Lefty race baiters

Consider the following exchange on a local lefty’s Facebook wall.  I chose not to include the posters’ names, though I’m not sure why.  If you want to, however, you can learn the names pretty easily.

Lefty #1: “Don’t you get tired of the fact that Republicans, especially Conservative Republicans--remember Phil Gramm?--live in some parallel universe where facts are not valid?”

[RWC note: Mr. Gramm, then a Democrat, was a Texas U.S. representative from 1979 to 1983.  Shortly after he won re-election in November 1982, Democrats removed Mr. Gramm from the House Budget Committee for supporting President Reagan’s economic plans.  As a result, Mr. Gramm resigned his seat, changed his party affiliation to Republican, and won re-election to the seat he vacated.  Mr. Gramm completed that term (1983-1985) then served as a U.S. senator from 1985 until he retired in late-2002.]

Local lefty: “I think you have to understand them better.  Their main task is to take down Obama no matter what it costs.  There’s one unstated demand that Obama can’t meet.  He can’t change the color of his skin.  And for the real hard-line one termers, that’s really what it’s all about.  They know most of their crap is bullshit, but they’ll sling it anyway for their main goal.”

Yep, folks, if you’re on the right and oppose President Barack Obama’s leftist policies, it’s because you’re a bigot.  [I’d love to see how these guys explain U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, et al.  Another challenge for lefties will be to explain how Herman Cain won the Florida GOP straw poll for president.]  As you’ll read below, that’s because “real lefties” assert Mr. Obama isn’t really a lefty so your opposition must be the result of bigotry.  You’ll find it’s OK – and likely patriotic and/or a moral imperative – for lefties to oppose Mr. Obama when his policies are not deemed to be leftist enough.  Though I attended a series of presentations by “Local lefty,” I don’t know him personally.  Therefore, I don’t know if he really believes the “color of [Mr. Obama’s] skin” comment, if it’s simply a tactic, or if it’s projection.  On a side note, I always get a kick out of it when a lefty talks of others living “in some parallel universe where facts are not valid.”  The comment about “crap” is pure projection.

Before proceeding, I don’t see people based on things like income, religion, skin color, surname, et cetera.  I never did and I credit my parents and grandparents for that.  It wasn’t that my parents and grandparents said anything to me on this topic; I simply followed their example.  Setting aside my no name-calling policy for a second, I am sick and tired of blowhard lefties projecting their deep-seated bigotry on me because I’m a conservative.  This is simply an attempt to deflect scrutiny of their ideology’s long, ugly, and continuing history of bigotry.

The people who assert conservative = bigot are the same people obsessed with grouping us according to income, skin color, et cetera.  These are the same people whose ideological ancestors and fellow travelers fought a war to keep slavery; put Americans in internment camps based on their ethnicity; slaughtered millions in Nazi Germany, Red China, and the USSR; torpedoed legislation to affirm constitutional rights; and on and on.  These are the same folks who look lovingly on Fidel Castro and his long-dead, murdering compatriot Ernesto “Che” Guevara (himself an apparent racist).  For more information, please read “Republicans – Civil rights” and “Democrats – The party of civil rights – not.”

I hope no one was surprised to find conservative (but not leftist) opposition to Mr. Obama’s leftist positions would be declared racially-motivated by the left.  After all, the left always cries racism and/or other “isms” and phobias are behind opposition to any leftist policy/program.  In this case, however, the left wants to claim opposition to Mr. Obama’s leftist policies is not simply generic bigotry but specific to Mr. Obama.  That’s a problem because those on the right opposed Mr. Obama’s policies/programs since our country’s founding, long before those policies/programs were Mr. Obama’s mission in life.  To deal with this obvious problem, lefties cooked up the story that “Obama’s never been a lefty.”  Local lefty once wrote, “We don’t claim Obama is a leftist or even a consistent progressive.  He’s really a high-road industrial policy capitalist and ‘soft power’ multipolar globalist.”  Sure.  Since this description of Mr. Obama includes “capitalist” amongst the gobbledygook, any opposition by conservatives must be the result of bigotry, right?

It would be bad enough if lefties served up this swill only when all else fails, but it appears charging conservatives with “isms” and phobias is part of the boilerplate when lefties express their opposition to non-leftist policies.  In fairness, Local lefty is not alone; a lefty pundit for the Beaver County Times has been taking the same position since Mr. Obama’s election.  You can find examples here, here, here, and here.

When someone pulls out the racism tactic, he’s admitted he can’t win the debate based on facts, history, logic, and principle.  The most recent example is U.S. Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).  At a CBC-sponsored town hall event held in Miami on August 22, 2011, Mr. Carson said, “Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens.  Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.  Some of them right now in Congress are comfortable with where we were 50 and 60 years ago.”  You can hear attendees shouting agreement in the background.  Does Mr. Carson not know it was Democrats – via their terror wing, the KKK - who lynched blacks?  Probably, which makes him a collaborator as discussed below.

While on the topic of shameful, bigoted behavior by the CBC, consider this quote of U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC): “If (former President) Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem [black unemployment], we probably would be marching on the White House.  There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president [Obama].”

The objective of the bigotry smear is to shut down debate by demonizing an opponent and thus marginalizing his positions in the eyes of the voters.  As I’ve written before, I don’t know how anyone can claim bigotry is either a conservative or leftist principle, though it would seem to be more at home with people who tend to see us primarily as group members, not simply as fellow Americans.

Lefties must want us to believe it was they who nominated/voted for Republicans Lynn Swann (candidate for PA governor in 2006), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele (former Maryland Lt. Gov. and Republican National Committee chairman), former Ohio Sec. of State Ken Blackwell, former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts (OK), U.S. Rep. Allen West (FL), and so on.

Are we to believe it’s lefties who support conservative pundits like Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, et al?

Who referred to Republicans like Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell (not exactly a conservative), Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, et al as Aunt Jemimas, Uncle Toms, Oreos, house niggers, Stepin Fetchits, et cetera?  Hint; it wasn’t conservatives.

Who in a self-described “lame attempt at humor” said, “[Mahatma Gandhi] ran a gas station down in St. Louis?”  If you guessed then-Sen. and former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY), you are right.

Who said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts [in Delaware] unless you have a slight Indian [from India] accent.  I’m not joking?”  If you guessed then-Sen. and now VP Joe Biden (D-DE), you are right.

When referring to then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), who said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy?”  If you guessed Mr. Biden, you are right again.

During a TV interview, who said, “There are white niggers.  I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time.  I’m going to use that word?”  If you guessed the late-Sen. and former KKK member Robert Byrd (D-WV), you are correct.

Not one of those cases generated any significant blowback from either Democrats or the press.

For how lefties treated Mr. Obama during the 2008 primary campaign, please read “my critique of Liar, liar.”  You may remember all the skin color stuff came from the left during the Democrat primary, not during the general election campaign when those racist Republicans were the opposition.  Note: Expect lefties to claim Democrats like former PA Gov. Ed Rendell, the-late U.S. Rep. John Murtha (PA-12), et al are/were not really lefties.

Here are some examples of a double standard.

During the-late-Sen. Strom Thurmond’s (R-SC) 100th birthday party in 2002, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) said something like “we wouldn’t have today’s problems if you had been elected president,” referring to a campaign Mr. Thurmond ran in the late 1940s for a party (States Rights Democratic Party) that advocated segregation.  By all accounts, Mr. Lott was simply trying to flatter a 100-year-old man at his birthday party.  Was the comment stupid?  Yes.  Racist?  Probably not, but I don’t know the man.  The you-know-what hit the fan and about two weeks later Mr. Lott resigned his position as Minority Leader.

During his 2006 re-election campaign, then-Sen. George Allen (R-VA) said, “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is.  He’s with my opponent.  He’s following us around everywhere.  And it’s just great. … Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here.  Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”  S.R. Sidarth (“Macaca”) was an American of Indian descent employed by Mr. Allen’s opponent [James Webb (D)] to video-record Mr. Allen’s campaign appearances for opposition research.  When “reporters” found out “macaca” was a real word (a genus of monkeys) and claimed it sounded similar (not really) to a French word (macaque, rhymes with back) that appeared to be a racial slur in some African and European countries, again the you-know-what hit the fan.  Mr. Allen said he thought he made up the word and had no clue it was an alleged slur in any language.  That didn’t matter.  After the press pushed the story non-stop (over 100 stories by The Washington Post alone) up to the election, what started as a shoe-in re-election for Mr. Allen turned into a defeat.  You won’t be surprised to learn that as soon as Mr. Allen indicated he may run for his old seat in the Senate in 2012, the press dredged up the macaca story.

When I started writing this, lefties were pitching a fit because U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) used the term “tar baby” in discussing the debt ceiling mess.  It was just a few years ago someone took offense at a collections office being described as a “black hole” for traffic tickets.

These examples reminded me of a character in the movie Undercover Brother.  Conspiracy Brother (played by Dave Chappelle) routinely goes into a rant because he believes everyday words and phrases (like “good morning”) have racist roots/meanings.  Finally, the title character (played by Eddie Griffin) asks, “Hey, uh, brother.  Can I get a list of the words that trigger these fits?”  The element of truth is what makes this funny.

When lefties can’t produce the facts they need to accuse a specific person of bigotry, they manufacture them.  MSNBC pundit Ed Schultz selectively edited comments made by Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) in order to label Mr. Perry a racist.  In the MSNBC version of his comments, Mr. Perry said, “I’m a pro-business governor.  I don’t make any apologies about it, and I will be a pro-business president.  Getting America back to work is the most important issue that faces this country, being able to pay off $14.5 trillion or $16 trillion worth of debt.  That big black cloud that hangs over America.”  Mr. Schultz then said, “That black cloud Perry is talking about is President Barack Obama.”  The problem is, the MSNBC version of Mr. Perry’s comments omitted the end of the last sentence.  The last sentence actually was, “That big black cloud that hangs over America, that debt that is so monstrous.”  Though coverage of his deceit forced Mr. Schultz to “apologize” the following night, he didn’t say what he was sorry for other than not playing Mr. Perry’s comments in full and in context.  Mr. Schultz simply played Mr. Perry’s comments as he should have the previous night.  Mr. Schultz didn’t mention he used the truncated sound clip to label Mr. Perry a racist, and as far as I can tell Mr. Schultz didn’t apologize to Mr. Perry.

How did leftist activists and leaders get from their history of bigotry against minorities to their current faux portrayal as defenders of those same minorities?  Despite fighting racism since its inception, why do so many believe today’s Republican Party is the party of racism?  One local lefty opined, “True, segregationist Democrats, often called ‘Dixiecrats’ were long in control in the South.  They were the ‘conservatives’ of their day, the ones opposed to the Civil Rights Act.  However, civil rights activism and Supreme Court rulings against segregation turned things around.  The Dixiecrats abandoned the Democratic party in droves, creating the ‘new’ conservative Republicans of the so-called ‘solid South.’”  This fairytale makes no sense.  The writer wants us to believe Democrats who switched parties were racists and the “good” Democrats stayed Democrats.  Since Republicans were historically and are currently stronger on civil rights than Democrats, why on Earth would segregationist Democrats think the Republican Party would take up their racist policies?  If racist Democrats became Republicans in hopes of furthering racist policies, the strategy was a horrible failure for them.  The author didn’t provide one example of a Republican policy that was remotely racist.  Perhaps more telling, the writer didn’t mention any policy opposed by Republicans but supported by Democrats that truly helped minorities.  How does the author explain former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC), U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Lynn Swann, Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell, Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Rep. candidate Mia Love (R-UT), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM), and on and on?  Condoleezza Rice lived in Birmingham, AL, from her birth in 1954 to 1967.  When she spoke at the 2000 Republican Convention, Condoleezza Rice said, “The first Republican that I knew was my father John Rice.  And he is still the Republican that I admire most.  My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote.  The Republicans did.”  If you want another tortured, fantasy explanation by a lefty, please read A Short History of White Racism in the Two-Party System. 

The following is my opinion, though it’s based on historical events.  Sometime during the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, I believe lefty leaders began to figure out they were on the wrong side of history and faced becoming irrelevant and being thrown on the scrap heap of history.  The days of overt, government-sponsored policies (Jim Crow laws, segregation, poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.) to control minorities were numbered.  The left’s dilemma was how to continue to indulge their bigotry while hiding that policy.  The solution was ingenious; implement policies and programs with stated intentions of helping minorities while the results of those policies did exactly the opposite.  Leftists switched from overt oppression of minorities to stealth oppression.  Even better, The Great Society became the name of the leftist plan for covert oppression.  Consider the following quote attributed to President Lyndon Johnson (D) in Inside the White House (1996) while “discussing his proposed civil rights bill with two governors:” “I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for 200 years.” (As told to author Ronald Kessler by Air Force One steward Robert M. MacMillan.)

What better way is there to:

·       indulge lefty bigotry than to make the object of leftist oppression dependent on government handouts while almost guaranteeing their votes?

·       convince minorities to accept handouts than to claim they are entitled to those handouts because they are reparations for injustices to their ancestors.

·      keep minorities down than by forcing them to attend subpar schools controlled by lefty-run labor union management?

·       ensure children can’t escape those schools than by killing voucher programs that give poor parents some school choice they would not have otherwise?

·       wipe out poor, minority families – or to keep them in poverty - than to provide just enough handouts to make two-parent families unnecessary?

·       concentrate minorities in virtual internment camps than by building government-run housing projects?

·       foment anti-minority thought than to enact policies/programs (“affirmative action” and “diversity,” for example) granting minorities preferential treatment?  Let’s also remember the soft bigotry of low expectations for minorities.  For example, if “not enough” of a given minority meet a given requirement, lower the requirement.

·       ensure a person’s failure than to put him in a situation for which he isn’t qualified?  It’s also great because it reinforces bigoted stereotypes and makes it that much harder for qualified minority individuals to get opportunities and succeed.  Without giving any details, I personally saw the last example in action.

·       keep low-end wages low than to push open-border immigration policies that result in a glut of undereducated and poor illegal aliens?

·       control poor, non-English-speaking residents than to implement policies and programs that slow learning of English?  A poor U.S. resident who can’t read, write, and speak English is guaranteed poverty.

·       keep poor minorities unemployed and dependent on government than to force employers to pay a person more than a job is worth?  The objective of minimum and so-called “living” wage laws is not to address alleged “exploitation.”  No law can do that.  The real goal of these policies is to keep poor, undereducated minorities dependent on government handouts.

Should a minority family succeed enough to build a small nest egg, what better way is there to destroy that little bit of wealth than to encourage those families to take on mortgages they have no chance of paying back?

Sure, some whites get captured by these policies, but lefties consider this acceptable collateral damage.  When the occasional person notes none of the alleged benefits come to fruition, the answer is always insufficient handouts and Republicans.

Of course, the cherry on top is lefties get to refer to conservative opposition as bigotry, racism, et cetera, thus garnering support from some Republican politicians who fear being labeled as bigots for believing what Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., wrote in a court opinion: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Just as some lefty Republican impersonators go the extra mile to sell their tale and register as Republicans, some lefties go the extra mile to sell their deception by acquiring minority “show friends” (as in “I have a fill-in-the-blank friend who says …”), joining minority-oriented groups, showing up at the right demonstrations, protests, et cetera.  Then, of course, you run to your fellow travelers in the press to make sure everyone knows you attended this or that event in the company of the minority du jour.  And what do lefties do when they don’t have a token minority for a photo op?  Why a member of the lily white group of “Brown Bag Lunchsters” holds up a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr., what else?  Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn these folks keep sign-size MLK pictures in their vehicles for such “emergencies.” <g>

By now you’re probably asking, why would minority activists and leaders sell out their stated goals?  The answer is the promise of personal power, though a few may simply be useful idiots.  Unfortunately, collaborators have been with us forever.  If you paid attention in history class, you likely remember Vichy France’s collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.  Collaborators believe by cooperating with the enemy they have “a seat at the table” and/or personal power, like the character Dathan in “The Ten Commandments.”  That’s how we get the NAACP smearing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas both during his nomination process and after his confirmation.  That’s how we get Harry Belafonte comparing then-Sec. of State Colin Powell and then-NSA Director and future Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice to house slaves.  In truth, collaborators are dupes and any power they believe they have is an illusion crafted by their oppressors.  It’s also about personal relevance.  When you make your living accusing people of imagined or real bigotry, your goal is to foment bigotry, not to minimize it.

Finally, who obsessively forms grievance/victim groups based on things like age, ethnicity, income, sex, skin color, et cetera and then expects everyone in the group to behave, think, and vote alike?  Hint; it’s not conservatives.  Are you more likely to be a bigot when you see people primarily as members of groups, or when you see us as one?

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity.