Month: May 2009

Just remember, it’s not racism if you’ve got a genetically endowed tan

Openmarket.org[*1] :

Black Panthers in Philadelphia used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place (in November, 2008). “Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them

This is also not[*2] an example of racism, in case you were wondering:

. . . comments Sotomayor made during a 2001 lecture at the University of California-Berkeley. Referring to former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s saying that “a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases,” Sotomayor said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

For both quotes, emphasis mine.

These are, indeed, the words of a moderate, reasoned, dispassionate judge of law, considering not the color of one’s skin but only the content of one’s character. One who thinks that merely because of what color skin she has, and because of her unique upbringing, (oh, yeah, and because of her reproductive and excretory plumbing) she and she alone is capable of making wise decisions in a way that people of different skin color and upbringing are simply incapable of doing.

So much for a nation of laws and not of men (or of persons, if you’re so inclined). Laws only apply to white males. Except when they don’t. And no one but Sonia Satamayor is competent to make those decisons. You certainly aren’t. Neither am I because, you see I’m an ignorant racist by nature of being a Norwegian-American male, the voting rights of whom the Obama Justice Department is blithely unconcerned–because my skin’s melanin content is insufficient. I’m glad we have that straight, now.

Exit Question #1: Don’t you feel good about the new direction the country’s going?

Exit Question #2: Is there a reason why Justice is often depicted as wearing a blindfold? If so, what might that reason be?

You’ve seen this before

In a comment on a thread on Protein Wisdom[*1] :

“Do you think sheep know when you’re pulling the wool over their eyes?”

“Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide.”

“All extremists should be taken out and shot.”

“100,000 lemmings can’t be wrong.”

“Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let her sleep”

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather…. …Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car….”

“The gene pool could use a little chlorine.”

“Happiness is a belt-fed weapon”

“I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.”

“Your kid may be an honor student but you’re still an IDIOT!”

“It’s as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you.”

“When you do a good deed, get a receipt, in case heaven is like the IRS.”

“Smile, it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.”

“Friends don’t let Friends drive Naked.”

“Wink, I’ll do the rest!”

“I took an IQ test and the results were negative.”

“Okay, who stopped the payment on my reality check?”

“If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?”

“Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students!”

“It’s lonely at the top, but you eat better.”

“Reality? That’s where the pizza delivery guy comes from!”

“Forget about World Peace…..Visualize Using Your Turn Signal !”

“Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.”

“Give me ambiguity or give me something else.”

“We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.”

“Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.”

“He who laughs last thinks slowest.”

“Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else.”

Poetry. Sheer poetry.

Memorial Day

“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”

The Battle Hymn of the Republic[*1] :

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Are we Americans still a people who are willing to die to make men free? Something to ponder on this Memorial Day, when we remember those who did die to make men free. Memory–that’s what Memorial Day is about. Remember.

The politics of fear

A signal trait of the Bush presidency was the at times overwhelming chorus of people speaking out against Bush.

Obama? Not so much. Why?

Because the center-right fears Obama and the Democrats[*1] in ways that the socialist left simply didn’t fear Republicans and Bush:

at a neighborhood barbecue, a businessman who ran a manufacturing concern spent a good quarter of an hour railing against Obama’s plans to nationalize health care. He had informed himself about the pending legislation in minute detail. He had devoted hours to studying the effects on hospitals and HMOs. He had become utterly convinced that Obama’s plans would harm millions.

Well, then, one of his listeners asked, why had the businessman failed to say any of this in public?

The businessman paused, astonished.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he replied. “I have an obligation to my shareholders. Keep your head down. Don’t speak out. In this climate, that’s just being responsible.”

. . .

“These days,” the private equity partner replied, “the government owns the banks. Nobody’s going to speak out against his owners, right? That’s just basic business practice. At least that’s what the bankers are all saying to themselves.”

The last exchange took place a couple of days later at a business school. Lately, a professor explained, students and faculty had begun quietly approaching him. “Everything’s on the hush-hush,” said the professor, a senior member of the faculty. “But they’re looking for support. We’ve been thinking of starting a group like AA, only for people who believe in capitalism.”

The professor laughed.

What did those who had approached him fear?

“They’re afraid for their careers,” the professor said, now serious. “These are young people I’m talking about. They don’t want to become known as opponents of this administration.

The fear of the leftists, such as it was, was a diffuse, amorphous unease. Nobody really thought that Bush would raid their classrooms and community organization meetings and drag them to the gulags. That’s why unhinged people like Code Pink and numerous unwashed totalitarian undergraduate students could freely shout down conservative/libertarian/Republican speakers at countless events without any real repercussions. Because you see, the right actually does believe in free speech. The left doesn’t.

The fear of the right is tangible and well-founded. They know that the left will try to destroy them.

It has already begun. Carrie Prejean, anyone?

This is called “suppression of dissent.” Socialists/statists do it. And they’ve got all the levers of government now, in addition to the majority of media outlets and educational institutions. Prepare to toe the party line, or to be muzzled.

The perp is probably not a sober married white person

And neither is the victim.

TV crime shows are filled to the tip-top brim with unadulterated bull-caca. As if you didn’t really know that, deep down in your heart.

Science Daily[*1] :

When researchers compared the shows to the CDC data, they discovered the strongest misrepresentations were related to alcohol use, relationships, and race among perpetrators and victims. Previous studies of actual statistics have shown that both perpetrator and victim were often under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs when the crime occurred, differing from what the shows portrayed. Also, CSI and CSI: Miami were more likely to have described the victim and the attacker as Caucasian, which is misrepresentative. Finally, according to the CDC data, homicide victims typically knew their assailant; however, the television series were more likely to have portrayed the perpetrator as a stranger. All of these findings were significantly different when compared to the data.

Dr. Lineberry says, “If we believe that there is a lack of association with alcohol, that strangers are more likely to attack, and that homicide doesn’t represent particular groups of people, it’s difficult to create public health interventions that the general public supports.” Other authors contributing to this study included Christopher Janish and Melanie Buskirk, both from Mayo Medical School.

Sucking from the public teat

CBS Market Watch[*1] :

At a time when the official unemployment rate is nearing double digits, and 6.35 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, the U.S. government is on a hiring binge.

Executive branch employment — 1.98 million in 2009, excluding the Postal Service and the Defense Department — is set to increase by 15.6 percent for the 2010 fiscal year. Most of that is thanks to the Census Bureau hiring 102,000 temporary workers, but not counting them still yields a net increase of 2 percent in one year.

There’s little belt-tightening in evidence in Washington, D.C.: Counting benefits, the average pay per federal worker will leap from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 next year.

Democrats are from Kumbaya, Republicans are from Get-er’done

From HillBuzz[*1] :

We share all this because we are in a very unique and unexpected position these days, attending both Dem and Republican events, seeing the definite cultural differences between the two.

Maybe you have seen things like this too. If not, watch the next time you are at a cross-the-aisle or bipartisan event and see if you can pick up differences in tone, expecations, organization, and work product.

We think, ultimately, people who trend Democrat do so from a place of culture and emotion, and never really think about it. They just go where they feel they belong, regardless of whatever the party is doing policy-wise. ”I’m a Democrat!”, people say, ourselves included, because that’s where we always felt welcomed and validated.

People who are Republican might be so repulsed by the kumbaya stuff that one of the reasons they are Republican is that they don’t want to hear the stories about you growing up or listen to you recap what other people said (Inez, we say, looking at you, with love but also an equal measure of exasperation).

Just something to think about based on our our anecdotal experiences.