The image on the right (no pun intended) comes courtesy Getty Images via Buzzfeed and is alleged to have been snapped at a Romney/Ryan event earlier today. Speaking for the campaign, a spokesperson was quoted as calling it “reprehensible;” which I imagine would be the sincere opinion of both men running. Whatever else I can say about either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, I don’t think it’s likely that outright racism is a motivation factor for either of them (I cannot say the same thing, of course, about their party…)This is probably real, but I really do hope that it isn’t. As damaging as it’d be, short-term, to “my side,” I want to believe that this guy doesn’t really exist – that this is “false flag” subterfuge a’la the Republican supporter who cut a “B” into her own face back in ’08. But… it’s probably real, meaning that someone printed these up and there are probably a lot more than one. Depressing, I would imagine, regardless of what your actualy politics are.
I have my own reasons for supporting Obama, but if an extra one was needed the idea that people like this would be emboldened would certainly do it: Like it or not, a Romney win would be a “victory” both for guys like this and the less-blatant gradiations of him that just want to “preserve traditional America” or whatever the euphamism for societal-stagnation is this week. If this election is about anything, macro, it’s whether we want to continue regressing into worship of an “old world” that never fully existed OR if we want to continue dismantling the superstition of the “old world” to build not just a new world but a superior world.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Bob, I'm gonna level with ya. I may be voting for Romney/Ryan. However, I want it on the record that THIS ASS IN THE PICTURE DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ALL OFF US! Especially not for me. I was willing to give Big O the chance, but then he cut down the space program and I totally UN friended him on facebook. (Plus that Spider-Man comic he was in REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKED!)
Just wanted to let you know that.
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If you openly concede that neither Romney nor Ryan would ever support such a mind set, isn't it rather petty to even bring it up? Obviously, a Romney victory is no more a victory for this man than an Obama victory is a victory for the likes of Peta or Anonymous.
I mean, I really don't know what to say when you open the discussion with the admission that your point is mute.
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@Almighty Narf
The point really isn't “moot” IMO, just wanted to clarify (however fruitlessly) that I'm not “accusing” either Romney or Ryan of being racists themselves.
Secondly, like it or not it's relevant. Race is a big issue in this campaign both demographically and symbolically, and this is a hell of an “encapsulating image of that.
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But Ann Coulter says racism doesn't exist in America anymore!
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@ Bob
How exactly is race any more relevant in this race than any other, though? As far as I'm aware race is a complete non-factor in any of the major issues or contested policies, and the demographics aren't really any more or less racially split than they've been for the last 50 years.
If this image “encapsulates” anything, it's of the left's insistence on finding the furthest fringe radicals of the right and trying to portray them as the norm. You know that this person's views aren't even remotely near those of Romney or main-stream conservatism, yet you perpetuate the caricature anyway.
To even suggest a correlation with Romney is intellectually dishonest and, frankly, rather silly.
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@Razmere
You're aware Obama didn't write the Spider-Man comic he was in, right? I think the complaints he'd receive by putting Marvel's writing department under government control would outweigh the benefits of getting a half-decent comic that Republicans would hate anyway for not being about Ronald Reagan.
Also, while these people don't SPEAK for all of the Republicans, they do tend to VOTE for them. And when Romney makes jokes about how nobody thinks he's from Kenya, somehow I don't think he's trying to shore up his support with tolerant people. Not saying Romney, Ryan, or the vast majority of Republicans are racist (they aren't) but that relying on the support of racists to win elections isn't a whole lot better.
Also, @Moviebob: I think this confirms this isn't an isolated incident
http://despicabletweets.tumblr.com/post/33284591614/oh-so-i-guess-its-the-white-house-for-a
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@ Narf
I'm sorry but when republicans are actively trying to prevent African Americans from voting race is a very important part of the election. Whatever you may think Romney/Ryan rely on the votes of the people in this picture, they know that and they actively campaign in a way that subtly encourages this sort of pathetic behavior.
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@Booloo
Don't forget about Republican efforts to suppress Latino votes! But don't worry, some of the voter ID laws being implemented are designed to stop students from voting too! People can discriminate for reasons other than race! Yay!
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Bob, every time you make a disgusting post like this, you are ironically moving us one step closer to another race war. You want depressing? Lets talk about someone who uses terms like “my side” while blogging about racial issues. TheAlmightyNarf was putting it lightly when he said it might be petty that you would even bring this up. It's downright embarrassing.
Race is only relevant to the simpletons who still vote based on the color of the candidates skin. I'd like to think that you aren't one of those simpletons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh8mUia75k8
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Hey Bob, I noticed you called our potential VP a “Mook” on twitter. Could you please knock that shit off? The word “Mook” is reserved for badasses who don't have fake Boston accent. I'm really happy that you got to see “Mean Streets” on blu ray though.
Im just pulling your leg Bobby. please use that word more. It must catch on. I love you bro.
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@Narf
Nobody likes admitting it, but Racism didn't just “go away” after the civil rights movement. Like Misogyny (and eventually, probably, Homophobia), these issues are extremely cyclical, and while we can definitely try to make them better in the short term, They're definitely not going to be solved anytime soon (and I wouldn't be surprised if we were still dealing with them generations from now).
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Captain America stands for Traditional America. Martin Lother king helped bring about black rights.
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@Almighty Narf
“How exactly is race any more relevant in this race than any other, though?”
This deserves a thoughtful answer. Two words: TIPPING. POINT.
If current demographic trends hold, within our lifetime the United States will cease to be a country where White/Christian/Males are the overwhelming majority (and thus the most powerful single voting bloc) for the first time in it's history. That's a massive, MASSIVE shift; and a huge number of the currently big issues that don't seem to have a racial component on their surface are directly tied to it (particularly economic issues.)
Now, you are correct that ideally this shouldn't matter – after all, “NOT a White/Christian/Man” covers A LOT of groups and subgroups. But this isn't an ideal world, it's the real world; and in the real world the WCM demographic (the “d-word” is ALL-IMPORTANT here since we're dealing with statistics and group dynamics, not individual behavior) is increasingly committed to ONE of two political “sides,” while that great collection of “others” is increasingly committed to, er.. the “other side.”
The fact is, with rare exception the American “Left” can pretty-much count on the votes of ethnic minorities, lifestyle minorities, religious minorities and (increasingly though still with fluctuation) women going to them essentially by default. The reason isn't difficult to discern: When you are of the priviliged (in any sense) class, you benefit from “small government” because you already have what you need and a hands-off government allows you to consolidate and maintain it – and WCM were preposterously priviliged compared to all other groups for roughly the first 200 years of American history and to a lesser but significant degree still are today.
By contrast, “big government” liberalism in America has generally been friendly and beneficial to non-WCMs; helping them to make up for wrongly-stunted societal mobility through federal and judicial intervention. Neither of these are accidents or “conspiracies,” merely strategies: Republicans have opted, from the 1960s on, to focus on the one “big bloc” leaving EVERYONE ELSE for the Democrats.
Thusly, when GOP candidates and/or activists talk about “the end of America as we know it!” or the need to “reverse course” lest America become what they'd call Socialism but most of the world would recognize as Democracy + SANITY… that's partially what they're talking about and thus there IS a strong racial component: A “browner,” less (European-derived) Christian, less masculine-focused America WILL, by simple demographic arithmetic, be a more “left-leaning” country overall (for the first few generations of it, anyway) and will likely look/feel significantly different than it does now.
Hence the paranoia about Obama (birtherism, “other-ism,” the whole thing.) It's not that a “majority” of Republicans are full-bore racists that hate him because he's black… it's that they UNDERSTAND (some more consciously than others) that his EXISTANCE as President is the first most un-ignorable sign that the journey to this demographic tipping point that so terrifies them is already past the halfway mark.
To put it another way, skin color and/or racial identity in THIS election mean exactly the same thing than blue uniforms or gray uniforms meant during the Civil War: Nothing, but also EVERYTHING.
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I find this picture really horrifying but I do have to disagree with you Bob on one point. I personally do believe that both Romney and Ryan are racist, not only have they failed to disavow people I.E Republican voters and Republican Senators and Representatives in their party who support hateful/racist ideas like this but in some way they have in fact more times then none supported many of those racist/hateful ideas in public. But back to the T-shirt, this is where I believe we need laws in place to prevent things like this being said and if it infringes on certain forms of freedom of speech so be it. Other Western Industrialized like Germany have anti-hate laws in place that prevent people from saying things like this and in no way are the Germans preventing other forms of freedom of speech in Germany.
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Can completly understand white people's fear of no longer being the dominate race as you just have to look at the amount of Latino or Black dominate countries that are dictator run hellholes.
There is a reason that some many black and latino people risk their lives to be able to live in white run countries after all.
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Bob, if you want REAL progress, forget Obama and Romney – VOTE FOR GARY JOHNSON.
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Bob… be honest now… if racism in this way is relevant in this, then so is a certain church that Obama used to go to… if anything, it's closer to the center of any race issue (unless you want to tell me Mitt or Ryan were somehow how ever personally connected to this guy)….
That people like this exist is unfortunate, but they are far and away farther from the center of the campaign… and far farther then others who were brought up last election and have/will be again against Obama.
Just sayin…
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I'll say it again, Bob.
Being complicit in your own extinction will not afford you any special treatment among the new ruling class.
You may have a fetish for being cuckolded, but don't wish that on all Democrats.
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@ Booloo
How exactly are specifically African American votes being suppressed?
@ Smpoza
Ok here's my issue with voter ID laws… You can't function in modern society with out an ID. You can't drive with out an ID, you can't buy alcohol or cigarettes, you can't get a phone, you can't get a job, you can't get a bank account, you can't get credit, you can't get a student loan… I just find it incredibly hard to believe that there is any significant amount of people who would be legally allowed to vote but just haven't gotten around to getting an ID, especially since they've had the last few years warning that these voter ID laws were coming up.
@ Gwen
Wow… I like Morgan Freeman even more now… I didn't know that was possible.
@ Bob
Ok, I don't want to get nit-picky and argue over points that aren't especially important to the over-all argument so I'm going to concede that has being mostly true for now.
But, my question still stands… how is this different from any other election in the US?
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OH yeah, Bob posts a picture of a guy in a racist shirt at a Romney event, but doesn't think Romney and Ryan are racist.
Bob, I know you think you're smarter than us conservatives, but just how fucking stupid do you think I really am? What other possible reason could you have?
I'll say this, even though I know you don't give a shit: Race has NOTHING to do with our opposition to Obama's very obvious, very incompitent failing policies.
If you were soooooo concerned about people picking on a black man, where were you when the Democratic Party that treats women like trash–aka the Party of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Anthony Weiner–concocted a half-assed groping scandal against Herman Cain? There was a smart achomplished black man running to be the presidential nominee for the Republicans, but did I hear applause from your side? Congrats for Repubs overcoming their percieved racism to accept a black man in their primaries?
No. We did not.
You, sir, are a typical ass-kissing Liberal, complicit in your silence of every foul word and mysoginist, bigoted opinion espoused from the mouths of the dirtiest pack of liars walking God's green earth and how you don't choke on your own hypocrisy astounds me.
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@ Allan
As much as I hated Herman Cain, I was going to vote for him in the primaries anyway just to see how Democrats dealt with the cognitive dissonance.
On the other hand, their cognitive dissonance with Romney not being Christian has only seemed to result in denial of that reality so far. I suspect they would have tried to portray Cain as not really counting as being black.
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@ Narf.
Oh my, Heavens no! Cain wasn't black because he had the audacity to wander off the Democratic plantation and not listen to his massa!
As for Cain, it was a stretch anyway. He has a particularly slow manner of speaking that doesn't feel snappy as other public speakers. But still, when compared to the rest of the Peanut Gallery we conservatives got stuck with during the primaries–a third of which were RINOs.–there wasn't anyone I wanted to root for more than Cain. I didn't want Romney, but I damn sure don't want Obama, so for me as a conservative, it's Obama vs Not Obama. Guess who I get to get drunk and vote for?
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Hmm, on the one hand, I really can't fault Republicans that want to downplay idiots like this. It may not e a fair representation, but with elections being so tight these days they need every racist, sexist, homophobic, inbred pinhead vote they can get even if they don't really endorse it.
On the other hand, it proves that there is still racism is America, and that it is on some level a sizable bloc. This is just the guy admitting it. You also have the people that can't explain why they don't like Obama but feel threatened by him, people that vilify him for things he didn't do, and people that do the same for things their side did that they championed (okay that's probably more favoritism) and it's not hard to see why the racism label suck and continues to hold.
Part of me wonders why people like this aren't shot down given how it ultimately gets spun, but now that the “people that are crying racism are the real racists” card is being played I can honestly see this guy as a plant it bait liberals into going after the boogeyman so republicans can whine and complain about how victimized they are about being judged based on one idiot.
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@ Redd the Sock
Or, perhaps, political objectification is stupid regardless of who does it or what reason they do it for.
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I wish it were fake too but it's actually a “thing” on Twitter. Have a look if you want to see some of the worst of humanity Tweeting without thinking.
http://despicabletweets.tumblr.com/post/33284591614/oh-so-i-guess-its-the-white-house-for-a
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@Narf
Have you looked at these ID laws? A lot of them either (a explicitly forbid any form of ID EXCEPT a specific card you need to obtain from city hall, or (b specifically exclude certain forms of ID, like student ID, for no reason. A law that considers NRA cards more acceptable than student IDs had better have really, really solid reasoning behind it or it may face accusations of being politically motivated.
Also…are these laws even necessary? The amount of voter fraud that occurs in this country is so low it's actually much more likely the laws will do MORE harm than simply not acting by preventing people from voting.
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@ Smpoza
Have I looked at all the enacted or considered voter ID laws for all 50 states? No, I haven't. It wouldn't surprise me if a couple of them were a bit unreasonable, though I haven't really seen anything yet that I would consider such. I mean, is the voter ID law that allows for NRA cards and the law that excludes student IDs even the same law? Are they even from the same state? Either way, just about every law I've personally seen allows for state IDs or driver's licenses.
Is it necessary? Probably not. Most bureaucratic meddling isn't. But, is it an unreasonable thing to ask for? …that you can show you are who you claim you are? I really don't think it is.
*addendum*
Out of curiosity I looked it up… every state with a voter ID law allows for a driver's license or regular state ID.
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The simple fact that Romney is a Mormon would worry me tbh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r5_L1coztJ4#!
Sitting on the sidelines in the UK, it boggles my mind that people would ever consider voting Rethuglican. Different cultures and all that, I guess.
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@Narf
Oh. Well, I guess that's too bad for poor people who are of voting age but never had the opportunity/time/means to get down to the DMV and get a driver's license or state ID. I wonder which party benefits from that group not voting?
Also, yes, the NRA and Student ID thing are in fact part of the same law. I suggest you look at the judge's comments on the law before you start talking about how race isn't relevant in this election.
http://politic365.com/2012/08/30/nra-card-ok-but-not-student-id-fed-court-blocks-texas-voter-id-law/
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@ Smpoza
Yea, I mean who can find the opportunity to spare a couple hours in the span of 2 years to go to the DMV and get a document that they wouldn't be able to get a job, a bank account, a student loan, or credit without.
I suppose Republicans would benefit the most from teenage stoners not being able to vote.
And, according to that link (and everywhere else) it's a concealed handgun license that can be used as an ID. So… yea, a state issued ID can be used as an ID, but a privately issued ID can't be.
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@Narf
Wow! It's almost like there are some people who don't have jobs, student loans, credit, or bank accounts! Like there are really, really poor people who might actually not have the time or resources to waste to go to the DMV for a voter ID law they didn't know existed!
Also–why should it be okay to make people wait for hours in a government building to secure their NATURAL RIGHT TO VOTE? As a “small government” guy, why are you so okay with this? Is it fine because it might get rid of that guy giving poor people health care?
And in the case of the Pennsylvania voter ID law, any student ID without both an expiration date and photo is not permissible as ID. This means that IDs from state universities, which are state institutions, cannot be used.
Finally…look, I get it. It's hard to meet different kinds of people. But the high school I came from drew from both my affluent, suburban, mostly white area and from the more run-down, poor, mostly latino and black area. I made several friends who not only lacked a driver's license or state ID but had no plans of getting one (no money for a car, they already had student IDs, the jobs they were looking at didn't require IDs, etc.) For you to insist that not only do these friends of mine not exist, but if they did exist that their actions are due more to being “stoners” than economic circumstances is starting to get really, really annoying. Recognizing your privilege is hard–it took me a while–but I suggest you think about how much you actually know about who makes up this country.
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Unfortunately this guy isn't unique, though I was hoping this would be confined to twitter. I know that isn't really better, but I think it helps me to think that people would only be this stupid when they think they have some anonymity, even if they don't realize how stupid the idea of having anonymity on something specifically designed to let you broadcast yourself is. http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/0/5/4/150054.jpg?v=1
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“Also, while these people don't SPEAK for all of the Republicans, they do tend to VOTE for them.“
It's not merely that racists vote for republicans: it's that they are necessarity for the GOP to win elections. Without the racists vote: no Gingritchian triumph in the 90s, no way to rig the 2000 election, no tea party triumph in 2010. So, even assuming that deep down Romney & co loath this part of their electorate, they still need it to win. And to keep it, they need to give them biscuits in the form of policies which will harm society as a whole but please the racist audience.
Also: don't bother with Narf: he loves playing dumb and pretending not to know data that disprove his talking points. He's the kind of guy who's going to say that he does'nt believe that the GOP is overwhemingly white, then, when presented with a demographic breakdown of its voting base compared to the demographic brakdown of the US population, will claim that it doesn't count. You can summarize his attitude as “Do not ruin my beautiful contrarian wit with numbers and empirical evidence“
***
“If current demographic trends hold, within our lifetime the United States will cease to be a country where White/Christian/Males are the overwhelming majority (and thus the most powerful single voting bloc) for the first time in it's history“
You forget the “Coutry Club Effect”.
What's the country club effect?
Well: you don't have to be a founding member of the country club to obtain your membership card through cooptation. Once, Jews were not seen as “white” by the american right wing: now they are. Once, Irish, and Italians, and all these european catholics were not seen as white: now, tell me Bob: what was the last time someone told you that you were not a Real True White Guy because you went to a catholic school? Even latino's catholicism is rarely used as fodder against them nowadays. Once, Mormons were maybe aknowledged as member of the same ethic group, but they were most definitely not allowed inside White America's Country Club: now, well, Mitt Romney as yet to be lynched by a mob of angry teabaggers? In fact, they cheer him when he shows.
For the old fashioned “WASPs”, the tipping point was reached a long time ago. But you must remember that race politics exist in the first place to make sure that the middle-class and poor plebeans never team up and take on the patrician class: when enough members of a given ethncity become wealthy enouh to be welcomed into the upper-crust, their ethnic group is “proclaimed” white and its poor members are given the bare minimum to not be at the absolute bottom of the food chain and are expected to express their gratitude by turning against the latest group of metics.
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This picture is just one of many. We've all seen the pictures of the signs and t-shirts from right wing nutjobs.
My problem is not so much the people who wear t-shirts and hoist signs like this, it's that in every one of these pictures, I have never seen another right winger expressing anger or disapproval of the person wearing the t-shirt or hoisting the sign.
The number of right wingers willing to express sentiments like this is depressingly large, but the number of right wingers who tolerate this sort of behavior is much, much larger and I find that far more troubling.
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I'm having opinions on the Internet!
INTERNET!
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@ Smpoza
why should it be okay to make people wait for hours in a government building to secure their NATURAL RIGHT TO VOTE?
I'm not sure that you mean “natural right”. You should look up that term because voting is very much so not a natural right.
“As a “small government” guy, why are you so okay with this? Is it fine because it might get rid of that guy giving poor people health care?”
Well, see that's something right there I need to correct… I'm not. I'm a Consequentialist. I ultimately don't care how social or economic problems get solved as long as they get solved. Ideology is for insecure people who need to feel “right”. I'm actually very much so in favor of universal health care, and was pretty disappointing that, despite the hype, the ACA never actually attempted to do that.
Now, I have to admit this may be a bias stemming from the state I live in, but in Connecticut you can not legally work with out a state ID, and I had assumed this was universal across the country. Perhaps it isn't… I'll have to research this a bit.
Either way, I would suggest that in a state where one does have to have a state ID to work or… do anything really, it's not unreasonable to require an ID for voting because pretty much all legal voters would have IDs by necessity anyway. But, in states with laxer labor laws, it really shouldn't be expected for everyone to have an ID. Considering how much the need for IDs can vary from state to state, voter ID laws would also have to vary from state to state.
@ Benfea
“I have never seen another right winger expressing anger or disapproval of the person wearing the t-shirt or hoisting the sign.”
Well, how many right wing meetings have you actually been to? Much like leftists, right wingers tend to not make their internal arguments especially public.
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Narf, that's kind of the thing. The fact that the number of people ID laws hit are in the millions, shows that, yes, it is very possible to get through life without a state issued ID. Since I don't drive drink or smoke the last time I needed my ID was to get into an R rated movie over ten years ago.
The right never framed this issue well, and not just because it's largely been a solution without a problem, or Mike Turzai listing it as a successful goal designed to get Romney elected. Meeting the disenfranchised half way by, say, allowing student or alternative forms of ID used to buy beer to be used, waving costs for lower income groups (and to get around the poll tax problem), and making alternate arrangements for those that can't get off work (call to have a photographer with a form sent out or something) and it would look far more like fraud was a concern, rather than a thinly veiled attempt at vote suppression.
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@ Nixou
I could almost kiss you because you've just given me the epiphany to conjoin several different thought processes I've been deep in lately:
“White people” do not exist.
So, recently I became aware of this this video series, and this video blew my mind (many of the videos did, but that's the one most relevant to what I'm about to talk about).
The ideas I want to talk about in particular is “fungibility” and “violability”.
As “country club effect” suggests, the term “white” has over the years become an increasingly meaningless term. In no longer refers to ethnicity, place of origin, or even skin color. It quite literally means nothing more than people who are perceived to have wealth and privilege. And, in that regard it's not entirely inaccurate… However, when you look at white individuals, it's clear that the vast majority of them have no access to said wealth or privilege.
And that's the problem. “White people” doesn't refer to actual white people. It refers to the vague idea of wealth and the establishment. “White people” are “the man”. It's a broad objectification that has little correlation to the individuals it supposedly encompasses. I would love to say that the term has become nothing more than a “racist slur”, but as you've pointed out, it doesn't even have any meaningful correlation to race any more.
“White people” is nothing more than the “other” for non-whites to hate a fear.
And I can't help but bring that to the more potent objectification… the “White, Christian, Heteronormative Male”. Again, “white” refers to nothing more than perceived privilege. “Christian” can apparently be interpreted as broadly as encompassing Mormonism now. And, “Heteronormative Male”… well, with out getting too deep into Queer Theory, the idea of a “heteronormative male” is interpreted far to broadly. First off, asexual and androgynous males tend to be considered heteronormative, while asexual and androgynous females tend to be considered queer. In fact, sexual identity seems to have very little influence as to whether a male is considered queer or not like it is with females, and only sexual orientation counts (and, let's be clear sexual identity and sexual orientation are two completely different and mostly unrelated aspects of a person). And, even then, only being overtly gay or transvestite is considered queer… a male who's only slightly bisexual or only slightly fem-leaning is typically placed under the broad label of “Heteronormative Male”. Hell, if you get really deep into Queer Theory, it essentially posits that true heteronormativity doesn't actually exist. Again, the term doesn't actually mean anything specific… it just refers to the objectification of the perceived privileged.
That's… that's all this is. It's an objectification of people thought of as privileged so that they don't have to be treated as individuals or humans. They become the powerful “other” that can be treated with as much violability as it takes to bring everyone to the same level.
The problem, of course, is that the “white people” don't actually exist.
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@ Redd the Sock
I am completely baffled how you are able to access the internet with out having to had to use your ID on at least like 3 different occasions. How did you get an ISP with out an ID? How did you get a computer? How do you get electricity? How were you able to get someplace to live? Do just pay cash for everything? Is it just my home state that has all sorts of ID laws about everything?
And everything politicians do is to get votes or get the other guy to get less votes… That's just what politicians do. It's their job. But, that, in and of itself, doesn't make the outcome necessarily negative.
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Narf
I don't move or change phone or utility companies much so such things haven't come up. When I have had to make changes I usualy do things over the phone and they ask for info off my latest bill for verification. I never said I didn't have ID, just that it rarely gets used.
I approach politics with a capitalistic view: two parties (companies) trying to compete for votes (customers) by offering the better deal for the voters (customers). Tricks like there to me pretty much signify that republicans don't have the better option and are disinterested in the competition that supposed to make them a better party.
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@MovieBob:
“By contrast, “big government” liberalism in America has generally been friendly and beneficial to non-WCMs;”
What? It's the exact opposite. I'm sure minorities have benefited so much from:
-WWII
-The Vietnam War
-The First Gulf War
-The Second Gulf war
-The War on Drugs
-The CIA's mass importation of cocaine
-An incarceration rate higher than that of the Soviet Union at the time of Gulag Archipelago(We finally won the prisons race!)
-Prison rape rates that are so high more men are raped each year than women.
-Inflation(which is basically a regressive tax which may well counter any progressive effects of the income tax)
-A housing bubble that priced the poor out of homes
-An education bubble that is pricing the poor out of college
-A double digit real unemployment rate
-Atrocious public schools
-Licenses and other barriers to entry in various professions that create de facto guilds
-Immigration laws
If the government, the most powerful institution in the country, was really on the side of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the powerless, why would they still be poor, disenfranchised, and powerless?
The government needs the poor to fight wars, to serve as a boogeyman to the wealthy and middle class, and to vote for the “right” candidates in the plebiscite. They also need them to justify spending money on the dole, an ever expanding police force and encroachments upon civil liberties, and the massive educational bureaucracy.
The government creates the poor to prove its thesis: that humans are innately ignoble and in need of some outside force for redemption, punishment, and salvation. This is what we must reject. This is why we must dissent.
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@Zeno,
“The government creates the poor to prove its thesis: that humans are innately ignoble and in need of some outside force for redemption, punishment, and salvation.”
If so, then the government really IS wasting money on something: Anyone can PROVE that same thesis to themselves just by walking around any given mall for a half hour or so 😉
The innate flaw in “conservatives” is that they have too much FAITH in their fellow man. “Liberals,” by contrast, have too much COMPASSION for their fellow man.
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Bob, you say liberals have too much compassion for their fellow man. I think you're a borderline sociopath with your hatred of humanity.
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Is this more or less reprehensible than Ludacris rapping about turning the White House black?
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@ Bob
“The innate flaw in “conservatives” is that they have too much FAITH in their fellow man. “Liberals,” by contrast, have too much COMPASSION for their fellow man.”
I… don't think I actually disagree with that.
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@TheAlmightyNarf: Finally starting to see Bob's true colors as a misanthropic narcissist?
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@MovieBob:
“If so, then the government really IS wasting money on something: Anyone can PROVE that same thesis to themselves just by walking around any given mall for a half hour or so ;)”
I simply can't abide by that sentiment, Bob. I'd rather know that people are good, but not know why, than to know why, but not know that people are good.
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I believe people are neither inherently good nor bad. We're inherently flawed.
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I've thought about it a bit more.
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