening the deal either.

So if there are a myriad of reasons for blacks to vote for the Democrats and very few for them to vote for (as well as several for them to vote against) the Republicans, how exactly does Taranto think that Democrats are going to lose or Republicans are going to attract black voters? Positing a fictional scenario in which McCain split the black vote with Obama is convenient in that it helps him make the point that McCain would have won had it happened but it's also fairly useless to Republicans because it's extraordinarily unlikely to happen anytime soon in real life. And if there is no credible threat of any impending exodus of black votes from the Democratic party then his theory of an organized and institutional racial smear campaign against Republicans on behalf of the Democratic party holds little water as a debatable point. Democrats don't need to lie about race because the political racial reality already works out mostly in their favor.

I can however point to one more reason why blacks might be more inclined to vote Democratic rather than Republican: white conservatives like James Taranto writing ridiculously shortsighted things like "The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country..." in publications like the Wall Street Journal. Or as I wrote last year:

...according to these same people the day we elected a black man as president all the racism in this country just magically dried up and blew away. We made one of them president, what more do black people want!?

Stating that there is no longer any more racism in America is insulting enough to minorities who still have to deal with it on a consistent basis but when those claims are coming from a well-fed, middle-aged white man who writes mostly about money and Wall Street (a bastion of whiteness in itself) while he carries water for the Republican party (a similar bastion of whiteness) it's little wonder the black vote goes overwhelmingly to the Democrats. The tea party movement isn't entirely racist of course but by dint of its demographic makeup it does have a racial undertone that nobody within it's ranks is willing to publicly decry and that coupled with the Republican party's persistent obtuseness when it comes to race relations in this country has insured that Democrats won't have to worry about losing the black vote to them anytime soon. Rather than being easily conned dupes black folks are entirely capable of surveying the political landscape just fine for themselves and when it comes to the tea party movement the vast majority of them have obviously decided that they just don't like what they see out there.

[Update: Apparently RNC Chair and moustache aficionado Michael Steele agrees with my analysis:

Appearing Tuesday at DePaul University in Chicago, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said that the Republican Party has not given African-Americans a reason to vote for them.

"You really don't have a reason to, to be honest -- we haven't done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True," said Steele, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Steele said how the Republican party had been founded as a pro-civil rights party, with Frederick Douglass among its early members. However, Steele explained, the Republican Party has alienated those voters: "For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

And tubby neocons will defend this bankrupt agenda to no end, despite contrary evidence from real folks on the ground.]

Something Someone Else Said II

"Recently, since the election of Barack Obama, common sense has left the Republican Party completely. We are in the era of craziness. As David Frum has written, a deal was there to be made over the healthcare bill. Instead, this ideological purity blinded the GOP. As LBJ said it, instead of being inside the tent pissing out, we choose to be outside the tent, pissing against the wind. And we got splashed by our own nonsense. Why did we do that? Well, when a political party shrinks its electoral based to below 30% and is composed by one demographic group, all that is left are a bunch of zealots. We shrank it by kicking out of the party those who believe that abortion should be legal but limited. We shrank it by kicking out those who believe that an $11 trillion economy, like ours, needs a strong government, not a government that can be drowned in a bathtub. We shrank it when we sanctified Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, and canonized Sarah Palin. These are the leaders of my party nowadays. How did we go from William F. Buckley to Glenn Beck? How did we go from Eisenhower and Nixon to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann? I do not know. What I do know, however, is that these leaders remind of me of the leaders of the Whig Party. And if they continue on their nonsense, they will bring the collapse of the GOP." -Chris Currey, FrumForum.

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Something Hilarious Someone Else Said

"Violence and racism, these things are antithetical to the whole idea of freedom and everything that we stand for. It goes against my basic political philosophy. We judge people based on their individual character and merit, not on some group identity politics. That's what the left does, we don't do that on the right. That's not something I engage in." -FreedomWorks Grassroots Director Brendan Steinhauser on Your World with Neil Cavuto, commenting on the threatening and racist voicemail messages being received by members of congress after the health care reform bill was passed earlier this week (transcribed by me).

So let me get this straight: you claim that you evaluate people as individuals and don't unfairly lump them into groups or judge them based on group identity politics and you back this statement up by... casting aspersions upon and condemning an entire group of people based on group identity politics. "We don't make broad generalizations or judgements about large groups of people, but that large group of people over there does it all the time, and they're horrible for doing it." Look, I make a point to never say ignorant shit like "The right always does this..." or "The left never does that..." because people who say these things, on both sides of the aisle, sound like partisan idiots. Neither side of America's political divide has an exclusive claim on ethics or morality and I find it equally annoying when people from either party say that they do or condemn the other side as bereft of these concepts. The vast majority of people on the left and the right in this country are basically good people who are usually overshadowed by outspoken morons on their respective teams, and of course the media focuses on them. Controversy means ratings, which mean money. I don't think I'm saying anything new here.

As to Mr. Steinhauser's complaint (he blames the media for colluding with Democrats to portray all teabaggers as violent racists based on the recent words and actions of a few), going on television and stating that you condemn violence and racism is all well and good but it's also pretty much the very least you could do to stop it from happening within your organization, aside from completely ignoring it of course. I'm just saying, I see teabag protesters holding up signs advocating violence and racism against Obama all the time and I never see any of their fellow protesters or organizers confronting them about it. Yes, I understand that they make up a tiny minority of your group but if you don't adequately police yourselves or make any kind of effort to weed those people out because they help to swell your numbers and fuel your outrage then you are also tacitly approving of their message. What do you think the words "If Brown can't stop it, a Browning can" on the sign at the top of this post are supposed to mean? Freedom of speech is great but I don't see anyone else at least trying to get him to put that sign down out of concern for how it portrays your movement as a whole. Until you make the effort to remove the people holding these signs or leaving threatening voicemail messages or spitting on congressmen from your organization, you will all rightly be lumped into the same ideological camp regardless of your protestations to the contrary. That's not media bias, it's political reality.

American Power And One Man's Tubby Petulance

So it seems that my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Power didn't much appreciate my making fun of his recent diatribe against his newly formed list of "unprincipled bullies" (read=liberal bloggers Don doesn't like) and says as much in his newest typo-ridden salvo (it's called "Spell Check" Don and it's right there in your Blogger tool bar. Seriously, at least make the attempt to proofread your own stuff; I'm not trying to harp but you supposedly teach at a school and you're making the rest of us with college educations look bad by association) against yours truly, "James B. Webb: Intolerant Sexist Pig":

I discussed earlier "The Narrative" in American politics. The Narrative is the ideological construct the claims an ineluctable progress towards full equality in the U.S., and to challenge that project is to be subjected up to the most vile attacks of "racism," "sexism," and "homophobia." Of course, leftists refuse to hold themselve up to the same standards they hold conservatives, which is a reminder that it's not equality these folks are about, but totalitarianism.

Anwyay, I mention this after noticing that James B. Webb, one of the great purveyors of The Narrative, has once again exempted himself from it. In a post from a few weeks ago ("Ayla Brown Is Available, And I'm Interested"), JBW describes my beautiful friend Suzanna as "Sweetits." Pleading about how ready he is for Scott Brown's daugther, we treated to this fairly significant burst of sexist objectification and anti-femine infantilization:

Yes, I was spurned by Sweetits but I have a good feeling about this one. Ayla, I'm a relatively poor man, I have no real power or influence over anyone, I drink way more wine than any healthy human being should and I prefer not to cook or clean. Come and get it, girl! She'll be in good hands, Senator-elect Brown. Good, busy hands.

Contrary to JBW's claims, I've never insinuated he's gay. But no one needs to insinuate anything about his blatant sexism and progressive hypocrisy. It's just right out there for everyone to see.

So typical of the left, I might add.

First off, "The Narrative" (which I've never heard of before despite being one of it's great purveyors) is apparently responsible for the equal civil and human rights that black folks like Don and women like Suzanna and Ayla now enjoy in this country and around the world but since Don doesn't like some of the PC overkill that has proceeded from it of late (neither do I, for that matter) he's going to go all baby and bathwater on the concept in some kind of chubby attempt to vilify me because I likes the ladies so much.

Speaking of which, almost every sexist statement I make on this site is satire, Don. What are you, retarded? I realize that you're somewhat unfamiliar with the concept because your own version of humor consists mainly of calling people Nazis and attempting to speak in some type of slangy street patois that you obviously have no regular experience using but try to pull the stick out of your ass and at least feign some semblance of a sense of humor. Suzanna did so long ago and even embraced the sobriquet I imparted upon her:

JBW, can't we all just be friends? This linking orgy we all seem to be having is wearing me out. True, I don't normally make friends with the "liberal idiot guy," but in your case - because you like Southern food - I'll make an exception.

Forever yours,
Sweetits

See, that's a girl with a healthy sense of humor (and a few other healthy things, if you know what I mean...). Oops, did I just say that? And as for calling me gay, Don is technically correct: he's never actually written the words "James B. Webb is gay". He's just insinuated as much. Constantly. Over and over and over again. "I'm not saying that you're gay, I'm just saying that you like cock and have sex with other men. NTTAWWT!!" And there isn't, actually. Don can use the implication that another man might be gay as some kind of supposed insult as much as he likes but he'll eventually have to square that with people rightly thinking that he's somewhat of a homophobe as a result. Oh, and to prove how anti-feminine (that's how you spell that, Don) I am here's what I wrote in response to a reader mentioning how boring Sweetits' blog has gotten lately in the comment section of the post Don found so atrocious:

And yes, Sweetits is most definitely living on the boring side. To her credit though she's now volunteering at an inner city organization for kids so I wish her all good things but the constant Jesus schtick is getting a bit old, and I'm a big fan of the man.

Like so many hot chicks I know, she needs a little wine-drinking, blogging Anthropologist in her. Booyah.

I'm such a woman hater. Yes, the last sentence is kind of sexist but again, it's satire done for comedic effect. I don't actually think that every hot chick I know needs to sleep with me. Just most of them, and the fact that Don needs this explained to him would be kind of sad if his resultant indignation wasn't so entertaining to read. Remember what I said about Republican humor fail? So, am I intolerant? Yes, in the sense that I don't tolerate serial dumbassery from portly homophobes. Am I sexist? Yes, in the sense that most men are probably somewhat sexist to a certain extent but I don't think my mother, sisters or any girl I've ever dated would say that I particularly stand out from my male brethren in that regard. Am I a pig? Well, I do eat a lot of bacon, ham, pork chops, etc. and they say that you are what you eat but I don't know how literally one should interpret that particular phrase. Hell, I've even eaten pigs feet, hog maws and chitlins but don't tell Don because that would be RAAACIST!!

[Update: I wrote above "And as for calling me gay, Don is technically correct: he's never actually written the words "James B. Webb is gay". He's just insinuated as much." I mistakenly thought that he had denied calling me gay instead of denying insinuating such. I was therefore incorrect in saying that Don is right. He isn't; he's just a liar instead. My apologies for the oversight.]

[Update II: After whining about what a loser I am because I speak English well in the comment section of this post Don has apparently gone back through his original post and fixed all of his spelling errors (the grammatical errors still remain, of course) without making any acknowledgement of the changes. See Don, that wasn't so hard but when I said to start using Spell Check I didn't mean me. So typical of the intellectually lazy, I might add.]

Negro-Gate: Harry Reid Is No Trent Lott

If you have not yet heard:

WASHINGTON – The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate apologized on Saturday for comments he made about Barack Obama's race during the 2008 presidential bid and are quoted in a yet-to-be-released book about the campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obama is the nation's first African-American president.

"I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments," Reid said in a statement released after the excerpts were first reported on the Web site of The Atlantic.

"I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama's legislative agenda."

This is one of the most racist things I've ever heard and Harry Reid should resign from the United States senate immediately. Just kidding. I was just imagining what it would be like to be a partisan reactionary douchebag there for a second; could you imagine if I was really like that? *shudder* And yet many such Republicans are indeed tripping over their own feet in the rush to condemn Reid because finally someone who actually isn't a member of their party said something racist in public. And let's be clear here: if we're to analyze what Reid said about Obama in the context of every other statement we as an all too politically correct society have deemed racist, then this was certainly a racist comment.

That's not to say however that it wasn't true, and Reid was in fact giving Obama a compliment by stating that those previously mentioned attributes would work to Obama's advantage as he ran for president (his was also one of the first major endorsements Obama received from the Democratic establishment). Now personally I'm not entirely convinced that the specific skin tone of a black political candidate has an appreciable effect on their electability but it also wouldn't surprise me were it true. After slavery was officially abolished in the U.S. during the 19th century many light-skinned blacks and Mulattoes took advantage of their ability to "pass" as white for a time, and on a personal note when I was employed in downtown Oakland I worked with a guy named Mike whose last name I thought was Black. I eventually found out that all of the other black guys we saw every day called him "Black" because his skin was so dark. So one can't deny that we notice such differences as a multi-racial society and thus they must have some effect on elections, even if it's speculative or somewhat negligible.

Reid's comments about Obama's lack of a "Negro dialect" that he can turn on and off at will also hold truth. Let's face it, if Obama normally spoke like the average NBA star or hip hop artist he never would have been selected as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, much less elected president of the United States. But instead Obama is perceived as an intelligent well-educated man and his impressive public speaking skills are his strongest attribute as a successful politician. Another asset is his ability to act hip (or as hip as a nerd like Obama can manage) by speaking popular street slang, connecting him with voters who don't necessarily relate to his usual professorial speaking style. These are advantages that Reid was attempting to praise with his idiotic, ill-phrased comments.

And those comments were most definitely idiotic and ill-phrased, there's no doubt about that. Really, what experienced politician walks around saying the word "negro" in public in the year 2008? The fact that congress is almost completely composed of old white guys is an image that they're trying very hard to move away from, not call attention to. So now of course Republicans, never a party to pass up a chance to twist the rhetorical knife into their political opponents (although the Democrats are hardly much better most of the time), have begun the all too predictable calls for Reid to resign as the Senate majority leader with a pathetic display of faux moral outrage. The most popular avenue of attack thus far has been that of comparing Reid's remarks to those of former Republican Senator and majority leader Trent Lott about Republican Strom Thurmund at his 100th birthday celebration:

When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, "Hey self, those remarks don't really seem all that racist." And you'd be correct, if only Lott hadn't been saying them about a man who ran for the presidency on a platform of strict racial segregation. That's right, Lott was saying that he was proud to have voted for a man who's presidential stump speech included statements like, "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches" and that if Thurmond had only won the presidency and been able to implement his racist vision of barring black people from white society America would have been better off as a result (since this was the late 1940's we'll forgive Thurmond's use of the word "negro" as merely a sign of the times). Lott was subsequently forced to resign as Senate majority leader as a result of these comments and rightly so, but I have to take exception with the current comparisons some Republicans are trying to draw between that incident and Senator Reid's moronic statements.

Reid wasn't trying to disparage black people with his remarks, he was merely trying to strategically handicap a political race by enumerating some of a candidate's positive electoral attributes (admittedly phrased in an extraordinarily stupid manner). This is hardly ethically equivalent to stating that one is proud to have voted for a segregationist and that a segregated America would be a better country. Add to that Lott's longstanding ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization established by former activists in the segregationist White Citizens' Councils that advocates white supremacy and white separatism, along with Lott's consistent grade of "F" on the NAACP's legislative report card and his remarks about Thurmond begin to provide a fairly accurate portrayal of the man's views on race relations.

Senator Reid, on the other hand, has consistently received a 100 percent rating from the NAACP and is well known for his decades-long efforts to integrate Las Vegas' casino industry. Now in the past I've stated my displeasure with Reid on numerous occasions (I consider him to be an ineffectual pussy of a Senate majority leader and somewhat of an annoying dork to boot) but it's obvious to any objective American that he's no racist and thus should not be forced to resign his seat over this incident. At worst, he's guilty of being an old white man who has trouble relating directly to the black community but his actions as a legislator rightfully outweigh any stupid remarks he might have made during the last election.

The real villains in this tale are the serial opportunist Republicans who wasted no time in quickly moving to exploit Reid's situation by attacking him with that same faux moral outrage I spoke of earlier. They've made it abundantly clear that they would rather stoke the flames of racial discord in America than use their elected positions to pass legislation like health care reform that would significantly benefit the economically disadvantaged in this country, a group disproportionately composed of minorities. This makes it fairly obvious that black America has some real problems with the Republican party and its current drift even further to the right of the political spectrum will do little to make those problems disappear.

Based on this track record, it's entirely possible that the Republicans really don't understand the difference between a terrible choice of words and pining for segregationism. This is no excuse for their despicable actions of course, and one could argue that it actually makes them appear even more disingenuous and out of touch with the rest of America, but at least it would be the truth. Although they seem to have a real problem when it comes to that, don't they?

Something Someone Else Said

"The main reason I can’t march along with the right wing blogosphere any more, not to put too fine a point on it, is that most of them have succumbed to Obama Derangement Syndrome. One “nontroversy” after another, followed by the outrage of the day, followed by conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, all delivered in breathless, angry prose that’s just wearying and depressing to read.

It’s not just the economic issues either. I’ve never been on board with the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment radical religious right. Once I began making my opinions known on issues like creationism and abortion, I realized that there just wasn’t very much in common with many of the bloggers on the right. And then, when most of them decided to fall in and support a blogger like Robert Stacy McCain, who has neo-Nazi friends, has written articles for the openly white supremacist website American Renaissance, and has made numerous openly racist statements on the record ... well, I was extremely disappointed to see it, but unfortunately not surprised." -Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs. Johnson has become a pariah within the right-wing blogosphere merely for not towing the line of the Obama-hating Christianist base of the Republican party. You can read of my own verbal spar with Robert Stacy (yes, Stacy) McCain here.

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There's A Rep For That

Don't let anyone tell you that the modern Republican party isn't diverse:


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Beck On Defining "White Culture"

For those not in the know:


Yet now he can't even explain his own words:


You see, Beck won't define what white culture is because that would make too good a sound bite for Katie Couric but of course he knew that Obama hates it because that made a great sound bite for himself. This guy is pasty hypocritical performance art, at best.

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Graph Of The Day

Compiled from the weekly Research 2000 poll. The Republican party has truly become solely a bastion of the white South, which goes quite a ways towards explaining their innate hatred for and opposition to President Obama. And no wingnuts, I'm not saying that everyone who opposes Obama's policies is a racist, just that racism obviously plays some part in that opposition and that anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of race relations in the South who says otherwise in light of this data is either a partisan liar or a damn fool. And now for some extremely high-minded and not-at-all juvenile analysis: Is it just me or does it look like the rest of the country in this graph is flipping the Repubs the bird? Snap.

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Something Someone Else Said

"But Barack Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study--and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness--and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date--and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them. Dig the audio of his response to Kanye West--the way he says, "He's a jackass." He sounds like one of my brothers. And that's the point, because that's what he is. Barack Obama refuses to be their nigger. And it's driving them crazy.

It's about time." -Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, on the constant race-baiting from Rush Limbaugh et. al.

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