Republican activists trying for some outreach into the black community? Good thing, in theory.
Republican activists trying for some outreach into the black community through retro-terrible billboard advertising a website whose domain name means “angry giant animal from Africa?” Good thing… for anyone running against Republicans in the near future.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Wasn't MLK a Republican?
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And that means what?
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Well, at least the people one the billboard look great…but my god would they look out of place at a tea party rally XD
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wasnt honest abe a republican?
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Good God, it's like they're outright TRYING to make themselves look bad!
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I'll just leave this Brebiert-Troll sponsered video (and this) here.
@Ironside No. Beause Vietnam.
I have yet to post about the tax issue like I promised. Will do someday soon…
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New theory: Between this and Herman Cain, they're trying to destroy any sympathy white liberals may have towards the black community, so they can point to this and say, “See? Vote for a black guy out of white guilt, and you get THIS!”
It's a ridiculous explanation, and it's the only one that fits.
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Honest Abe WAS a Republican, but that certainly DOES NOT mean the same thing it means today. Up until the late 1910s/early 1920s, the parties were almost switched. The Republicans favored progressive taxation, believed in a social safety net, were pro-regulation, pro-civil rights, and anti-monopolist (Hell, Teddy Roosevelt alone was the first to push for public health care AND forced several corporations to break down into smaller companies. If he ran today, Republicans would accuse him of being Hitler and Stalin's baby.) The Democrats, on the other hand, opposed taxation, government regulation/spending, and were staunch opponents of Civil Rights (the southern Democrats, anyway). After the 1920s though (and especially after the New Deal), I don't have any problems saying that if Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, they'd be more inclined to agree with the “we believe the government exists to help people and promote equality” guys than the “we believe the government shouldn't exist except for guns and let Jesus take care of the poor fellers BUT not them brown fellas from Mexico” guys.
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>let Jesus take care of the poor
You do understand that Republicans and Church goers tend to give much more generously to charities than their left leaning “let the government take care of em'” counterparts, right?
I much rather have taxpayer money be used to match contributions to private charities instead of the ineffective Rube-Goldberg beaurocrap that we have now.
That aside, there is a world of difference between, say, helping single mothers and incentivizing single motherhood. That is what Welfare Reform under the last conservative congress (that Clinton ever so happened to preside over) was all about, and how we almost had a balanced budget. Almost.
Somewhat unrelated: “Innocent mistakes” rebuttal from my favorite political blog.
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Yeah. Anyone who says that Martin Luther King Jr. was a republican is incredibly misinformed. While he had a lot to criticize on both parties, especially regarding how wishy washy nearly all politicians were about supporting the civil rights movement at this time, but according to his own words: “always voted the democratic ticket.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=4ysIWgsSr9AC&pg=PA384#v=onepage&q&f=false
He also voted for John F. Kennedy during the presidential election of 1960 and said that in spite of how he, in the past, did not endorse candidates for public office, said that he probably would have endorsed John F. Kennedy in 1964 had he lived.
http://books.google.com/books?id=pynSnGuC964C&pg=PT187#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sorry, but I just really hate this meme of re-writing Martin Luther King as a black republican, for no good reason, just ignoring the facts and shitting on history because if it doesn't serve your viewpoint, then it must be altered.
Let me tell you this much, limited government intervention, the free market, traditional values and conservatism were all on the wrong, wrong, wrong side of the civil rights movement.
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Well, if you make such a claim without offering statistics of any kind to back it up, I guess I'll have to defer to your judgement. Interestingly, the charity statistics I found (http://www.nps.gov/partnerships/fundraising_individuals_statistics.htm) indicates that while 11% of American households (households and individuals making up, by the way, the VAST majority of donations) give only to religious causes, 21% give only to secular causes and 35% give to both. Weird. That seems to indicate that (assuming churchgoers would be most likely to give to their church or church-endorsed religious charity) people who give to secular-only charities (which makes me doubt they go to church) outnumber religious givers by almost a factor of two. The 35%, seeing as they give to both, we can't really decide what their religious views might be (as an agnostic, if I thought a religious charity was doing good, I wouldn't hesitate to donate, so I might be within this category once I start earning an income). Interesting. Of course, all beside the point-I should have made myself more clear; I was referring to people like Ron Paul who claim that the community will willingly shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical treatments for its members.
I'm not really sure what you mean when you refer to “rube-goldberg crap.” In the context of taking care of the poor, I was referring to social safety nets like social security, medicare, etc. While medicare and medicaid do certainly need reform, I'm baffled at the hostility towards social security, and people acting like it's broken. The threat with Social Security isn't that it's costing us money NOW-it's that, in around twenty years, the amount of money social security spends will begin to surpass the amount it brings in. This isn't a convoluted mess, it's an easy fix.
Having looked at the welfare reform that occurred during the Clinton administration, I have to say that while the bill goes too far in several places, I do like that it requires seeking employment and limits the amount of time one can spend on welfare, although the problems with welfare before the bill were pretty exaggerated. Overall, I like how the Republicans back then had the philosophy of “let's change this social program slightly to make it work better” instead of “THE GUMMIT SPENDING MONEY IS COMMUNISM FUCK YOU POOR PEOPLE.” Man, I wonder how well one of the Republican presidential cantidades would do if they announced they wanted reform of the social safety net instead of the destruction of it…
Finally, I found the blog post to be more petty and childish than informative. It accuses Paul Krugman of calling Reagan a racist, when in the article they refer to he is specifically quoted as saying “By all accounts Ronald Reagan, who declared in his Inaugural Address that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” wasn't personally racist.” Paul was arguing that Reagan was appealing to racists. This is nothing new; the fact that the GOP is spanding so much money to advertise themselves to black people shows they're aware of a lack of black Republicans and “state's rights” is almost always brought up by only by Republicans in conservative districts in the South to crowds of white people. Your article seems to ignore Krugman's argument, claim it's something different (that Reagan himself was racist) and proceed to disprove their own assertion and brag about how much harm the New Deal has endured since Reagan's administration. Honestly, it comes like it was written by somebody really bitter and spiteful who either couldn't understand or rebut the actual point of Krugman's article, and also liked the phrase “innocent mistake.”
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Oh, also “GOP is the new black?” Really? That's the best thing they can come up with? They are aware that when the opposition's candidate is the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT IN HISTORY that they need more than a tired slogan without any changes in party policy towards minorities or party acceptance of the support of the racist, right?
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Couldn't they be Asian elephants?
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Moviebob, I love your work. I think your a very talented and gifted spokesperson with insightful opinions for all things wonderful and geeky in this world. And even though I don't always agree with your given viewpoints, I appreciate that the manner in which you deliver your arguements at least challenge me to think. But I have to be honest, whenever you discuss politics, especially contempary events, it doesn't have the same feel or polish that your other views have. And whenever you post something like this, it feels more a like distraction then anything else. Now, I'm not telling you what to do, or even what you should post, but I think that if you want to seriously commit to making observation to politics that you've been making, you should have a dedicated blog or bring back American Bob. Like I said, I like your work, but in comparison to your thought-provoking observations about video games and movies, articles like this feel more like knee-jerk reactions. Now, I'm not saying EVERYTHING needs such scrutiny that you provide to your other endeavors, but I think the world really misses out when you don't put in the extra time to turn something into a thoughtful presentation.
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Hey undecided voters, wanna see my elephant?
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@genguidanos: Specifically, its trunk?
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And I just heard that Herman Cain is saying Planned Parenthood wants to “kill black babies.” Oy.
Look… if a political party has got a problem with a certain ethnic demographic, pandering and race-baiting is not the way to go.
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