Ambinder: “Have Conservatives Gone Mad?”

Bob, I refer you once again to the Democracy Corps focus-groups reported last October:

In our focus group discussions, we quickly noted how they routinely used plural first person pronouns to describe a group of individuals (including all those in the room but extending far beyond those walls) who share a set of beliefs, knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that sets them apart from the majority of the country.
[...]
Conservative Republicans passionately believe that they represent a group of people who have been targeted by a popular culture and set of liberal elites – embodied in the liberal mainstream media – that mock their values and are actively working to advance the downfall of the things that matter most to them in their lives – their faith, their families, their country, and their freedom.

You’re exactly right. Now that the tilt and shape of the playing field is changing to accomodate everyone and no longer favors just white folks, the people formerly favored are crying foul. Some of it is just knee-jerk reactionism in the face of any change, but most of it is fear and paranoia based on a loss of entitlement. They see, feel and resent what’s happening. Of course they’re full of bullshit, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous should they act on those bullshit fears…So, to help aid in he easing of this fear, I suggest that this country get a gold ol’ glennbectomy.

GOOD ol’, not GOLD ol’.Due to my outright suckishness I should just stop commenting at all.

While I agree (’cause you’re right) with what you’re saying, I do have one quibble, something that I see over and over everywhere.”Whites” will not be a minority in 2050. At an estimated 47% of the population, “white” will still be the most populous “race”.

@ CescaBlogging at age 78?MY BLAWG! GET OFF IT! Damn neighborhood kids…things ain’t like they used to be. I used to blog with an onion hanging from my belt cuz the chicks dug it and we LIKED it that way! Got three posts to the hogshead back in the good old days. This keeps up, might as well move out to the Farm of Doom and start eatin’ cats. Fuck me…time for another post exposing Glenn Beck! A few more…just a few more…and the people will SEE!

Bob you are totally right – I have thought this despite the various stories out there, and the attempts by the moderates (who often really reach) to make the case that this is not what its fundamentally about.This is the source of the fear, the irrationality and the hatred too. And its a very toxic combination that always ends up hurting America. Every time there are two steps taken forward, they drag us back. People have to stand up to them and not back down out of correctness.

@Phydeaux

“Whites” will not be a minority in 2050. At an estimated 47% of the population, “white” will still be the most populous “race”.

You’re nit-picking. Unnecessarily, I might add. White conservatives fear the rise of non-whites. Period. Latinos, blacks, etc. The fact that non-whites will be 53% of the population scares the piss out of white conservatives and Republicans.

Exactly right, Bob.FYI, Jonah Goldberg wrote a brief piece in a rebuttal of sorts.Phydeaux said:

“Whites” will not be a minority in 2050. At an estimated 47% of the population, “white” will still be the most populous “race”.

Repubs won’t see it that way, because to them, it is white vs brown. And, brown will be 53% of the population.ZIRGAR said:

So, to help aid in he easing of this fear, I suggest that this country get a gold ol’ glennbectomy.

HA HA HA…..so true.

LMFAO CUZ AVI!

“It goes without saying, however, that advancing whiteness and repressing brownness are aren’t mutually exclusive and are equally about race. “Does it go without saying, then, that advancing brownness is also about racism?As I said last week, this is a lazy, disingenuous approach to a much deeper set of issues.Now, I understand some of it; I understand that there are some for whom the “change” in America is definitely about their racist tendencies and phobias. But to say it about the “Conservative base” (your words, not mine) is akin to saying that all liberals are uneducated and on welfare and only want to live off of government entitlements. (if you don’t know this, it is what conservatives think of liberals) Nothing could be further from the truth, but there it is; it’s an accusation that is based on what liberals say and fight for, even though you fight for far more than just this.I also said last week that I agree with Eric Holder; that America doesn’t have the balls to have a discussion about race, as in, America doesn’t have the balls to have a TWO-SIDED discussion about race. It’s all one sided; with Liberals pointing the fingers at white conservatives time after time at the drop of a hat. You have some white people in America afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of being called “racist” no matter what they say.I’m independent; I hold some liberal views and some conservative. I’m white. Am I racist, too? Am I racist because I just said that I’m not blind enough to ignore that the race discussion in America, if such a thing even exists, all flows one way?Sometimes I think of myself as an outsider to this entire discussion, and I see that in certain segments, the liberals have valid points. But I also see that in some segments, conservatives have valid points. This is the danger with swallowing a political ideology hook, line, and sinker. Ideology knows no limits, no restraints. With ideology, a group of people is either all one way, or all another…nothing in between. There can be no safe middle ground, for to allow such a middle ground is to lose the war on message. And what is your message? That all of conservative America is racist. You don’t have to say the word “all” for people to get your meaning.That’s why many people are afraid to say anything. Well, I’ll say it. You can call me racist until you are blue in the face if it suits you. Here it is:Until you are willing to have an honest discussion about race in America, no discussion will take place at all. Personally, I think you and many liberals like it that way. It’s far more easy to cry “Racism” than it is to have an actual honest dialogue about it. Why would you want to change anything when “Racism” works so well? Why would you want to form the landscape of America in equality when instead, you can stir up the masses in anger or fear (dependent upon whether you’re liberal or conservative)? The truth is, you like things this way. It’s convenient. It wins votes. It makes the Democrats the party of the minorities. Yet from personal observation, I see no difference.Liberals are more comfortable handing out condoms or providing abortions to brown people than they are with actually helping them and working with them to improve their personal situations. Hand them a box of rubbers, give them a welfare check and hope you never see them again. Doesn’t that make you feel all “Christiany”?To a liberal, from my observation, a “brown person” isn’t a person at all. He’s a focus group. He’s a bloc of votes. He’s a means to an end. The brown person in liberal America is always poor, always uneducated, and always persecuted. But this is somehow not racism.Getting to the point, to a liberal, a brown person is a reason, an excuse to forward the entire liberal agenda. When you speak of “brown people”, you do not see individuals. The language you use proves this beyond doubt. You see a focus group. I call it out as I see it, and as I see it, that is the worst sort of racism there is. In the guise of helping your brown “friends”, you are actually making things worse for them.You are trying to legislate what can only be taught at home. Race relations start at the family level, not at the Federal level. It begins one-on-one, not on MSNBC or CNN with two sides shouting at each other, or in the columns of the print media, or on the screens that view the internet.You have it backwards. You are keeping it backwards. You like it that way. Racism.I’m a racist, you’re a racist, everybody in America is a racist. What have we accomplished? Precisely nothing. For all of your shouting, all of your finger pointing, all of your rhetoric, you have accomplished nothing. Despite the growing number of Federal programs or Federal mandates, race in America is still about dividing people according to color. That’s a liberal accomplishment, Bob. It’s also a worthless one. We’re not supposed to be dividing ourselves; we’re supposed to be uniting ourselves.Angry, finger-pointing rhetoric never accomplishes something positive. Haven’t you learned this life-lesson yet? Why should you? Why, when “racism” works so well for liberals?If you want to change America, change yourself. If you want to change “race” relations in America, change yourself. Stop shouting “racism”, and get your hands dirty. Stop viewing people of color as a divided group, as a separate group of Americans, as a focus group. Start seeing the individual, instead of the crowd.I know, I know. The crowd gives you more votes. But, if you really want to change things, it won’t be about votes; it will be because your heart breaks when you walk a mile in your brown friend’s shoes and you suddenly see this person as a human being for the first time. Bob, most people (liberals included) don’t even do this for their “white” friends. How are you ever going to do it for your brown ones? If you can’t stop yourself and feel the emotions of your neighbor, think the thoughts they are thinking, and listen to the inner dialogue they are having inside, the same dialogue you have inside, how are you ever going to see them as human?If you can cry out “racist”, and label the entire conservative base as racist, you merely prove that you do not see groups of people as individual human beings. Until you do, you are as racist as the people you accuse.I realize that viewing yourself in this mirror won’t be pleasant, and your natural tendency might be to respond equally as unpleasantly. Like I said, call me a racist if you have to, but between you and I, we both know the truth. Your accusation isn’t truth; it’s just another false accusation. If it makes you feel better to say it, then go ahead. I won’t hold it against you.Before you do, however, I ask that you do me a favor. I ask that for five minutes, you pay attention to your own inner dialogue, and your own thoughts. I ask you to count how many of those thoughts weren’t about you, and of those thoughts not about you, how many weren’t in relation to you. The answer will more than likely be zero, if you are human. What does that have to do with race?If you can’t stop thinking about yourself for five minutes, how on earth can you claim to not be racist? How on earth can you claim some higher moral ground, when your every thought is about yourself? It’s a conundrum, I admit. It’s a problem we ALL face, every single member of the human race. But it is the most essential of all human qualities; that we are all, at our most basic level, almost totally selfish.Liberals and Conservatives alike share this trait. And yet we point our fingers at each other as if we somehow have moved beyond basic human nature, and left our white conservative friends back in the days of Kunta Kinte. It’s not true. You are, at your foundation, concerned almost totally with yourself. We all are.Let’s start there. Let’s start our race discussions right there. That’s where discussions like this belong, at the most basic human levels. What good is it to love one group of people and hate another? In reality, when you face the truth, you can see that dividing America according to color is something that both sides are guilty of. But doesn’t the individual inside of you want to see things differently? Your words tell me that you want to see yourself as a kind, loving man, to whom color makes no difference. You’re not there yet, Bob. You’re still using color as a weapon. That sort of behavior dehumanizes the very people you want to help, if you really do want to help them.At some point, America has to learn that when it comes to race, there is no black, white, red, yellow or brown. There is only the human race, and we are all bound by common traits, common dreams, and common hopes. At the macro level, you can’t get there. But that’s where most liberals are. It’s not pretty, but I thought it was about time someone told you the truth.

@ PPPTHAT is one long-ass post to express such a profound degree of stubborn, obtuse, batshit myopia in service of vapid right-wing talking point false equivalency.From early on, with the “Isn’t advancing the brown race just as racist?” crap, which utterly ignores the immense social, cultural, legal, financial, academic and every other fucking thing that’s different between the class of exploiters and the class of the exploited……to your closing bit of utterly craptastic horseshit, “…there is no black, yellow or brown…” bastardization of pure genetics and semantics to deny the core basis for the shameful, harmful, ugly thinking that we CALL racism, and about which you disingenuously claim to WISH AMERICA COULD, jeepers folks and gosh!, have a REAL HONEST discussion. You know…without all those nasty accusations about historical fact and contemporary reality getting in the way of conservatives recoiling in fear and horror from the ungrateful and uppity demands of maids, gardeners and kitchen help.Take a little walk through the GOPs Southern Strategy (among other elements of American political history) and tell me again how CESCA is using color as weapon.You stunningly obtuse farkwit. Un-fucking-believable.Not merely poor thinking, but demonstrating a profound, willful ignorance of the facts that simply refuses to engage reality. If you really want to have an HONEST discussion about race, you’re gonna have to first find some position that remotely orbits something that might almost be confused with a fact…cuz the sort of insistent blindness that infects what you posted in this thread just doesn’t hunt.

cousinavi,Your comment sounds like every angry liberal comment I’ve ever read. There’s a little bit of cussing, a little bit of intellectual superiority, a handful of personal insults, and nothing more.You prove my point more eloquently than I ever could.Which is why we still won’t have a discussion, will we, Avi? Because you don’t want to have one. You like it this way. It allows you to treat me, who you do not know at all, like shit, which is the foundation of what is wrong with America today. Do you feel better?Did you just score some points for your brown friends? Or did you maybe expose yourself a little more?

@ PPPJust as another example of how fucked up your argument is:

If you can cry out “racist”, and label the entire conservative base as racist, you merely prove that you do not see groups of people as individual human beings. Until you do, you are as racist as the people you accuse.

Identifying a group of people based on a shared political ideology IS NOT RACISM. They are not identified by race (even though the VAST majority are all white). They are identified by sharing a political vision.Pointing out that aspects of that shared political ideology are, in genesis and practice, racist in nature and consequence IS NOT RACISM. It is an assessment of the effects of promoting a particular brand of political analysis.Identifying numerous supporters of this political perspective as being TRULY racists, and painting those who choose to stand with them AS racists IS NOT RACISM.It may not be accurate or warranted in your view – “Don’t call ME a racist just because I march next to man who carries a sign that says NIGGAR!” – but it’s certainly NOT beyond the pale to call anyone who joins WITH racists A RACIST.Nevertheless, in any case, so labeling such people IS NOT RACISM. They are not so labeled because of their color…they are so labeled because of the people with whom they associate and the policies they support.So, despite your rather nonsensical claim to the contrary, identifying large swaths of the “conservative base” as racists IS NOT RACISM.Until you’re able to COMPREHEND the term, you ought to stop tossing it about so cavalierly, and you ought to immediately cease accusing Cesca of doing just that.

Call me fanciful, but I do think that the latest push to limit abortion and contraception access is in response to the coming demographic changes. Oklahoma is not really the locational choice of non-whites.White women are choosing to work instead of raise families. One way to stop that is to make them tethered to their sexual choices. You will have a hard time convincing me that these conservative blowhards give a crap about the moral issues surrounding choice – be it contraception or abortion. They just don’t want white women to stop procreating.I saw an interesting interview on Jon Stewart the other night. The author said that Italians have 1 1/4 children in spite of living in the same country with the Pope.I am sure that the conservatives know that this is a threat.Call me crazy, but I cannot believe that Gingrich has not already thought about this.

Cousin Avi,I’m not calling you or Bob a racist for calling white people racists. I’m calling you racists for perpetuating the color divide, and for not seeing “brown people” as anything other than a group apart.

@ cousinavi….I was gonna go at PPP with a bit less “enthusiasm”.I am finding it hard to even break down what PPP has written, and to even truly understand it. I am not quite sure if he was directing this at Bob or using the word “you” in a rhetorical sense. There are just too many points made to even try and address. I think I will leave that to more “enthusiastic” people.The point that I think is most important to understand is that the vast majority of our “wonderfully bland and homogenized” middle America is just too freaking scared of “any” change, no less than having to deal with the fact that we now have a black President.As a typical NY Jew born in mid century America, when I grew up in Brooklyn NY, I was the majority. It was not until I got older and actually started to travel and meet people all over the country, that I was faced with the realization that in most other places in this country, that did not border on an Ocean, I was indeed the odd man out. I saw a lot of shit that I did not like and a lot of anger at the perceived notion that I was NY elitist, with the unsaid fact that I was the “Jew”. I am not trying to generalize the entire Midwest, and I don’t want to be called a bigot, but I didn’t really like what I saw. There are just too many people that fear things that they don’t understand and this is why these people “cling to what they know”. Since all they know is how to be white and bland anything that approaches change and progress becomes the enemy. The vacuum that is created by this fear is just waiting to be filled by whatever trash happens by.

Anyone in America (or anywhere else…but America most assuredly), “I don’t even SEE color. It’s just a non-issue to me. In order to move ahead, we have to stop looking at people as black, brown or yellow,” is either ignorant, willfully blind or both.When Andrew Breitbart and his little preppy camera clone can attack and destroy a community organization who’s main mission in life is to increase the level of participation of poor and minority voters in the political process; when the GOP starts demanding power bills as proof of residency – a strategy that clearly obstructs minority and poor voters from casting ballots, and so long as the prison industrial complex is locking up severely disproportionate numbers of minorities WHILE being brown in Arizona can get your Phoenix born ass locked up until you prove it, ANYONE who refuses to RECOGNIZE that the color lines are ALREADY DRAWN, VERY REAL and ain’t going away because disingenuous conservatard fuckwits like you pretend to sing Koombyah, is not only part of the problem, but an obstacle to EVER having the “honest conversation” you’re not capable of having.

Anybody see this?The party of no … credibilityA look at Snopes.com shows rumors about Obama to be more numerous and vicious than the ones about Bush wereGood stuff.

right on, Avi!This is what Colbert is getting at when he does his schtick about not being able to see race. Don’t forget, his entire persona is parody of the wingnut talking heads- he’s pointing out how rediculous it is when the assholes perpetuating rasist viewpoints try to pretend that skin color doesn’t matter.

Avi,I didn’t say there aren’t lines, or that there is no color. Stop putting words in my mouth.What I DID say was that you are perpetuating the lines, and making “race” almost totally political. Again, that’s racism.You are engaging in the very same tactics that the people you hate are using. You are politicizing color. Can’t you see that?I’m not blind. I see color. But I don’t divide it. I see the individual, who is, in dreams, hopes, and thoughts, just like me.Do you know why I am such a supporter of President Obama? It’s not because he’s young, or cool, or black. I don’t celebrate the fact that he is black at all. I celebrate the fact that he governs above color.One of the mistakes that so many liberals made, and have subsequently abandoned him over, was they believed President Obama would help the blacks, the hispanics, the unions and the gays. When they discovered that he wasn’t going to govern in this way at all, they began attacking him, as if he had never told them exactly how he would lead.I support him not for being black or liberal, but because he honestly tries to govern in a manner that is best for ALL Americans. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here; I think President Obama is the most Independent President America has ever seen. I think he is a lightning rod for the extremists on both sides for this very reason.But I’ve heard liberals who have called him a white-man sellout for this.Does he see color? Sure he does, but color isn’t a political issue for him. You can say that, and still recognize the problems our country has. It doesn’t mean you are racist. It doesn’t mean you are a conservatard fuckwit.But you use those words as a fashion statement; as evidence of your liberalism and your superior moral view, when all along, the fact that you use them at all to describe me, someone you do not know at all, proves otherwise.It proves that to you, words are merely weapons to be thrown about, without regard for their power to wound or destroy. You can’t see me as human, in the same way that you are human. You use your words, clever as you think them to be, and you attempt to wound me so I’ll shut up and accept whatever you say.Take a deep look inside, Avi, and then ask yourself what you would do in my shoes. What would you be thinking if someone called you a Conservatard fuckwit.My point, Avi, is that if you can call me, who you do not know, such a thing, how can anyone believe you are capable of honest discussion about the issue you use as a political machete? Your words are designed to sting, and if I did not already know that, they might have stung. But in the end, you are left being the hateful one, not having received the response from me that you so desired. How will you respond to that?You are angry because I have called you a racist, and you cannot defend yourself against it. The more you respond, the nore you prove my point, and the angrier you get. Why not pause for a bit, and reflect? Maybe I’m right. Not one hundred percent right, but maybe I have a point that you’ve not considered?

Seriously, PPP.It’s about time someone reminded YOU of the truth(s).The conservative company you keep, and whose pathetic non-equivalent gripes you’re relaying here on their behalf, are based on the fact that had there not been:Slavery, and slave-raping, for hundreds of years after Plymouth Rock.A constitution written by slave owners with all the rights recognized and protected, unless of course you were 3/4 of a person, or a black skinned person living in sub-human bondage.“Separate, but equal”— Jim CrowA Confederacy.A Civil War– “Give Em’ Hell, Fifty-four!“The KKK.Brown vs. Board/Little Rock Central HighEmmit TillRosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.Woolworth Lunch counter sit-ins.The Freedom Riders.Medgar Evers.”I Have A Dream!”The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.More KKK.Voter Literacy tests and poll taxes.MLK assassination.Watts.The Southern Strategy.Fred Hampton.Reagan’s veto of The Civil Rights restoration Act.Rush LimbaughKatrina, motherfuckers.Mitt Romney– “Who let tha dogs out?!”on and on, and fucking on– culminating with the Tea Party and the all-too-revealing election of Barack Hussein Obama and the Bob McDonnells and Jim DeMints of the Neo-Confederacy.You and your conservative pals fed up with being painted with a racist brush might have had a legit gripe in this “debate” if not for the inconvenience of reality.But you don’t.According to you, and Southern whites, black people are beating a dead horse dragging down the discourse.Goooooo Fu*k yourselves. Tell them I said so, and if they have beef, come see me. You get no pity, or shelter, or genuine consensus with your half-assed observations here.(Sorry, Bob. I speak for myself and I don’t mean to over-step any boundaries.)The Tea Party are racists. If you’re not, and you consider yourself supportive of the Tea Party, you’re a minority. The exception– not the rule.Oh, but I know. Frank Ricci is the new American hero. The New Rosa. Proof that white people got it bad in America and the liberals are just race-pimps trying to monopolize black voters.It’s YOU that still doesn’t get “it.”No apologies or no shame.Just resentment, false-equivalencies, and a douchey victim complex.Fuck your “issues” and “policy disagreements.”

@ PPPI am so sick of this right wing bullshit tactic of pure projection and outright lying.When and where did I ever call YOU a racist?”I see color, but I don’t divide it.”WTF does that even mean? How can you SEE color, and yet insist that black and white are just the same. The fundamental disconnect seems to escape you, and that ain’t the only one.”I see everyone as individuals who are just like me.”Would that they WERE JUST LIKE YOU, you fuckwit, when it comes time face a criminal trial, or be stopped by the cops, or apply for a mortgage or a goddamn job…Your bullshit “We’re all just people folks one like th’ other” makes me absolutely want to vomit.I don’t use words as a fashion statement, you myopic, insistently stubborn asshole. I use them because they communicate what I think…and I think you are disingenuous, full of shit, backwards, obtuse, willfully blind and utterly stuffed with rancid cock.I frankly don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not you, or anyone else so incapable of honest discourse; who invests such effort in making such weak arguments – shallow, poorly considered and so disconnected from reality as to amount to nothing than more than the same sort of imbecilic obstructionism I’ve come to expect from the pathetic glop of shit to which the right has devolved – ever responds in any sane manner.I’m not trying to persuade you, you narcissistic shit…I’m just saying you’re an idiot and absolutely part of the problem, not the solution you’re convinced you represent.Yeah…YOU called ME a racist. And despite the stunning, backward, wrongheaded, discredited, blithering bullshit that comes out of your mouth, I HAVEN’T responded in kind, no matter what you imagine or assert.Just like the rest of your yammering crap, that’s simply another complete falsehood upon which you rely; a premise without foundation looking to support a conclusion that’s simply unrelated to FACTS.SHOW ME WHERE I CALLED YOU RACIST, ya fuckin LIAR.One last thing, you stubborn cock – I’m not angry. I’m tired of listening to idiots like you yammer about how you don’t see color, or you do but don’t divide, or how we need to move beyond ethnic labels, while standing shoulder to shoulder with those who smile and nod and insist that they WOULD rent to minorities, there just ain’t any around these parts.As for defending myself, your insistence that I can’t…jesus…how many invented things do you need to crank up to feel like you’re actually making an argument?The depth and breadth of your fantasy projection is something you ought to check into. Seriously. Before even attempting political thought again, you have some serious problems with reality that need to be addressed.

Right about now it is open sesame with race issues in America and this black president has escalated that fact enormously, no matter what other couched lame excuses are given for dissension. IT’s ALL ABOUT RACE,stupid! Loud, flagrant and no longer in the closet about race, ‘they’ want back ‘their America’, which presumably means they want back their white president and desire the focus to be back on the whites. This, despite the fact that many countries are coming to terms with the ‘of colour’ facets of their population, yet, America sad to say, cannot rise to accept their racialness, preferring to retrogress. Yes, I am shocked daily at the depth of the ignorance and hatefulness, as the taunts of superpower prowess only appears to be in financial??/long ago political terms, not mentality wise. Boy, do I thank God for the sanity of Caribbeaness, whose culturalism and beauty lies in the hues, shades, tones and mixtures of peoples living without such open hostility, side by side.P.S All that HATE that is being stirred up by the politicians, teabaggers, hosts, media, will unfortunately get out of hand and turn back on them.P.P.S Still love the U.S.A, and I know it is not all who think like this, but…… !

the conservatives argument, as I understand it, is something like this, ‘actually, it’s you who are the racist- with your special treatment for minorities. It’s patronizing. It’s you who’s assuming that blacks can’t succeed in our society without your help.’It fit’s in with their worldview. Namely that some races are better than others. For these people, blacks are lazy and prone to sinful behaviour — that’s why they can’t pull themselves up by the bootstraps like the asians and other minorities do. And now that they have their equality, they should be able to help themselves.Obviously, this is utter bullshit! This kind of thinking conveniently presupposes that we live in a post-racial world with true equality of oppurtunity.

Well Im glad CousinAvi and MrBrink took care of business here… We’re having a tornado and im coughing up a lung and deffinantly dont have the energy.Ill just say this whole conversation reminded me of a comment I read a few weeks ago on some wingnut forum.The person said – “Blacks actually had it better under slavery, because they had a bed and food everynight, and the civil war was really just about states rights.”Now like it or not, that way of thiking IS out there. Pretending that color doesn’t exist really doesn’t solve any problems. In a more evolved perfect world maybe you could ignore, but thats not where we live.

It’s a classic tactic of Conservatives. I know you are- but what am I?

Ah, yes, the famous Pee-Wee Herman Defense.

Mr. Brink,I don’t need a history lesson. I know that stuff as well as you do. You miss the point, and along with Avi, keep proving mine for me.You cannot be taken seriously as wanting to have an honest discussion about race so long as you say things like:”Just resentment, false-equivalencies, and a douchey victim complex.Fuck your “issues” and “policy disagreements.” “Resorting to name calling, as usual, magnifies the weakness or your stance. I understand that you want to make things better, but you are going about it in the wrong way, and now, you are attacking the wrong person.I think the record here speaks pretty plainly that you cannot label me as a conservative, but if it makes you feel better to do so, be my guest.I’ve said several times now that I am willing to have a serious discussion about race, and so far, all I have received in return is name-calling and hate filled rhetoric.

Cousin avi,”When and where did I ever call YOU a racist?”You do so by implication. Labeling me as a conservatard fuckwit, and then saying:”Identifying numerous supporters of this political perspective as being TRULY racists, and painting those who choose to stand with them AS racists IS NOT RACISM. “You label me a conservative so that you can accuse me of standing with them. Then, when I call you on it, you get even more belligerent and even more insulting.Avi, CAN YOU VIEW SOMEONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU AS A HUMAN BEING?Because you sure as hell aren’t showing it here. Right now, you remind me of the shouting Tea Partiers you hate so much.You aren’t communicating. You’re yelling at me. There’s a difference. While some of your words might seem like the type an educated sort would use, the rest of your rants are nothing more than temper tantrums aimed at intimidating me into shutting up. I’m not shutting up. You’ve proven yourself to be incapable of having a rational discussion about this problem.Oh yeah, Avi, I DID just call it a problem. You claim I can’t see reality when the truth is, I have a different way of dealing with it, of solving it. You disagree with with it, and so you resort to yelling.I’ll end this comment and start another to answer your questions.

“Resorting to name calling, as usual, magnifies the weakness or your stance.”

My stance was perfectly summarized and articulated in plain-spoken terms, well beyond your cherry-picked description of the sum.PPP said:

I agree with Eric Holder; that America doesn’t have the balls to have a discussion about race, as in, America doesn’t have the balls to have a TWO-SIDED discussion about race. It’s all one sided

Go ahead. Tell us again how liberals are race pimps and conservatives are fed up with being called racists. And then go tell your conservative clique they don’t have the balls to admit they couldn’t get elected without the openly racist/confederate southern white vote.Keep f-ing that chicken!Policies based on the “freedom” to allow states to implement segregation laws, or even forced pregnancy, is today’s conservatives’ idea of “liberty.” If I need a vote for equality for women and black people, I’m sure as hell not turning to a conservative republican for good reason.Sorry if Movement Conservatism’s gripes about the deficit and states’ rights gets lost and marginalized in its inherent and historical trail of racism and segregation.Maybe if civil-liberties-liberals could get passed the huge voting block of southern-white-republican-conservative-racists, we wouldn’t have to obstruct policies based on discrimination?Liberals should just ignore it all and let black people and women fight for their own equality.Snickering Rush Limbaugh racism and Strom Thurmond lawmakers are the core and contemporary legacy of movement conservatism.So, to sum up. Instituting protections against discrimination= bad and racist.Allowing racists to decide the course of the country= Good.Goooooo, fudge yourself!With all due respect, of course, PPP.

Avi,”WTF does that even mean? How can you SEE color, and yet insist that black and white are just the same. The fundamental disconnect seems to escape you, and that ain’t the only one. “It’s not a disconnect. It’s a rational way of telling you that color does not define a person. Being the civil rights expert that you want to be, I would have thought you’d have agreed with that way of thinking. Apparently, you’re not ready for that.”Would that they WERE JUST LIKE YOU, you fuckwit, when it comes time face a criminal trial, or be stopped by the cops, or apply for a mortgage or a goddamn job…Your bullshit “We’re all just people folks one like th’ other” makes me absolutely want to vomit.”Your way of dealing with this problem isn’t helping. I can only change my community, and maybe as many other people who will actually take the time to listen. Even then, I am limited in my effectiveness, because I cannot force people to think a certain way. All I can do is never quit, never stop fighting for what is right, never allow a bigot an opportunity to believe that I will stand aside and allow him to put his hate into action. I can tell you one thing that does not work: Throwing temper tantrums. I’m pretty sure Martin Luther King agreed. You might want to read some of his work. Like I said, your method doesn’t work.”I’m tired of listening to idiots like you yammer about how you don’t see color, or you do but don’t divide, or how we need to move beyond ethnic labels, while standing shoulder to shoulder with those who smile and nod and insist that they WOULD rent to minorities, there just ain’t any around these parts.”So now I stand shoulder to shoulder with racists? But you never called me a racist? The distinction must have escaped me. By implication, you sure as hell did call me a racist.I forgive you.Now stop with your tantrums. You aren’t going to intimidate me; it’s not even remotely possible. I have not ignored reality, like you claim. I live my life the best way I know how. I set an example for my daughter and my friends that works. I cannot make reparations for the sins of our fathers, so what I have left to me is what I have done, and will do. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a damn sight better than running around crying “Racist!” at every turn.Avi, your way DOES NOT WORK! People simply do not take you seriously.Concentrate on what YOU can do, because try as you might, you cannot make up for four hundred years of oppression any better than I can. No one can. Crying racist is not going to solve anything. And that hate in your heart is going to burn the same kind of hole it burned in the hearts of hateful bigots all over the world.Shouting at your enemy only encourages him to attack. God, that sounds familiar.

Hi PPP, This devolvement in political discourse is nothing but racism. It’s not about conservatives vs. liberals. That’s what those that are funding this tea party crap will have others believe; framing it in a political context is just camouflage for the real issue, that issue being an african-american is the President of these United (for how long I don’t know) States and the bigots and racists are in a state of panic. Why do I say that it’s not a conservative vs. liberal issue? Because truth be told, more than half of the african-american community have far more conservative views than liberal views. You can chalk that up to good ol’ ‘Christian values’. Silly I know, considering it was those same ‘Christian values’ perpetuated by the slave masters that kept our ancestors in chains for hundreds of years. Go figure. African Americans remain democrats because it is the Democratic party that signed the Civil Rights Act into law and it is this same party that they have faired better under not just politically but economically for the past 40 years or so. Racism in my opinion is the belief that one race is superior to and therefore should rule over another. It is also the systematic terrorizing of one race by another. These tea party protests are nothing more than KKK rallies without white sheets and cross burnings. The signs depicting a sitting President as Hitler, a monkey, and a diabolical murdering doctor, not to mention the sign I will never forget, “We’ve come unarmed … this time”; all of this is intimidation tactics to warn ‘the boy’ to back down or they’ll have to put him in his place. Nevermind that his agenda for this country is far more to their benefit economically than the Republicans’ agenda will ever be; nevermind that under his leadership they’ve received the biggest tax cut in decades; nevermind that he’s trying to stop Wall Street’s raping of our banking system. He’s a socialist, a communist, a muslim. Hell, he’s not even a ‘real american’! How is it possible that he was even allowed at the front door of the White House, let alone allowed to be a temporary resident?! There is a disrespectfulness regarding the President that has developed as a result of Obama taking office that I have never seen in all of my years on this earth. I know you’ve noticed it too PPP. You cannot tell me that this disrespectful attitude is based upon political ideology. Clinton was a polarizing President in his time but he never dealt with the vitriol that Obama is contending with. You are very right about one thing PPP(Holder too); until this country has a real conversation about racism, which would mean everyone taking a good, long, hard, honest look at themselves and start addressing the issue of fear that is prevalent in racism (fear of change, fear of ‘other’, fear of powerlessness, fear of extinction, etc.), racism will never go away and always be a predominant component of our political culture.

@PPPWhat the hell?

Does it go without saying, then, that advancing brownness is also about racism?As I said last week, this is a lazy, disingenuous approach to a much deeper set of issues.

First, the word “racism” doesn’t appear anywhere in my post. Second, even if it had, are you seriously denying that this is a major component of the right? If so, you’re blind. Third, racism implies the majority repressing the minority.

Mr Brink,”Instituting protections against discrimination= bad and racist.”Did I really say that?Really?

Horrible posting. Let me make this a little better to read.Hi PPP,This devolvement in political discourse is nothing but racism. It’s not about conservatives vs. liberals. That’s what those that are funding this tea party crap will have others believe; framing it in a political context is just camouflage for the real issue, that issue being an african-american is the President of these United (for how long I don’t know) States and the bigots and racists are in a state of panic.Why do I say that it’s not a conservative vs. liberal issue? Because truth be told, more than half of the african-american community have far more conservative views than liberal views. You can chalk that up to good ol’ ‘Christian values’. Silly I know, considering it was those same ‘Christian values’ perpetuated by the slave masters that kept our ancestors in chains for hundreds of years. Go figure.African Americans remain democrats because it is the Democratic party that signed the Civil Rights Act into law and it is this same party that they have faired better under not just politically but economically for the past 40 years or so.Racism in my opinion is the belief that one race is superior to and therefore should rule over another. It is also the systematic terrorizing of one race by another. These tea party protests are nothing more than KKK rallies without white sheets and cross burnings. The signs depicting a sitting President as Hitler, a monkey, and a diabolical murdering doctor, not to mention the sign I will never forget, “We’ve come unarmed … this time”; all of this is intimidation tactics to warn ‘the boy’ to back down or they’ll have to put him in his place. Nevermind that his agenda for this country is far more to their benefit economically than the Republicans’ agenda will ever be; nevermind that under his leadership they’ve received the biggest tax cut in decades; nevermind that he’s trying to stop Wall Street’s raping of our banking system. He’s a socialist, a communist, a muslim. Hell, he’s not even a ‘real american’! How is it possible that he was even allowed at the front door of the White House, let alone allowed to be a temporary resident?!There is a disrespectfulness regarding the President that has developed as a result of Obama taking office that I have never seen in all of my years on this earth. I know you’ve noticed it too PPP. You cannot tell me that this disrespectful attitude is based upon political ideology. Clinton was a polarizing President in his time but he never dealt with the vitriol that Obama is contending with.You are very right about one thing PPP(Holder too); until this country has a real conversation about racism, which would mean everyone taking a good, long, hard, honest look at themselves and start addressing the issue of fear that is prevalent in racism (fear of change, fear of ‘other’, fear of powerlessness, fear of extinction, etc.), racism will never go away and always be a predominant component of our political culture.

Bob,”racism implies the majority repressing the minority”# 3.Racism has nothing to do with majority or minority and everything to do with what is in a person’s heart. Majorities have the numbers available to them to racially oppress a minority, and that, too, would be racism, but I think you misunderstood my point. I’m not saying that there is no racism on the Right. I AM saying that it isn’t as prevalent as you suggest.#2. I’m denying that racism is a major component of the Right, yes. Racism is a major component for a certain segment of the Right, but you chose to lump everyone together.#1. My bad. Instead, you used words like “browning”, race, whiteness, etc. It’s essentially the same thing, and you know it.I knew when I left my comment that I might stir up a hornet’s nest here. This is an emotional topic for almost everyone. I’m not trying to offend anyone. I’m only trying to open the curtain a little further.Is there fear on the Right? Yes, but for the normal America white conservative, it isn’t hateful. If I had to call it anything, I’d call it JEALOUSY. Or maybe a mixture of them saying to themselves, “Yeah, I know America has treated minorities like crap, and I really want to do something about that, but what about me? I didn’t cause their suffering, I didn’t own slaves, and I don’t discriminate in my hiring practices or what not. Why am I treated like my needs aren’t as important as theirs?”Bob, you do realize that there are millions upon millions of white people on the Right who are not rich, do not own businesses, have credit problems, and do not hold hate or anger in their hearts towards minorities? Why are they labeled along with extremists? Why do you insist that the extremists on the Right speak for everyone on the Right? What do you hope to accomplish with this?

Bravo, cousinavi and Mr. Brink!!@PPP….not much left to say in refutation of your original post, as it was said so well by cousin and Mr. B..Just my 2 freaking cents, but you are WRONG.And whoever said that you are relaying conservative thought[more like conservative phony memes-crap), nailed it.

@PPP:

# 3.Racism has nothing to do with majority or minority and everything to do with what is in a person’s heart.

Bigotry has to do with what’s in a person’s heart. What we’re talking about here — racism and racial discrimination — is the dominant white race suggesting that the black or latino races are criminals and usurpers, and therefore choosing to continued repression of those races for political and social advantage.

@PPP– “Instituting protections against discrimination= bad and racist.”PPP said:

Did I really say that?

Really?

Yes. You did.

as I see it, that is the worst sort of racism there is. In the guise of helping your brown “friends”, you are actually making things worse for them.

@PPP and BobJust to clarify….be careful with the terms “majority” and “minority”. Look at South Africa during apartheid. There were tons more blacks and much fewer whites, but the whites were clearly in charge and obviously, horribly discriminatory. Same can be said in many countries where women outnumber men (women generally make up 51% or more of populations)….yet in every case, whether women are in the majority or minority in numbers, they are STILL a minority. Racism, Sexism are both terms implying discrimination against someone because of a factor they are born with…color or gender. The “majority” in general terms are those in power and the “minority” are those without the power.@PPPSecond important point that bears repeating….I think Avi was trying to say that race does matter, just as gender does. Yes we all share some common human characteristics that should bring us together. However, as a white, male person you will never face the barriers that blacks, hispanics, or even women do. Race DOES matter, fundamentally in who we are. An truly honest discussion of race cannot take place until you stop pretending as if racial differences don’t exist. By ignoring the fact and saying, let’s just pretend the differences aren’t there….will never make those differences go away. It’s naive wishful thinking.Bob is fundamentally correct….the whole “we want our country back” is rooted in fear of “The Other” as represented by our black President and his foreign sounding name. That is so clear, if you don’t see it, then you’re willfully being blind to reality.

@ PPPIn addition to having your head jammed pretty much all the way up your ass in terms of having a peek at reality, or in basing what you think passes for argument on little things like facts or reality, I’m sick and fucking tired of your condescending attitude towards my use of language.You can fucking well kiss my ass, you lying piece of shit. If you want to play by grade three grammar rules – which from the quality of your thought would seem to match your intellectual ability – schedule a meeting with Michael Steele. He knows ALL about your sort of color blindness.You twist my words to invent – to FABRICATE the accusation that I called you a racist. Your tactic is pathetic and time worn. You and your cunting teabagger idiot cohorts yammering about how you don’t hate minorities…you don’t even SEE color. The degree of disingenuous horseshit required to say the words makes me ill. That you really BELIEVE it is clear enough, but it’s still pathetic that anyone would try to pass that off as reasonable, accurate or a worthy position to support. It is, as I’ve said before, a matter of personal delusion on your part, and an obstacle to progress for society as a whole. YOU are the problem.Calling you a fucking brainless moron doesn’t detract one iota from the truth of my argument, you festering gimp. That you can’t manage coherent thought and immediately resort to picking at my peppery language is merely one more in the long list of right wing tactics to avoid the facts. “Oh…you use naughty words. THAT just PROVES MY POINT!” You giant, sucking vortex of an asshole.”I cannot make reparations for the sins of my fathers.”Yes, you can, you lazy fuckwit. And so long as you continue to profit from those sins; to reap the benefits of genocide and slavery, Jim Crow laws and every other systemic, institutional benefit bestowed on the soon-to-be former majority, you are obligated to do so; to recognize that the colors YOU DON’T SEE are the BASIS for inequality and repression.But, of course, refusing to SEE color is one easy way to avoid taking responsibility for finding the solution. It’s merely the right wing’s underhanded flip-flop to avoid even recognizing the problem. Worse still, you had the unmitigated balls to go so far as to say, “I’m the solution! Ignorance is the way! It’s YOU who see color, and politicize color that are the TRUE racists!”As if color weren’t already political.The depth and breadth of your stubbornly obtuse thinking makes me want to literally punch your teeth down your throat.You arrogant cock. How dare you quote MLK at me? You can jam that up your Eldridge Cleaver, motherfucker.The argument that MLK’s METHODS worked is just a little blind to the fact that CITIES BURNED in the wake of his assassination. Not to take anything away from his tireless efforts on behalf of civil rights, but the argument that peaceful singing of Psalms from the pulpit is the ONLY factor that brought change to the law is just more of your fucked up revisionist history, and it earns you ANOTHER bag of dicks to happily munch your way through.Your vapid, vacuous assertion that “color does not define an individual” is just more wrapping yourself in the costume of equality while refusing to admit some very plain FACTS: That COLOR does define individuals when they are pulled over in Arizona and asked for identification, or stopped for speeding in Mississippi, or applying for a job almost anywhere; that COLOR does define groups of people living in absolutely segregated communities in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, Miami and every single other metropolitan area of your color blind country; that when YOU ARROGANTLY say color does not define an individual, people of color look at you like you have three heads all of them lacking a fucking brain and think, “This stupid motherfucker doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”You stubborn, willfully blind piece of shit! No…color does not DEFINE an individual. Bravo for you, you fair-minded forward thinking man of the people. Unfortunately, COLOR all too often DOES DEFINE the experience of that person within a racist society – a society YOU are neither willing to look at, recognize OR change. You are incapable of finding solutions BECAUSE you refuse to admit the nature of the facts.Lastly, I told you before…and now I’m telling you again. I’m not angry. I’m not throwing tantrums. Stop characterizing my language and lack of patience with your ignorant, backward, stupid, ill-informed, poorly educated, obtuse, imbecilic thinking as some sort of childish refusal to play by your cocked up rules of proper debate. In short, eat ANOTHER bag of dicks, you stupid sonuvabutch.When you manage to come up with an argument, a perspective, a thought…a single fucking SENTENCE that doesn’t drip ignorance and leave a trail of shit smears on the ground behind it, I’ll develop more patience for your position and engage in something you might find rather more acceptable. So long as you insist on coming off like some sort of petulant cross between Bill Buckley and David Duke while employing the tactics and strategy of George Wallace, you can take a flying leap off the end of your very short intellect.Now, you fucking spooge stain…get fucked.

Mr. Brink,Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’m all for protection against discrimination.The quote you cited has to do with crying “racism” at every turn, and with generalizing the issue rather than discussing it. Lumping every conservative into the extremist category is not getting us anywhere. That was the meaning behind my words.

Irish Girl,Thanks. To clarify, I’m not saying race doesn’t exist, and that has been part of my contention against Avi. He’s spinning this argument in an attempt to make me look like I’m not in touch with reality when I’m well aware of what people of color face.

@ PPPYOU called ME a racist. You called Cesca a racist. Both for simply recognizing precisely what you NOW say you are well aware of, yet which formed the basis for calling US racists. You flip-flopping fuckwit!You SAID I called you a racist. I did no such thing. YOU LIED.And now you accuse me of spinning the argument?Fuck you, you prevaricating cockhead.

Cousin Avi,”You and your cunting teabagger idiot cohorts yammering about how you don’t hate minorities…you don’t even SEE color. “Who is the liar now, Avi? Where did I ever say I don’t SEE color? In fact, didn’t I just tell you that I do, but I don’t use color to DEFINE a person? Also, there, within your sentence…another implied accusation of me as a racist.As for my disdain at your language, I have only two questions for you:1. Would you talk to me this way if we were face to face?2. Having said repeatedly that you talk to me the way that you do and do not know me at all, this question requires a little more explanation. You see, Cousin Avi, in no area of this world would your method of discourse be called respectful. In fact, I’m almost positive that a psychological analysis of the way you have treated me here would result in a conclusion that your main intention was to show disrespect and aggression in an attempt to intimidate. So my second question is, how do you afford all of those hospital bills?Face to face, I’d be patient enough to allow your disrespect, but I don’t know of too many people who would take your garbage without taking you to task for it. You are the epitome of what is wrong with internet debate.And through your disrespect, you want me and others to believe that you stand on some higher moral ground; that your beliefs compel you to verbally sodomize anyone who disagrees with you, and that this is somehow the way to move forward in race relations.As nicely as I can say this, Avi, there is no way that anyone who does not agree with you can take you seriously. Who would put up with your insults? Your ENTIRE argument, even if valid, is lost amidst your utter disrespect for your opponent. Where are you ever going to go with that?”The depth and breadth of your stubbornly obtuse thinking makes me want to literally punch your teeth down your throat.”This you said after completely twisting my words, and LYING about what I said. Again, I’ve never said I don’t see color. Ever. Liar. And face to face, Avi, I’m betting that once you saw me, you’d run, very fast.You seem to like calling me “stupid”. Here is where I give you a warning in the same manner. Avi, you aren’t smart enough by half to get away with lying about what I said. Get over yourself.” “I’m the solution! Ignorance is the way! It’s YOU who see color, and politicize color that are the TRUE racists!” “Another COMPLETE fabrication and mistaken translation. What did I actually say?”Avi, your way DOES NOT WORK! People simply do not take you seriously.”Did I call you racist? Hell yes, I did! Because in your world, it’s Blacks and Hispanics against whites(Avi translation: white = conservative bigot)…how much clearer do you have to make it? You seem as extremist in your view, to me, as right wing extremists are.”Unfortunately, COLOR all too often DOES DEFINE the experience of that person within a racist society – a society YOU are neither willing to look at, recognize OR change. You are incapable of finding solutions BECAUSE you refuse to admit the nature of the facts.”When did I say I was unwilling to look at or change our society? When did I even imply that? I told you the solution. You don’t want to hear it. Your solution is to shout as loudly as you can at people who PASS you by. My solution is to live my life as best I can, helping where and when I can, no matter where that takes me, and never quitting in the fight for what is right, what is good. I said that before, but you have so obviously ignored it that I am beginning to think you never read it at all.You obviously have no idea of who I am or what I do in my life; yet you are so arrogantly confident that I am just like every other bigoted white that you project onto me everything you hate about bigotry. While I’ll be patient with your asinine use of the English language, I won’t tolerate you falsely projecting on to me your cynical, WRONG, stubborn, lying, reactionary, inflammatory bigot crap.What’s my solution? To get involved, and get my hands dirty, rather than ranting and raving on the internet.In 2007, I, along with a dozen doctors and many more nurses and Nurse Practitioners, and some of my clients and friends, I opened up a free weekend clinic in a nearby inner city, SPECIFICALLY so that minorities would have a place to get medical care that they could not afford, or maybe care for problems that they did not want to disclose to medicaid.You have no idea how many homes I’ve helped build through Habitat for Humanity, how much money I’ve poured into those homes to help minorities escape the hell they were living in and give them at the very least an opportunity to live in a safer neighborhood.I don’t waste much time ranting and pointing fingers about race, Avi. That’s your gig. It doesn’t work, but if it makes you feel better about yourself, have at it. Sooner or later you are going to learn, probably the hard way, that you can’t force people to think a certain way, act a certain way, or feel a certain way. In the end, all that you are left with is to DO whatever you can do, to never quit, and to never allow a bigot an opportunity to put his hate into action.You have no idea how many Conservatives take helping minorities seriously. That’s because you’re too busy painting them all with same brush to ever notice. I came from a conservative background/upbringing. That background TAUGHT me about racial inequality, and what I could do about it. The most important thing it taught me was to stand up for those who could not stand for themselves, to fight for those who could not defend themselves.Hear me now, and hear me well, Avi: Liberals DO NOT have the market cornered on racial equality, on helping minorities, or on fighting for them. Despite your WRONG assumptions, most conservatives that I know hold no fear or anger toward minorities whatsoever. Do some of them have some latent feelings subconsciously, based on ignorance? Possibly, but that is a far cry from racism and bigotry, and you know it.You’ve attempted to paint me as willfully ignorant, stupid, racist (yes, Avi, by implication, you have), and conservative.What you don’t understand, Avi, is that your methods turn people off to wanting to deal with race. My methods get them involved. I acknowledge your fervent desire to change things, but Avi, your method pushes the goal further away.You ARE a bigot. You cannot get past color or ideology, and furthermore, you cannot fit in that narrow mind of yours that there are many conservatives involved in the fight for racial equality. It’s just too easy for you to generalize, and in your method of generalizing, you become a bigot. You hate conservatives as much as right wing extremists hate minorities. Bigotry. Open your eyes to what you are doing. It’s not helping AT ALL.

@ PPPYou disingenuous pissflap.Go back and read your FIRST post in this ridiculous flip-flop fest you think amounts to rational discourse on your part.Just a FEW of the imbecilic high points:

And what is your message? That all of conservative America is racist. You don’t have to say the word “all” for people to get your meaning.

Here, you cuntflap, was the FIRST time you twisted Cesca’s words to accuse him of branding ALL OF YOU as racists, when that is not at all what he did. But this is your tactic – putting words in the mouths of others, you fucking Straw Man Don Quixote.Bob has made his perspective on the tactics, thinking, arguments and methods of the GOP / teabaggers perfectly clear. It amounts to this: When you lie down with dogs, don’t bitch about the fleas. And when you stand shoulder to shoulder with those espousing “conservative solutions” that are fundamentally racist in nature and effect, don’t start whining to me that YOU ain’t a racist. MAYBE you aren’t, but until you repudiate those who share your political stance AND advocate the same ineffective and downright harmful ‘solutions’ WHILE refusing to deal with the facts, I don’t give a rats ass what you claim.

Liberals are more comfortable handing out condoms or providing abortions to brown people than they are with actually helping them and working with them to improve their personal situations. Hand them a box of rubbers, give them a welfare check and hope you never see them again. Doesn’t that make you feel all “Christiany”?

If you can’t see how the arrogant, snotty, asshole tone of THAT fuckspew paragraph might just call on something sharper than respectful debate, you need a good solid smack in the head.

To a liberal, from my observation, a “brown person” isn’t a person at all. He’s a focus group. He’s a bloc of votes. He’s a means to an end. The brown person in liberal America is always poor, always uneducated, and always persecuted. But this is somehow not racism.

Yeah…well, to a Conservative, a “brown person” is someone to be purged from the voter rolls, arrested for being in public, convicted more frequently, locked up longer, denied access to housing, made to accept worse jobs for lower pay, and sent to the front first in war. So, I guess if we’re gonna yammer about how political stripes treat minorities, it’s pretty fucking clear that being part of VOTING BLOC is to be preferred, you simpering, snotty bitch.

If you can cry out “racist”, and label the entire conservative base as racist, you merely prove that you do not see groups of people as individual human beings. Until you do, you are as racist as the people you accuse.

Asshole. False equivalency, brainless, backward, imbecilic, obtuse fuckwit.But there it is, eh? Bob Cesca is the same as those cunts hauling Curious George monkey dolls around tea party events screaming, “Send Barry Soetero back KENYA!”You piece of shit.

I realize that viewing yourself in this mirror won’t be pleasant, and your natural tendency might be to respond equally as unpleasantly. Like I said, call me a racist if you have to, but between you and I, we both know the truth. Your accusation isn’t truth; it’s just another false accusation. If it makes you feel better to say it, then go ahead. I won’t hold it against you.

Viewing ANYTHING through the fucked up lens of YOUR vision is goddamn painful, that’s for fucking sure.But it’s interesting that you KNEW FULL WELL your ignorant Bircher bullshit would provoke just the response you now piss your pants for getting.And there’s nothing false about calling out what you and your ideas plainly support – a pure refusal to engage in an honest conversation about race UNTIL such time as even those who want to argue “Blacks had it better under slavery” are given the respect you think everyone deserves just for having an opinion. Well, sunshine, that ain’t how it works. When you open your mouth and yammer like a willfully blind blithering moron, you get called for it. On that score, belly up to another bag of dicks and get busy munching and chewing.

Liberals and Conservatives alike share this trait. And yet we point our fingers at each other as if we somehow have moved beyond basic human nature, and left our white conservative friends back in the days of Kunta Kinte. It’s not true. You are, at your foundation, concerned almost totally with yourself. We all are.

OH! NOW I see why you’re so open, thoughtful and informed on matters of race. You watched Roots. Well…nothing like a television miniseries to inform you about how America works. I guess, in addition to your fawning quotations from MLK, you can also paraphrase Chicken George. You are SUCH a fuckwit.

At some point, America has to learn that when it comes to race, there is no black, white, red, yellow or brown. There is only the human race, and we are all bound by common traits, common dreams, and common hopes. At the macro level, you can’t get there. But that’s where most liberals are. It’s not pretty, but I thought it was about time someone told you the truth.

You wouldn’t know the truth if it poked your fucking eyes out with its thumbs, you imbecilic waste of skin.But THAT sentence was the basis for my assertion that you claim not to see color. Bastardizing genetics in order to make an argument about culture – specifically racism within a culture and as a political element – takes one bucket load of balls and a tank full of myopic ignorance. Sadly, you are clearly well stocked.But…on to your more recent offenses…Make no mistake, I’d use precisely the same language to your face, you blithering, stunted, stubbornly obtuse pile of shit.As for being smart enough by half…I’ll stack my academic credentials up against yours anytime. You appear to hint at being a doctor (or perhaps you just hang out with MDs)…or, at least imply that you are. Maybe you’re a nurse, or an X-ray tech…what the fuck ever. I hold degrees in philosophy and biology, went to law school and speak five languages…so feel free to take a long hard suck on a stick of shut the fuck up.As for running from you, don’t get your fuckin’ hopes up. And you have the nerve to accuse me of playing internet tough guy? I’d fucking RUN from you? Asshole. Not in this life.The content of my argument is not dependent on treating YOU with respect. I have no respect for you, your thinking, your argument, your words, your tactics, your attitude, your flip-flopping, or anything else. I’ve read your posts for months around here, and you are consistently obtuse, contrary, humourless, stupid, backward, moronic, myopic and a waste of fucking electrons. WHY in the name of fuck would I treat you with respect? Especially when you come in here calling Cesca, then me, racists for calling out that element of Conservative America THAT IS PLAINLY, OBVIOUSLY, OPENLY RACIST? You ignorant piece of shit. You can jam your false equivalency bullshit right up your tight ass, if there’s room up there next to your head.My methods turn people off? What the fuck would you know about it? More of your ignorance and projection masquerading as argument. If my methods turn you off, I consider that a job well done. I’m not here to persuade you of anything, you petulant shit for brains…I’m just exposing the paucity of reason and the stunning lack of anything like facts in your view of race in America and what might be done to mitigate the shocking degree of inequality that is represented by the status quo to which CONSERVATIVES so desperately cling.It sure as fuck wasn’t the LIBERALS crying about how Sonya Sotomayer was too radical to sit on the USSC.Here’s how fucking stupid you are, you ignorant fuckwit: You call me a bigot who can’t get past color, yet I LIVE IN ASIA, surrounded by yellow people….where I am the minority and have zero political influence. You can just trust me on this, you stupid shit…no one who is ANY kind of bigot chooses to live in a foreign land. Here’s hoping your own words add a little spice to yet another bag of dicks you now need to gnaw your way through.As for my methods turning people off…apparently not in THIS thread. I seem to recall at least ONE “BRAVO AIVI”YOU, on the other hand, with your ever so respectful accusations of racism, backward thinking and attention to Oxford Rules of Debate, don’t seem to stir much in the way of “Well done, old chap” sort of comments.THAT would tell a thinking person something. But, as I’ve been telling you for some time now, YOU DON’T THINK WELL.Now, one last time…get fucked, you rude fuckwit shit stain.

Cousin Avi,Being on a liberal blog, I wouldn’t expect anyone to say, “Here, here, let’s hear it for that wonderful chap, PPP!” Especially when it comes to this topic…unless I toed your line like a robot. That obviously escapes you.I’m not a doctor. I’m a financial advisor. Your law degree, quite literally, scares me. If you are what our law schools are turning out, GOD help America, because no one like you ever will.Here is where I tell you to blow me. I’ve been patient, but that time is past. That you are a bigot, and that it escapes you is not surprising. Arrogant people like you never practice introspection; why should you when you’re so perfect? You are absolutely married to your ideology; any ideology opposed or even slightly different to yours belongs to neanderthals. Your every word spews hate toward anyone (especially me) who does not agree with you.Look up the word bigot in the dictionary. Your discourse here has put that definition squarely on you. For all of your education, you still have trouble with words, don’t you?No where have you, even once, acknowledged that there are millions upon millions of conservatives who do not subscribe to racist views or practices. Instead, you continue to tell me that I am putting words in your mouth and Bob’s mouth, when even he didn’t respond to what I said about labeling ALL conservatives with the racist brush. He responded that he didn’t use the word racism, that racism was tied to majorities oppressing minorities (South Africa absolutely refuted that idea) and that a major component of the Right was Racism…his own words. He asked me if I denied it, and I said yes. Somehow, you’ve taken that as lying, twisting someone’s words, and just plain making shit up.When you want to see yourself, Avi, you have to turn the mirror so it faces you.”My methods turn people off? What the fuck would you know about it?”I’ve been telling you what I know about it for nearly a day now. It hasn’t sunk in yet? Let me explain it. Your vitriol pushes people away. You say you can have a rational discussion about this, but so far, you’ve not shown any ability to do so. In fact, your method here is exhibit A in the case of why conservatives…and most of America who are not even conservatives (indies and some liberals) are afraid to have a discussion with someone like you about race.Your argument has nothing to do with rationality, and everything to do with winning your points because your narrow mind cannot accept the fact this world resides in various shades of grey. Not everyone on the Right is a racist; not even MOST. Do you accept this?Avi, I’ve re-read what I told you my solution is, how I live my life, and I can’t, for the life of me, find anything within it that a liberal such as yourself should find so offensive. A person who didn’t have as thick a skin as mine would have been completely turned off to helping others had he faced your ATTACK. Why would anyone bother to help a minority when a fellow like you is going to attack him for not doing it the way that CousinAvi says to do it!”Liberals are more comfortable handing out condoms or providing abortions to brown people than they are with actually helping them and working with them to improve their personal situations. Hand them a box of rubbers, give them a welfare check and hope you never see them again. Doesn’t that make you feel all “Christiany”?”That comment bothered you? Jeebus! You aren’t even doing that much! You’re living in Asia! And you’re going to tell me how race relations should go? You have just proven yourself to be nothing more than a blowhard. It’s fun to write about race relations in America, especially when you don’t have to actually DO anything about it .You have judged me, and you have tried to insult me. You’ve been bigoted, arrogant, narrow-minded, aggressive, and authoritarian…all of this from a person whose only tool is his words. I’ll continue what I’m doing. When you come back, you can join me for a weekend and see what I do. Then you can judge. But from thousands of miles away, while you are doing nothing but spewing crap at me, you don’t have the right to judge anything except what you’re eating. Get over yourself.

@ PPPAs you have been repeatedly advised, your opinion about anything doesn’t amount to a soft breeze on a weak stream of piss.I do judge you. I judge your words, your argument, your thinking, your perspective, your assertions, and the bullshit anecdotes you try to pass off as evidence for what you consider premises and conclusions. I find ALL of it not only lacking, but (to repeat myself) shallow, obtuse, backward, imbecilic nonsense.It’s NOT that you don’t agree with me…lots of folks don’t. It’s that you’re not only fucking blind, but willfully so and fucking stubborn about it. Really just plain old fashioned stupid. Quel surprise!A financial adviser, eh? What’s the matter…the sheer excitement of chartered accountancy too much for you? Misspelled something on your application for actuarial school?Stuff your condescending bootstrappy libertarian ignorance up your ass, and go brag to your racist pals about what a pure soul you are, constructing homes for those poor minorities. How many of those are your clients? Gee…I wonder why THAT is.Fuckwit.

cousinavi,Like I said, you don’t have the right to judge me. You aredoingnothing.You are all words, and no action.Condescending? Maybe. Then again, why not? It’s not often I come across a fellow who says so much and accomplishes so little. If exposing your hypocrisy is condescending, then I’m guilty.Do I feel good about myself for helping minorities? Nope.You might not understand what I feel, because you’ve only ever written about it.What do I feel? Heartbroken. I feel like I’m running out of time. I feel inadequate. When I’m driving home, I wish I could stay longer, and some day, I’ll be able to. As for now, I’m a single father. I have to go home and earn a living, instead of escaping to Asia because the working life is too much for my bohemian, hemp-filled, bigoted ass. Cancel the invitation to come work with me at the clinic; you wouldn’t bother showing up anyway.Avi, in this world, there are those who do, and those who only talk about it. I am not going to waste any more of my time discussing this with someone who only talks about it.You’ve got some intellect, Avi. You write well. But you’re wasting it. On what, I can’t tell. I’ve read your blog, I’ve seen how you interact with people…I’ve not seen anything constructive. You like using big words and adjectives, none of which is impressive or indicative of superior intelligence. I have a thesaurus, too, Avi. So far, all you’ve proven is your cynicism.I’ve never met a happy, content cynic. Every one I’ve ever met acts like his ass is being constantly sandblasted. That’s a pity.

Stop it!

@ PPPNo action? You haven’t the foggiest first fucked up clue what I do or don’t do.Accomplishes little? Once again…yammering without any basis whatsoever for even opening your mouth – speaking in total ignorance of the facts. This is something of a hobby for you, ain’t it?You DON’T feel good for “helping minorities”? Doing good acts doesn’t give you some sense of satisfaction? You’re either lying, or there’s something profoundly fucking wrong with you. My money rides on the second option. You have a whole laundry list of tells.Escape to Asia? ESCAPE? You ignorant, brainless fuckwitted asshole. It couldn’t be obligation that brought me here? Had to be escape, eh? Just when I figure you MUST have scraped the absolute depths of your asshole, you demonstrate new lengths of putrid colon.Of course there are no human rights issues that require attention anywhere else in the word except on the lot of YOUR latest Habitat for Humanity project, and unless everyone is doing something YOU can personally witness, they’re just fucking observers, eh? Get fucked, you brainless cockhead.As for having no basis upon which to comment on race relations in America, you shit for brains incompetent fuckwit, I’ll guarantee you I’ve seen more of your country than you have. Beyond that fact, if you ever want to know about America, do yourself a favour and ask a Canuck. We WATCH you idiot motherfuckers in ways you can’t begin to imagine, what with your being far too close to the fire for any sort of perspective. And speaking of perspective, you imbecilic shit stain, here’s a tip: PERSPECTIVE comes with TIME and DISTANCE, both of which I have in spades over your myopic ass.I don’t have a thesaurus, junior. I don’t need one. Which merely points up another score on which you fall short: English vocabulary, up to and including all the distasteful words that get your Hello Kitty panties in a bunch. Man the fuck up, Nancy. If you can’t play with adults…and adult language…stay in the fucking sandbox.You checked your fucking brain at the door and sauntered in here calling Cesca a racist; defending the “conservative base” as somehow NOT being infected with seven different brands of systemic, institutional and personal degrees of that very quality, in various degrees of in-your-face blatant fuck you; and making bullshit remarks like, “There is no black, brown or yellow…only individuals!” which, frankly, is an obvious tip that one is dealing with fucking racist liar right from the start, and anything that oozes out of their mouth after that cannot be trusted and ought to be dismissed WITHOUT anything approaching respect.You fucking Toyota motherfucker. You asked for it…you got it.You engaged false equivalency, outright lies, fabricated bullshit assumptions about liberals, minorities, Cesca and ME; you propped up straw men to waste great space and effort tearing them down in a vain effort to appear like you had some sort of thoughtful argument, while ignoring the content of my posts in favour of whining about peppery language. Nothing but bullshit from start to finish.You’re pathetic. Really, truly and completely ignorant. Sadly, rather than slap the living fuck out of you and send you to your room, it appears you had one of those mothers who not only tolerated your bratty, nonsensical, semi-precocious rudeness, but patted you on the head, turned to the neighbours and squealed, “Isn’t he just ADORABLE?”Well, fuckwit…no. It goddamn well ruined you. You not only haven’t got a cogent argument to stand on, you obviously think that insistently yammering your cocked up fantasy bullshit amounts to some sort of winning strategy.Better luck next time. And if you ever make it over to Asia, drop by and SEE what I DO, you fairy tale princess fuckwit.