One could almost hear the audible hissing over McCain’s ad questioning O!’s unseriousness over drilling while O! continues his Great Pretender tour, yet O! turns around and continues to insult the intelligence of those not completely in his thrall:
“We could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much.”
Oh goody. Let’s all welcome the Pressure Police.
But let’s give credit where it is due when it comes to the Don’t Drill Dems. While Queen Nan continues to bitterly cling to her gavel as the number of days until recess wane (and isn’t it apropos that we call the break this gang of juveniles take “recess”?), DDD’s did get around to passing something. Oh looky, [another] unbinding House Resolution apologizing for slavery. Something so obviously contrived would usually get a yawn from me. It’s right up there with declarations of recognizing Pioneer Prarie Dog Days in Weararewhee, ND, save for a quick perusal of the text of the resolution contains this jaw-dropping mendacity:
Whereas slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals;
Excuse me? Excuse me? I mean there is more incredulous crappola in that resolution, but that has to be the shiniest bowel movement of the smelly lot.
Back to related idiocy from Acting President Barry
“I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged.”
Excuse me while I go disembowel a Prostatot Build-a-Bear …but Jaysus on a Pony … Is there some Civil War Denier movement out there I didn’t hear about? Have all the chapters about [black] slavery, Trail of Tears and Japanese internment in school textbooks across this country been ripped out? Books on the subject ripped from libraries? Is there some great Suppress The Tragic Elements of Amerikkkan History conspiracy?
We are poised to see elected a man who says
Logan: Do you have any doubts?Obama: Never.
Never.any.doubts.
We may, friend, be truly fucked.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 7/30 @ 6:51 pm #
When you are progressive, you hold the moral high ground. And when you hold the moral high ground, you can have confidence in your own inclinations. And when you have confidence in your own inclinations, everything you do is right. And if everything you do is right, then everyone who disagrees is wrong.
Comment by urthshu on 7/30 @ 6:53 pm #
We could save just as much [or more] gas by banning automatic transmissions.
Maybe I should send that in as a suggestion for O!
Comment by urthshu on 7/30 @ 6:54 pm #
Because I think sometimes its a good thing to encourage insanity/inanity in your political rivals…
Comment by alppuccino on 7/30 @ 6:58 pm #
Wait until the speculators get wind of this ingenious tire-inflation gambit that Obama’s One Man Traveling Gymboree has just unveiled. I’m getting my gas cans together.
Comment by Winston Smith on 7/30 @ 7:05 pm #
Inauguration day, January 2009…
“In all of these grand 57 States of the Union apart from Alaska and Hawaii, despite the 10,000 killed by tornadoes in Kansas, give or take 9,988, despite the horrific lack of breathalyzers for asthmatic children in emergency rooms nationwide, despite my honorable wife’s inability to make ends meet in our humble house with a high six-figure income, despite the obvious denial of too many school textbooks to acknowledge the Civil War, Jim Crow, the Sixties Civil Rights Movement and the existence of Iran as a tiny nation of 70 million posing no threat to anyone while simultaneously being a grave threat to peace in the Mideast, despite my unstinting service upon the Senate Banking Committee where I have not missed a single day, despite the fact that it is always a bad idea to say always or never… I, Barack Hussein Obama proudly accept the leadership and office of President of the United World States Of America Citizen Head Office Minister Thing. You will not regret your decision. As my first act in Office, I will lead an expedition to discover the precise nature and ecological vulnerability of the Lunar Cheese. I will not now, nor ever, permit a small group of greedy businessmen to speculate and horde our precious shared heritage of Lunar Cheese. I have always been clear on this. I have no doubts.”
Comment by dre on 7/30 @ 7:06 pm #
“We could save just as much [or more] gas by banning automatic transmissions.”
Not really i’ve had 5 speed focus and auto focus there’s not much difference.
Comment by Evil Pundit on 7/30 @ 7:10 pm #
“Acting President Barry”
I prefer the term “President-Messiah”.
Comment by urthshu on 7/30 @ 7:11 pm #
dre -
Its an aggregate thing. There’s maybe 1% better fuel efficiency, but that would have to save 500 bazillion barrels a year if everybody had to drive stick. Read that someplace [that place being Tim Blair]
Comment by urthshu on 7/30 @ 7:13 pm #
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/prize_clutched/
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 7:22 pm #
Nice one Winston. And i think she can’t make ends meet because she likes $600 earrings or something.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 7/30 @ 7:26 pm #
““I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged.â€Â
I am here today to admit that Jim Crow, implementing school segregation, establishing poll taxes, enforcing literacy tests were all Democratic in origin, and that Bull Connor, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Orval Faubus weren’t Republicans.
Comment by Winston Smith on 7/30 @ 7:32 pm #
February 2009…
“Today, I, Obama, as your new President-In-Command Of World Citizenry Ministration, decree for the improvement of our World Economy and the Five-Year Planning Session Proposal Document Master Plan, all tires shall be inflated to the proper degree of inflatedness of the air, for the purpose of creating gasoline, and we shall overinflate all tires from today until 15 Thermidor, French Revolutionary Calendar, in order to produce a gasoline surplus. This has become imperative to enable our economy to support the rising price of earring purchases for the working family and for the infirm, and those without earlobes. That is all. Return to your barracks.”
Comment by ccoffer on 7/30 @ 7:49 pm #
The legacy of slavery?
Well, for modern American brown folk, that legacy basically means they have been robbed of their inalienable right to sleep in little huts made of straw, dirt and animal dung. Furthermore, they are daily denied the exhilaration of having a good chance of being eaten alive by a wild fucking animal. Not to mention being forced to eat at McDonald’s instead of enjoying grubs, rodents and the occasional monkey pot pie.
Since justice is to make someone “whole”, and restore to them what has been denied them; how about reparations? Any takers? hoho My ancestral peeps came here from Ireland during that whole potato famine deal. They were treated like shit on a stick, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how I’m owed anything because of it.
Another thing about this whole “legacy of slavery” canard that gets ignored the bullshit idea that America got “rich” off of slavery. The easily provable fact is that slavery impoverished most of the people who lived where it flourished. It corrupted the Southern economy to a staggering degree. The North had all the money precisely because they didn’t have slavery fucking up their economy. The South was doomed from the beginning precisely because of the pervasiveness of slavery.
Some legacy.
Comment by Kevin T. Keith on 7/30 @ 7:50 pm #
I’m trying to figure this out, but “you’re dumb” seems to be the only explanation that covers it. Are you simply trying to be wrong on everything?
Let’s all welcome the Pressure Police.
Where did he mention police? What the hell are you babbling about?
He made a factual statement that the amount of oil that could be derived – about a decade from now, by most estimates – from drilling in wilderness areas could be saved immediately by taking trivial measures available at almost no cost. That’s an important counterpoint to the “drill for no good reason” bandwagon, but it has nothing to do with police, and he didn’t propose making it mandatory. I don’t know if he’s write on the numbers, tires vs. drilling-wise, but your response is some sort of paranoid fantasy that you made up yourself and then objected to as if it said something about Obama.
House Resolution apologizing for slavery. . . . It’s right up there with declarations of recognizing Pioneer Prarie Dog Days in Weararewhee, ND
OK. You think slavery is comparable to prairie dog celebrations. Taking public notice of, and addressing the question of responsibility for . . . slavery . . . is like honoring prairie dogs.
Is that because you think slaves are like rodents, or you just don’t give a shit in the first place? Both seem to be implied by your language. It doesn’t appear that you have anything approaching an idea on the subject, but you might want to avoid looking stupid and racist.
slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals
Excuse me? Excuse me? I mean there is more incredulous crappola in that resolution, but that has to be the shiniest bowel movement of the smelly lot.
Now what?
You, of all people, are objecting to the comparison of slaves to animals, Ms. Prairie Dog? You’re surely not objecting to the factual accuracy of the statement itself, right – because that would be, well, dumb, and wrong.
Oh.
I’ll grant that it’s a mug’s game to try to decide what is the worst atrocity of history, or which slaves had it worst off. It only leads to upset. But how could it possibly be controversial to point out that American slavery was different from other forms?
At most, you might argue that it should read “slavery in the Americas“, but widespread, industrialized chattel slavery not incidental to war or conquest was the distinguishing characteristic of the transatlantic slave trade, distinctly from most other forms of slavery in history. And in the United States, it persisted for 35 years even after every other Atlantic nation had abandoned it; it was then followed by Jim Crow and legalized segregation.
It might be true to say that slavery in every country was unique in some way, but it is no less true to say it of the United States. And in some ways in the US it was worse, and more persistent, than anywhere else. Slavery in the US doesn’t minimize the horrors of slavery elsewhere, but it is utterly bizarre that you seem to imagine that slavery elsewhere minimizes the horrors of slavery here.
Is there some Civil War Denier movement out there I didn’t hear about? Have all the chapters about [black] slavery, Trail of Tears and Japanese internment in school textbooks across this country been ripped out? Books on the subject ripped from libraries? Is there some great Suppress The Tragic Elements of Amerikkkan History conspiracy?
Well, you may have missed it, but there certainly is a denial movement alive and well.
What do you think the Confederate flag bullshit is about? How many people in the South still talk about “The War of Northern Aggression?”. What do you think Trent Lott meant by saying he wished Strom Thurmond’s segregationist party had won the presidency? More to the point, what does it mean that there’s an entire political party filled with assholes like him who publicly speak to each other in a universally-recognized racial code that they won’t acknowledge?
You honestly believe there isn’t a widespread refusal to address racial inequality in the US? If you want evidence, look at yourself. The fact that it upsets you so much for anyone to say out loud that US slavery was, well, pretty bad all in all says volumes about what it takes to talk about race in this country. There is an entire swath of society dedicated to never having to admit that race even matters in a country just one generation removed from Jim Crow, never mind that they might benefit from the ways in which it matters, or that others might be harmed by it. The fact that you can openly pretend, in this country, that that issue doesn’t even exist, and nobody calls you out for the vicious fool you are, is the problem.
But I’m glad to be part of the solution.
You’re welcome, dipshit.
Comment by Winston Smith on 7/30 @ 7:51 pm #
Careful, ccoffer… you’re making sense. You might just be r-a-c-i-s-t.
Comment by LunarTuna on 7/30 @ 8:05 pm #
Reparations huh!…Whats owed to the thousands of familes of soldiers that died to free the Black Man? Something?…Nothing?….Anything? The real question is who will have the power to decide whom is worthy of “reparations”? It’s a power scam of the fist magnitude!
Comment by LunarTuna on 7/30 @ 8:07 pm #
rather “first” magnitude
Comment by dre on 7/30 @ 8:09 pm #
“He made a factual statement that the amount of oil that could be derived – about a decade from now, by most estimates – from drilling in wilderness areas could be saved immediately by taking trivial measures available at almost no cost.”
O! made up how much could be saved. And stop with the decade thing. ANWR is about 100 miles from the pipeline. It took 4 years to build the 800 mile pipeline.
Comment by JD on 7/30 @ 8:11 pm #
RACISTS !!!! Code words !!!!!! Keith has the intellectual heft of marshmallow fluff.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/30 @ 8:11 pm #
“…He made a factual statement that the amount of oil that could be derived – about a decade from now, by most estimates – from drilling in wilderness areas could be saved immediately by taking trivial measures available at almost no cost. …”
Just to be clear, this is nonsense on a pogo-stick. You, Mr. Keith, should be deeply embarrassed to have written it.
Comment by dre on 7/30 @ 8:12 pm #
“The fact that it upsets you so much for anyone to say out loud that US slavery was, well, pretty bad all in all ”
What was the race of the people who sold the slaves in Africa?
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/30 @ 8:17 pm #
Perpetual Victims™ Keith!
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/30 @ 8:17 pm #
Because, by and large, it wasn’t. There were certainly differences in practice, but the basic amorality of slavery — and the essence of what slaves endure — is the same whether the slave owners are descended from white Europeans, Arabs, Chinese, or Native Americans.
What ways?
You can still buy slaves in some parts of the world. Slaves taken on the same basis as those taken for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, even. I find it hard to believe that slavery in the US — ended 143 years ago — is “more persistent” than a still-existent slave trade.
Slavery pre-dated European arrival in the New World; it pre-dated recognizable European culture anywhere you can name. To single out the US as somehow having been worse, or have been more “persistent” at it, is nonsensical. There wasn’t even 100 years between the creation of the United States and the end of slavery.
Yeah, it was a horrible stain on the US that a nation founded on the ideas of liberty and equality had legal slavery. And the crimes of the reconstruction and Jim Crow eras were pretty horrific, too. But, again, none of that is unique to the US, or even all that unusual in human history.
What’s unusual is that we’ve established a culture that finds those practices abhorrent.
Comment by ghostcat on 7/30 @ 8:17 pm #
American slavery unique, eh?
Q: What percentage of the 12 million African slaves shipped to the New World came to “America”?
A: Around 4%. (Source: Skip Gates, et al)
Comment by B Moe on 7/30 @ 8:20 pm #
It might be true to say that slavery in every country was unique in some way, but it is no less true to say it of the United States.
It might also be utterly fucking absurd, which kind of shoots your “factual statement” nonsense right in its ass.
…slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals…
They were captured in Africa by Africans and sold in African slave markets by Africans. Here is a dirty little secret for you Kevin: the reason the South had slaves from Africa is BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE THE FUCKING SLAVE MARKETS WERE! There was nothing uniquely American about it, slaves have been sold at auction houses since prehistory, all over the damn world. There isn’t a soul alive that can’t trace his history back to ancestors who were slaves and other ancestors who owned slaves. The only thing unique about American slavery is the great fucking massive scab that pinheads like you can’t stop picking and eating long enough for the wound to heal.
Fuck off, nobody here is in the mood for idiots tonight.
Comment by E. Nough on 7/30 @ 8:24 pm #
Mr. Keith’s strawman construction skills are only exceeded by his strawman destruction skills.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/30 @ 8:35 pm #
Yes. Because it’s been a constant argument my entire life. Oddly, the older I’ve gotten, the louder and more insistent the argument has become — despite discrimination and racism becoming less and less acceptable and more and more rare.
That makes no sense. I have no doubt there are people who would say slavery in the US wasn’t that bad — they’re as much idiots as those who try to make it out to be some unique evil. But they have nothing to do with “talking about race”.
Who pretends race isn’t issue? It most certainly is. But I have a feeling that you put people who believe in a color-blind society and want to work to achieve that into the “vicious fool” category.
Comment by dre on 7/30 @ 8:38 pm #
“Comment by E. Nough on 7/30 @ 8:24 pm #”
Did you post at LGF ?
Comment by ccoffer on 7/30 @ 8:46 pm #
On the upside, I just put some air in my tires, so I’ll be getting about 107mpg from here on out.
Suck on it, Big Oil!
Comment by JD on 7/30 @ 8:50 pm #
Keith’s initials are KK, 2/3rds of KKK. Coincidence? I think not.
Racists
Comment by mcgruder on 7/30 @ 9:02 pm #
we are fucked now. the financial collapse proceeds apace. If i may be so bold, however, the possibility exists of a serious liberal bordering on leftie like Obama could screw it up much much worse. but with respect to the economy, it would be harder to screw things up much worse.
given that bush nationalized both wall street investment banks and fannie-freddie, all Obama could do to be worse on the economy is raise taxes.
which he is sure to do.
Comment by B Moe on 7/30 @ 9:11 pm #
I think O! may have shown us the path to Nirvana, after some extensive research,
http://tinyurl.com/68ghgr
I have discovered an astonishing number of ways to save gasoline:
Drive sensibly 35%
Observe speed limits 25%
Remove excess weight 5%
Improve aerodynamics 5%
Tune engine 10%
Tune and regulate AC use 10%
Clean filters 10%
Proper tire pressure 5%
Correct motor oil 5%
Total 110%
That is right, you could be producing enough gasoline to sell some to your neighbors at the end of the week if you would just plan a little more carefully and listen to the Lightworker.
Comment by malaclypse the tertiary on 7/30 @ 9:18 pm #
Mr. Keith, for an ostensible ethicist, you strike an interesting posture in a forum wherein you have commented (at least under this appelation) a mere handful of times, among a community of people about whom you have little demonstrated knowledge. I suppose if a member of the clergy can be found to be a pederast, what’s to prevent an ethicist from demonstrating their lack of common courtesy. What has courtesy to do with ethics anyway? I’m sure I’m simply way off base here.
Ethicist Keith avers:
Since you don’t understand the point of the formulation, it’s probably safe to simply dismiss it as ‘babbling.’ Well met!
The exploration and drilling issue owes its existence to legislation. In response to the suggestion that the legislation be changed, Senator Obama offers us a rejoinder about the maintenance of our collective cars. While perhaps one might make an argument that the good Senator had some kind of ‘awareness campaign’ about fuel efficiency and tire pressure in mind, the context for the disagreement was legislation. Given that fact, when also considering the kind of social-experimentation-by-legislation that Senator Obama’s ideological brethren have championed in the past, as well as other comments he’s made about how we can’t set our thermostats to such-and-such temperature and similar, it shouldn’t tax credulity to imagine that he may have some legislative remedy in mind.
The eminently level-headed interlocutor continues:
This appears to be brazen mendacity. Given your putative status as ethicist, I’ll assume it is in good faith and respond accordingly. Questions of race have been examined in this forum for a good long time and Darleen’s commentary appears here as a continuation of that discussion. Suffice to say that understanding her position requires at least some attempt to uncover that contextual history. You appear to have made no attempt to do so, which would explain at least some of your confusion.
What’s more, you take a rather pecksniffian tone as it were. Perhaps your purpose was not to persuade? Perhaps your purpose was to condescend?
Anyway, one can easily interpret Darleen’s comments as an indictment of the political nature of non-binding congressional resolutions. This seems especially cogent given the current electoral milieu, yes? It seems clear to me that she is also unnerved by the supercilious tone of this resolution; an insight that, given the flavor of your comments here, is perhaps lost on you.
Our oh-so-humble complainant continues:
Come now. You seem smarter that to really be suggesting that Darleen was attempting some kind of tu quoque here. See my above comments about the political nature of non-binding resolutions passed during presidential elections.
I rather feel like an idiot now. I had been going about this with the hope that somewhere buried inside you is a rational and civil fellow who is interested in arguing in good faith. Then I realized I hadn’t read everything you’d written. This is really very rich, sir:
Perhaps you have some kind of final solution in mind, Mr. Ethicist?
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 9:21 pm #
Perhaps KtK should relocate to the mecca of hugs, freedom, polygamy, kite flying, honor killing, homosexual loving utopia Iran?
Comment by Howard on 7/30 @ 9:26 pm #
Kudos to John McCain, who honestly expresses the importance, and his willingness of working across the isle, in order to get the country’s business done. McCain wants to place the needs of America above petty partisan politics. So far, Pelosi doesn’t seem to be willing to place the needs of America above petty partisan politics, nor does she want to listen to the will of the people, 76% of whom want immediate off shore drilling. For the good of the country, I hope she changes in this regard.
Comment by Techie on 7/30 @ 9:35 pm #
Damn, Keith’s spiel made my brain hurt.
Of course, I am a person of pallor, so by definition, I am a racist. I denounce myself. I am not the myself that I once knew.
Comment by JD on 7/30 @ 9:40 pm #
We have had our share of trolls, but this Keith asshat is clearly in the highest order of same.
Comment by JD on 7/30 @ 9:43 pm #
m the t – Bravo. Me, I will take the easy route and point out that Senor Keith is a douchnozzle.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/30 @ 9:47 pm #
Keith fancies himself a thinker. Not so much really, he’s just another emoter, getting off on his own private brain cocktail of passion’s chemicals. Needn’t give him a second thought. He’s got nothing.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 9:49 pm #
yeah, it smells heavily of smug here. and not in a good way.
Comment by Ric Locke on 7/30 @ 10:00 pm #
1) The bit about the tires is a damnable, palpable, bald-faced lie. It is, furthermore, an advertising campaign for a tire manufacturer whose plant, built at Government expense with plenty of graft, had not been maintained since WWII and as a result started making defective tires that leaked. They wanted everybody to check their pressure and top it up in order to cut down on warranty returns and/or lawsuits, and inflated the gas savings as an incentive. He’s not only wrong, he’s propping up the military-industrial complex!
As for “paranoid fantasy”, I invite you to investigate “CAFE” and the National (Highway) Transportation Safety (Commission) Agency. It might inform you just how many plausible-to-the-ignorant notions are now Federal law, with guys in blue suits, with guns, insuring that they’re followed. I don’t see why a man from a polity that’s in the process of establishing a dedicated corps of Inspectors of Dog Balls would think Tire Pressure Police to be in any way over the top.
Darleen didn’t say that. Congress said that. The present Congress is one of the most ineffectual in history. They don’t do judges. They don’t do laws. They don’t do budgets. They don’t even do appropriations, except when kicked in the butt by the President and when they’re allowed to siphon off funds for their own personal use. All they do is endless investigations focused on who hates George W. Bush the most, grandstanding speeches, and mindless “nonbinding resolutions”. They can’t even be bothered to pay attention to the city they are solely in charge of, and their leadership has declared that the single most important economic issue facing the United States today will not be addressed in any way. Anything the present Congress passes is useless, trivial, contemptible, wrongheaded, counterproductive, or some combination. Blacks with slave ancestors should be insulted that they were even mentioned by that gang of fools and mountebanks.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by J. Peden on 7/30 @ 10:08 pm #
You honestly believe there isn’t a widespread refusal to address racial inequality in the US?
No – and there’s not been merely a “refusal to address”. Just look at the “inner cities” – run by black Democrats – not to mention the effect of white Faux Liberal Welfare programs on black men, women, and children who get caught up in their maw.
Nay, it seems more like there’s instead been a very dedicated effort on the part of Democrats to intensify inequality.
Comment by Darleen on 7/30 @ 10:42 pm #
KTK
He made a factual statement
No he didn’t. I don’t see any references to studies, no citing of authorities, not even the giggle-worthy “some”. The infrastructure is in place, at this very moment, to pump of the volume of KNOWN oil right off Santa Barbara, where the vast majority of tar that hits the beaches right now is NATURAL SEEPAGE which oil pumping will LESSEN.
You think slavery is comparable to prairie dog celebrations. Taking public notice of, and addressing the question of responsibility for . . . slavery . . . is like honoring prairie dogs
Of course not, you puerile snot. I think the waste of tax dollars by cynical dilettantes offering up mastubatory pieces so they can pretend to be Most Compassionate in front of cameras in lieu of actually being legislators is contemptible regardless of the subject of the piece.
But how could it possibly be controversial to point out that American slavery was different from other forms?
Because it wasn’t. Period. It wasn’t unique, it wasn’t TEH WORST IN TEH WORLD EVAH. That is a historical lie. Just like saying all 13 Colonies had slaves. Or that all slaves were from Africa. Or that somehow America is unique in racism as a result.
What America had was not unique, what was unique is our efforts – sometimes successful sometime not – TO REJECT WHAT HAD ALWAYS BEEN HISTORICALLY ACCEPTABLE.
You honestly believe there isn’t a widespread refusal to address racial inequality in the US? If you want evidence, look at yourself. The fact that it upsets you so much for anyone to say out loud that US slavery was, well, pretty bad all in all says volumes about what it takes to talk about race in this country.
Shit, you are full of yourself aren’t you, KTK? You don’t like that I call a craven sniveler Congresscritter on his historically inaccuracy, his mendacity and suddenly I am [cue the horse screams] “racist”.
But what the hey, I’m just the descendant of slaves, brought here in 1697 and sold to work on a plantation in Virginia, so what would I know of American slavery.
Fuck off, I have little patience with bad faith trolls.
Comment by E. Nough on 7/30 @ 10:44 pm #
Did you post at LGF ?
Years ago, yes. I still read LGF, but I rarely post there.
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 7/30 @ 10:50 pm #
That was what I thought while I was reading your comment. Small world.
Comment by Kevin T. Keith on 7/30 @ 11:13 pm #
Comment by malaclypse the tertiary on 7/30 @ 9:18 pm #
Mr. Keith, for an ostensible ethicist, you strike an interesting posture in a forum wherein you have commented (at least under this appelation) a mere handful of times, among a community of people about whom you have little demonstrated knowledge. I suppose if a member of the clergy can be found to be a pederast, what’s to prevent an ethicist from demonstrating their lack of common courtesy. What has courtesy to do with ethics anyway? I’m sure I’m simply way off base here.
Hmmm . . . complete sentences . . . OK – you get a response.
As to courtesy – she can try not being a snotty, dismissive racist and find out if she deserves any.
Where did he mention police? What the hell are you babbling about?
Since you don’t understand the point of the formulation, it’s probably safe to simply dismiss it as ‘babbling.’ Well met!
Well, it appears that neither the author nor you understand the implications of her words, but I can’t be held responsible for that.
The exploration and drilling issue owes its existence to legislation. In response to the suggestion that the legislation be changed, Senator Obama offers us a rejoinder about the maintenance of our collective cars. While perhaps one might make an argument that the good Senator had some kind of ‘awareness campaign’ about fuel efficiency and tire pressure in mind, the context for the disagreement was legislation. Given that fact, when also considering the kind of social-experimentation-by-legislation that Senator Obama’s ideological brethren have championed in the past, as well as other comments he’s made about how we can’t set our thermostats to such-and-such temperature and similar, it shouldn’t tax credulity to imagine that he may have some legislative remedy in mind.
In other words, you infer from an entirely indirect, and at times far-reaching, analysis of things he did not say some kind of hidden policy proposal behind the simple factual statement that he did make. You realize there is no grounding to that whatsoever, other than some kind of psychological extrapolation from the fact that some policies are enacted by compulsory legislation to a claim that the policy you imagine Obama had in mind will also be enacted in a way he did not mention?
That’s pretty thin. There’s an obvious and much simpler interpretation of what he said, that has the virtue of relying on what he actually said and not being fantastical.
His point was merely that the amount of oil the drilling plan was supposed to produce is too small to justify the drilling. (You do agree that he meant to imply that he is against the drilling?) The evidence for this is that the same amount of oil can be saved immediately with minimal effort. If the amount of oil obtainable from drilling in protected areas is equal to the amount saved by simple things that it’s already in our interests to do, that amount of oil can’t be very vital (and so, implicitly, the drilling isn’t necessary).
Simple, see?
And note it says nothing about policy of any kind. Technically, it isn’t even a recommendation that we should tune up our cars – the cars are just an easy way to save a small amount of oil, used to make his point about the trivial benefits of drilling. It would have been a perfectly reasonable point to make even if he didn’t want anybody to tune their cars. But it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with making tuneups mandatory. Going on about legislation for policy has nothing to do with it. He was making a simple, effective illustrative example as part of an argument against drilling. It’s a perfectly ordinary rhetorical strategy. It doesn’t mean he’s going to send the police to check your tires. Even if he did intend it as serious policy, you have a long way to go to get to where it becomes mandatory.
And, as I noted, none of that has anything to do with whether the argument is even right. Darleen’s objection was not that tuning your cars won’t really save that much oil – and I don’t know if it will or won’t. She jumped immediately to the conclusion that you then tried to prove with some sort of roundabout historical analysis – both of you missing the obvious point that he was just making a comparison for purposes of an argument.
OK. You think slavery is comparable to prairie dog celebrations. . . .
This appears to be brazen mendacity.
How is my comment mendacious? She compared a resolution condemning slavery to a resolution praising prairie dogs. I’m not making this up. She went out of her way to be as offensive as possible, using a standard form of racial slur. It’s pretty much understood by any American who’s not a racist dipshit that comparing black Americans to animals is (a) a longstanding racist trope, and (b) a really bad idea. Blithely not caring about that is prima facie racism. Dismissively mocking attempts to address long-standing racial tensions (however awkward), while invoking racist comparisons to animals, is pretty much Class A Douchebaggery. And, again, she went out of her way to do it.
Questions of race have been examined in this forum for a good long time and Darleen’s commentary appears here as a continuation of that discussion. Suffice to say that understanding her position requires at least some attempt to uncover that contextual history. You appear to have made no attempt to do so, which would explain at least some of your confusion.
Right . . . she’s Howard Cosell, only with prairie dogs.
Look – if what you say is only not-racist when you add a whole lot of other things to it that you didn’t say, it’s not not-racist. And presuming on racial goodwill to excuse grossly racist remarks, explicitly condemnatory of other people’s anti-racism efforts, is basically right out, especially if you’re white. (Darleen is, right? I’m just guessing, here.)
And I have to say again – she was not only hostile to an acknowledgment of the harm of slavery, but went out of her way to put it in mocking and grossly offensive terms. But it’s OK because all her white friends on her blog know she’s really not racist, she’s just “not politically correct”, huh? Spare me.
There’s a simple rule: you own your words. She’s welcome to say what she wants. I’m entitled to notice.
What’s more, you take a rather pecksniffian tone as it were. Perhaps your purpose was not to persuade? Perhaps your purpose was to condescend?
There appears to be no other way for us to converse on an equal level.
Anyway, one can easily interpret Darleen’s comments as an indictment of the political nature of non-binding congressional resolutions.
Uh, not so much. If that’s what she meant, I’d expect her to, you know, say something about the political nature of non-binding resolutions. (Again, it’s the thing about reading what people actually write and then asking what the words mean, rather than guessing what they might have meant if they’d said something different.) She did mention non-binding resolutions, but her only further remark about them was to compare this one to one about pest animals. Not exactly searching political analysis, and, then, there’s that animal thing again . . .
It seems clear to me that she is also unnerved by the supercilious tone of this resolution; an insight that, given the flavor of your comments here, is perhaps lost on you.
Oh, I understand superciliousness. It’s similar to condescension, but less necessary. I wasn’t being supercilious.
As to the resolution, in what way is it possibly supercilious? (It may be cynical, it may be disingenuous, it may be a form of pandering, or it may just be unjustified, but how can an admission of guilt it be supercilious?) And how – except by way of your penchant for circumambulatory daydreaming – do you drag that out of what she actually said? She called both resolutions “contrived” – again I can’t imagine how they resemble each other in that way – but that also is not superciliousness. Do either of you know what she actually meant, other than the blacks/rodents thing that she actually said?
Come now. You seem smarter that to really be suggesting that Darleen was attempting some kind of tu quoque [in characterizing a statement about the severity of slavery in the US as "incredulous [sic] crappola . . . the shiniest bowel movement of the smelly lot”]. See my above comments about the political nature of non-binding resolutions passed during presidential elections.
Perhaps I am guilty here of reading too much into her words. I was offering the charitable assumption that she meant something by her words, other than simply dismissing a criticism of slavery as “shit”, twice. The only weakness I could see in the statement in question is the implication that US slavery was objectively worse than all other kinds, and I tried to construct an argument for her along those lines, but I may have overstepped.
On your authority, I take it then that her entire reflective analysis of the slavery resolution consists of the words “crappola” and “shiniest bowel movement”. I stand, corrected, in awe.
More to the point, what does it mean that there’s an entire political party filled with assholes like him who publicly speak to each other in a universally-recognized racial code that they won’t acknowledge?
Perhaps you have some kind of final solution in mind, Mr. Ethicist?
Huh?
Now you’ve gone beyond imagining tenuously connected implausibilities to just plain makin’ shit up. How did you possibly get from my claim that Republicans use racial code-words to the idea that I am planning a genocide? Did you just flip open a dictionary and pick a word? I’d be insulted but it’s just so weird I can’t even muster a reaction.
All I can suggest is that you take a deep breath and re-read what I wrote. Republican “code” is well-known and well-recognized, but they still pretend they’re being clever in using it: the carefully placed ad images – Willie Horton/black hands/Britney & Paris; “states’ rights”; “welfare queens”; “militant”; “quotas”; Ronald Reagan’s campaign speech at the site of the murders of civil rights marchers, and on and on. You appear to deny it exists, when it is commonplace – and your denial is in response to my citation of code as an example of undeniable racial divisions! You convict yourself of the obliviousness I accused Darleen of – which does little to acquit her of the charge. (And I’m a Nazi for that? Project much?)
Throughout this, you seem to reach for tortured or ungrounded interpretations of simple statements, both by people you criticize and people you support. As much as anything, that suggests the weakness of your position, and Darleen’s. My original response was predicated entirely on what she said and the language she used in saying it; yours is all over the map. My response in this post is merely to point out the ways in which you vindicate my original remarks.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:17 pm #
says the guy talking accusing people of using racist code.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:18 pm #
via your secret decoder ring that nobody else has.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 11:18 pm #
I loved this post, but the comments got very screedy.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:19 pm #
I think the correct term would be “crapweaselly”
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 11:21 pm #
Middle initials are usually a dead giveaway I guess.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:22 pm #
Hmmm . . . complete sentences . . . OK – you get a response.
Oh! how brave of you keyboardist! Heh.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:23 pm #
because they’re equally binding, legislatively speaking. which means a waste of time. it’s got nothing to do with race.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:24 pm #
ooooh, and take out the initial and what’s left?
exactly.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 7/30 @ 11:26 pm #
Darleen wrote,
True! Why in the hell don’t proggs get this?
And the Democratic Party was the historic party of slavery. The Republican Party was founded to eliminate slavery. The Civil War was essentially a war of Republicans against southern Democratic Party slavers.
Who has the moral high ground again? Surely not Democrats.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:27 pm #
Republican “code†is well-known and well-recognized
I got my speshul Rove authored racist handbook a couple of years ago. Thank GOD!
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:29 pm #
I think I accidentally sold mine in a garage sale. that must be where Kevin picked his up.
Comment by maggie katzen on 7/30 @ 11:29 pm #
sorry.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:32 pm #
True! Why in the hell don’t proggs get this?
Cognitive Dissonance
It’s hard to process that the group you are aligned with actually perpetuates what you claim to be against.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 11:39 pm #
and take out the initial and what’s left?
good catch. All kinds of bad omens with that one.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/30 @ 11:39 pm #
Kevins speech patterns remind me of someone……ah yes, that great negro philosopher brother Dr. Cornel West, one of the world’s foremost experts on saying less with more.
More shame, Keith, less bullshit, how about it?
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:39 pm #
Maggie
Rove’s Racist Code Word Handbook
It’s so prolific, wasn’t gonna be a big ticket on ebay anyway.
Talk about paranoia. Kids are so good at this. Whoever smelt it, dealt it.
Code word: TOWNHOUSE LIST SERVE
Comment by Shakes The Clown on 7/30 @ 11:43 pm #
“Whereas slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals;”
Slavery in America is the worst slavery that ever existed! In fact, outside of American Slavery, no other aspect of slavery in it’s thousands of year history should even come into play.
That is classic stuff.
Here is Obama from Meet the Press:
“The biggest problem that we have in terms of race relations, I think, is dealing with the legacy of past discrimination which has resulted in extreme disparities in terms of poverty, in terms of wealth and in terms of income. Our inner cities are a legacy of what happened in the past.
And the question is less assigning blame or rooting out active racism, because that’s not the reason that those inner cities are in such bad shape, but rather figuring out are we willing to make the investments to deal with that past history so we can move forward to a brighter future? And that involves investing in early childhood education, fixing the schools in those communities, being willing to work in terms of job retraining. And those are serious investments.”
Serious investments. It all comes down to money.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:47 pm #
Actually, Jeff Y. raises an excellent counterpoint to KK
Since the Democrats were the opposition party to civil rights legislation (and abolition of slavery), shouldn’t they pass a resolution apologizing for the Democrat extreme opposition and on the record votes opposing blacks civil rights in all parts of history?
Put your money where your mouth is KK.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 7/30 @ 11:50 pm #
You can stop being a liar, and see if you deserve any too.
But you are responsible for your untruthful inferences. The problem is not that we don’t understand your claims, but rather that we think they are wrong. In this case, your error is to conflate a comparison of nonbinding resolutions, non-binding apology resolution to non-binding Pioneer Prairie Dog Days, with a comparison of black people to prairie dogs. It’s an obvious error of reference on your part. It has all appearances of being an intentional lie about Darleen’s claims.
Oh yes, you are. And you’re guilty of reading into her words things that are not there.
Heh. Here you lie by omission and by category. You have a habit of this, I think. Darleen wrote a polemic, not a reflective analysis. You just invent a new category, reflective analysis, to contrast with Darleen’s colorful language. That’s a typical dishonest rhetorical ploy. Sophomoric, but dishonest.
By whom? Please cite evidence that (1) there exists a Republican “code”, (2) this code is a “commonplace”, (3) Darleen is using this “code.”. I for example dispute every example you’ve provided. And I must say, I can’t remember comparing blacks to prairie dogs being in any code whatsoever. Another dishonest invention of yours, perhaps?
Comment by Try Hang Gliding on 7/30 @ 11:53 pm #
What, we can’t drill AND inflate our tires?
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/30 @ 11:58 pm #
Try Hang Gliding
Heh.
and for now, I’m going to stay out of Jeff Y’s way. Hooo Baby.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 12:08 am #
“…cars are just [cars have nothing to do with your silly lives, they are an instrument of instruction in the hands of a master instructor] an easy way to save a small amount [like the trivial to come] of oil [by not driving them, obvs], used [with, uh, um, his inimitable, um, uh, rhetorical, uh, um, flair] to make his point [it is a brilliant point] about the trivial [and he knows this with certainty because he's the one who made it up] benefits [again, for the hard of hearing, there are no benefits to drilling] of drilling…”
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/31 @ 12:48 am #
I just can’t understand why Liberals are so pro fucking up the middle east’s environment with drilling.
It’s strange, because I thought the crisis was global, no?
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 7/31 @ 12:49 am #
crisis = enviromental
crisis = global warming
???
Comment by malaclypse the tertiary on 7/31 @ 2:10 am #
I can tell you are a educated person. I take great umbrage at your tone here, but I will leave any stylistic commentary at that. I believe it is possible that some value should obtain through this dialog. I will do what I can here to lower the heat of the rhetoric and address, to the best of my ability, your response.
There is a zen parable about a goose in a bottle (that has also been appropriated by the discordians) in which a student or official, depending on the permutation, is given the mental task by a master of extricating a goose from a bottle without breaking the bottle or killing the goose. The purpose of the exercise is the realization that we are all like the goose; trapped by our own perspective. I regret the tenor of indignation that was present in my previous comments, however richly I felt you deserved it at the time.
One of the themes that the host of this blog has explored at great length is a exposition and defense of the intentionalist hermeneutic. The imputation of racism to Darleen’s commentaryâ€â€the signification of her speech actâ€â€under the intentionalist hermeneutic, requires more than a cursory read of her comments; one must attempt to get at the intent of the author. Indeed, it requires as much inquiry into intent as is practicable, lest you should privilege the interpreter in the adduction of the meaning of the act. Jeff has a rather nice formulation that goes something like (and I’ll likely butcher this), ‘At that point, you’re no longer engaging in interpretation, you’re engaging in creative writing.’
The first and most effective means to determine intent is to, y’know, ask the author. Darleen has already clearly stated that there was no racist intent in her comments. At this point you can call her a liar, or you can dispute the validity of the intentionalist hermeneutic. You could argue, for example, that Darleen’s commentary is animated by social forces beyond her control and that she can therefore have no practical ownership of her intent or indeed, even her speech acts.
I’m not sure which of those tacks you are employing, but the folks around here, in general, operate under the assumption that intentionalism is valid. Given that, we’d expect you to do more digging into the history of Darleen’s comments and even take the radical step of asking her what she means. In my estimation, the majority of the assembled would consider such an approach to be consistent with the spirit of academic inquiry.
I’m going to leave out most of our exchange regarding Senator Obama’s comments about drilling for brevity. It’s all there upthread. I’ll just add the last few sentences of your response for context:
I do not believe that a specific policy on this issue is up the Senator’s sleeve per se. I don’t think Darleen was suggesting as much either. I think that it is entirely in keeping with the philosophical posture of the political left (in aggregate) to arrogate the power to solve what they perceive to be social ills unto the government. Such a prescription is anathema to the general political position of the commentariat here. As such, we are given to wax hyperbolic on occasionâ€â€with the self-awareness that we are being hyperbolicâ€â€in an attempt to point to what we perceive as an overweening and paternalistic political predisposition.
Because the truth is, there really are a great many examples of the kind of policy to which I allude that have been championed by the left. California is an exemplar. An important rhetorical device that can be used to communicate the displeasure that I and many others feel about this is to explicate the untenable and unintended outcomes that derive from this predisposition to policy oriented solutions.
I’m prepared to posit that this was what Darleen was in mind of when she made her “pressure police” comment.
We then went on to discuss Darleen’s ostensible racism and I asserted that your comments appeared mendacious. You responded thusly:
Again, asserting the primacy of intent here, I would argue that you are in no position to impute racism to her comments. You don’t know, for example, that Darleen didn’t grow up on a prairie dog farm, where, because of the complete lack of market value for prairie dog pelts or meat, she came to see the little furballs as a benign yet profound symbol of a hollow gesture. I indulge my desire for levity, but there really are all kinds of reasons why she might have composed her comments the way she did that have nothing whatsoever to do with racism.
The continual assertion by those that make truck with identity politics that anything that can in any way be connected to some epitaph or metaphorical damnation is a kind of linguistic eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, where discourse becomes blind and toothless. I would even suggest that it is consistent with the intentionalist view around here that the ability for people without racist intent to employ whatever metaphors they wish without the imputation of racism would be the real evidence of the arrival of the post-racial.
Then we were onto the object of prairie dog analogy. I suggested it was non-binding resolutions. You did not concur. To wit:
I appreciate your apparent appeal to intentionalism in the above. If you are sincere, I would encourage you to consider the totality of Darleen’s writing on race. I think it is pretty clear that she thinks non-binding resolutions are pretty much hollow exercises. I think it’s pretty clear that that was the object of her analogy. I think it is a far greater Occam would militate against the interpretation that suggests it was some kind of crypto-racism.
Really my man. I have read a good deal of what she’s written and I can say with no compunction that Darleen is a gentle person who harbors no more unrequited hate than any other basically decent human being. It stretches my credulity to the point of breakage to believe that Darleen would directly or indirectly seek to harm another person, regardless of their morphology.
Then we went on to discuss the ostensibly supercilious tone of the resolution. Darleen called it “contrived.” You refused to acknowledge anything but racism:
I’ll tell you how an admission of guilt can be seen as supercilious. We doubt their sincerity.
It is politically expedient to beat the racism drum when your candidate has been positioning himself as “post-racial”. And, y’know, he just happens to be of African descent. It doesn’t require any daydreaming to note the degree to which Senator Obama and his campaign and indeed the Democratic party have been trying to control the rules of racial discourse; in some cases going so far as to suggest that simply taking a particular policy position amounts to racism.
It would be beyond naive to think that this resolution is merely a munificent contrition. It is part of a narrative that is intended only in part to aid the ascension of Senator Obama by making an already cowed and guilt-suffused electorate even more squeamish about voicing any doubt about him, no matter how meritorious. The larger goal is the ownership of the dialog on race and indeed the issues surrounding any political faction with a grievance. Because, goes the narrative, to oppose the solutions advocated for by these groups is to be a racist, sexist, xenophobe, sizeist, etc.
Here, another misunderstanding arises when I suggest (and you editorialize):
The statement Darleen was characterizing was not about the “severity of slavery in the US” in a vacuum. The statement suggested that it was unique. Now, was it unique? Sure. Aesthetically. But to suggest as much in a non-binding resolutionâ€â€y’know the kind of thing that contains language that has been parsed and crafted and reparsed by no less than a bunch of legislators, many of whom are lawyersâ€â€is to illuminate an underlying set of assumptions that are almost never merely aesthetic.
I’m sorry I said this:
It was hyperbolic. I was unnerved by your arrogance. That you would paint with such a broad brush in the comments to which I was responding as to suggest that the entire party engages in crypto-racism struck me as beyond delusional. It is clear that you have a cogent worldview that describes how you could come to such a conclusion. The best I can say is that I find that worldview considerably lacking in isomorphism to reality.
Good day, sir.
Pingback by My flabber is officially gasted | The Return of the Twisted Spinster on 7/31 @ 4:02 am #
[...] I can think of no other explanation for the fact that Our Betters in Congress have made the extraordinary assertion that slavery in America was the worsest, most awful slavery in history — not only that, it [...]
Comment by B Moe on 7/31 @ 4:42 am #
His point was merely that the amount of oil the drilling plan was supposed to produce is too small to justify the drilling. (You do agree that he meant to imply that he is against the drilling?) The evidence for this is that the same amount of oil can be saved immediately with minimal effort. If the amount of oil obtainable from drilling in protected areas is equal to the amount saved by simple things that it’s already in our interests to do, that amount of oil can’t be very vital (and so, implicitly, the drilling isn’t necessary).
Simple, see?
I would say retarded, but simple works.
I wonder if Obama is going to apply the same logic to tax increases? I am sure the increased revenue could be easily saved with minimal budget cutting and elimination of government waste.
Comment by alppuccino on 7/31 @ 4:51 am #
Next: Obama’s weight-loss tips.
1. Use tiny silverware.
2. Work out instead of visiting wounded troops. Works better than dieting.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 5:02 am #
If your entire argument can be defeated by Darleen simply saying “I am black” you probably shouldn’t even be posting here.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/31 @ 5:07 am #
Huh. Rather odd that Keith refuses to actually address any of the historical arguments against his screed.
Comment by Carin on 7/31 @ 5:15 am #
What do you think the Confederate flag bullshit is about? How many people in the South still talk about “The War of Northern Aggression?
Obviously Kevin doesn’t understand the intricacies of the Civil War, or he wouldn’t have posed that question.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 5:26 am #
Rob that is about as odd as arguing that drilling for oil would not have an effect because you know, drilling for oil is not how you get oil in the first place, it just falls from the sky in happy rainbows of magic. Oil exploration is just a figment of our imagination.
I really wish him and his kind would be honest with the American people about their ideas. Obama was much more honest about the left’s polices when he was saying that he wanted gas prices to rise “just not this fast”. Somehow I doubt that will ever happen though since it is a political loser, so the lies about having a solution to high oil prices other than “use less” will continue.
Comment by Carin on 7/31 @ 5:34 am #
And I have to say again – she was not only hostile to an acknowledgment of the harm of slavery, but went out of her way to put it in mocking and grossly offensive terms. But it’s OK because all her white friends on her blog know she’s really not racist, she’s just “not politically correctâ€Â, huh? Spare me.
See, this is what I’m gonna miss … people like Keith/Kevin. There, there KK. It’s gonna be ok. Obviously you’re not ready for debate at the big-boy’s table. Usually they explain what a strawman argument is in high school, or early years of college. Perhaps you should go back and read your notes or something.
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 5:35 am #
KKK is a mendouceous douchnozzle, a twatwaffle of the highest order.
Racists
Comment by The Lost Dog on 7/31 @ 5:36 am #
KTK_
WOW! I think you have taken the title of “Supreme Asshat” at PW!
It amazes me just how fucking stupid you actually are! My God, Man! Where did you get your “education”? Wherever it was, you should demand a full refund and damages. You should sue them for brain damage, too.
Comment by alppuccino on 7/31 @ 5:37 am #
Obama supported the “One sheet of toilet paper” law, right?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 5:40 am #
If Darleen simply said “I am black” Kevin’s entire argument would pop like a bubble of soap.
Comment by alppuccino on 7/31 @ 5:41 am #
Lost Dog,
Your comment #81 is so chock-full of Republican racist code, I don’t know where to begin. “Full refund”? Have you no shame?
Comment by Carin on 7/31 @ 5:44 am #
“I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged.â€Â
Yes, WHEN is the tragedy of SLAVERY going to see the light of day? We’ve hidden the truths of our tragic past for FAR too long. REPENT SINNERS.
Comment by alppuccino on 7/31 @ 5:46 am #
Incidentally, I bought a jade bolo tie shaped like a soaring eagle with a snake in its claw overlooking a beaver building his dam as a fly fisherman is reeling in a trout at Pioneer Prarie Dog Days in Weararewhee, ND. Best $18 I ever spent. It absolutely goes with everything.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 6:58 am #
Is there a Pioneer Prarie Dog Day Parade in Weararewhee, ND?
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 7:00 am #
KTK is truly an asshat. There is no point in what mal the ter attempted, as honorable as it may have been. KTK wanted to call us racists, and he did.
He, in fact, demonstrates exactly the point I like to make by signing off with calling everyone racists. It is easy. And utterly pointless. He was going to do so regardless of what was written.
Racists.
Comment by B Moe on 7/31 @ 7:06 am #
Is there a Pioneer Prarie Dog Day Parade in Weararewhee, ND?
You don’t think alpuccino would just make something like that up, now, do you?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 7:11 am #
What’s the racial codeword of the day? Yesterday it was “inexperienced” and the day before that it was “liberal”, but I did not get my VRWC blast email today so I am clueless. Someone help me out.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 7:13 am #
I did hear thru the secret grapevine that 2 weeks prior to the election that “Democrat” will become racial codespeak. You heard it here first pass it on.
Comment by Darleen on 7/31 @ 7:14 am #
She went out of her way to be as offensive as possible, using a standard form of racial slur. It’s pretty much understood by any American who’s not a racist dipshit that comparing black Americans to animals
Is KTK for real? I used a “standard form of a racial slur”?
I think KTK would probably find a person ordering their coffee “black” a racist.
I was comparing the UNSERIOUSNESS of all fanciful and unimportant unbinding House resolutions, coughed up like so many hairballs, that the House misuses its time in producing. From declaring National Butter Days to recognizing all the miscellaneous and strangely named local municipal celebrations across the country.
KTK also ignores that the title of this post signals quite clearly that it is a rant form, not an analysis — that I’m venting off at the stupidity and mendacity of Congresscritter Cohen (the author of the crappolicious historically inaccurate “apology”) and Obamessiah channeling the worst of Jhimmi Carter’s sweater admonishments.
Comment by Darleen on 7/31 @ 7:19 am #
BTW
I said “Pioneer Prairie Dog Days” …
But heck, I put my fictional city in North Dakota and as we all know that state is majority persons of pallor so that must be CODE (ooooOOOoooOO) too.
what.a.loon.
Comment by Matt, Esq. on 7/31 @ 7:30 am #
I lost my racist code decoder ring. Does anyone have an extra ? I feel I’m missing out on all this racism b/c I can’t crack the code without the ring. EHLP !
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 7:32 am #
Shorter version of his statements “Republicans and people to the right of me politically don’t like black people. Drilling for oil will not be worth it.”
Though how having the government allow companies to drill for oil will be a net loss I do not know. If the companies lose money who cares. I think this guy actually believes we have a nationalized oil industry where the drilling will cost the taxpayers.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 7:32 am #
I am spreading an e-rumor that Darleen is fond of assless chaps and is writing a series about it on Protein Wisdom.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 7:32 am #
Darleen, maybe you shouldn’t have used a fictional example to make your point. I give you racist resolution H. RES. 578, National Watermelon Month!
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 7:34 am #
Lisa – What, pray tell, is wrong with assless chaps?
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 7:35 am #
In short, that would be a feature, not a bug.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 7:39 am #
Lisa – What, pray tell, is wrong with assless chaps?
Nothing, I wear mine for my yearly prostate exam. That way the doctor need only don a finger cot.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 7:40 am #
The arguments that are being used by the people trying to stop us from exploring domestic sources of oil is what chaps my ass. It is either the idiotic “drilling for oil will not lower prices for 10 years” or the moronic “drilling for our own oil will not produce enough to be of any impact.” The 10 year argument is so stupid I do not even want to respond to it and drilling for our own oil will at the very least provide jobs if not a steady supply of taxable oil for consumption. It will also cost us ZERO tax dollars.
These people have basically swallowed talking points and have gotten food poisoning from them. So they come here to pray to the internet’s version of the porcelain God and regurgitate them ad naseum.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 7:44 am #
LOL @ JD, Seven. You guys never fail to make my day.
Comment by Crimso on 7/31 @ 7:48 am #
“All I can suggest is that you take a deep breath and re-read what I wrote. Republican “code†is well-known and well-recognized”
Later in the same comment:
“Throughout this, you seem to reach for tortured or ungrounded interpretations of simple statements”
An observation offered without further comment.
Pingback by Why ‘politician’ shouldn’t be a profession [Darleen Click] on 7/31 @ 7:50 am #
[...] venting last night, I made two major points – politicians act in ways that demonstrate they hold mere citizens in [...]
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 7:52 am #
“All I can suggest is that you take a deep breath and re-read what I wrote. Republican “code†is well-known and well-recognizedâ€Â
If it is “well-known” and “well-recognized”, how the fuck is it code?
Comment by Crimso on 7/31 @ 8:01 am #
“What, we can’t drill AND inflate our tires?”
It would be counterproductive to do both simultaneously. Oh, wait. You meant drill for OIL!
Comment by Carin on 7/31 @ 8:09 am #
7/11 – THEY’VE BROKEN OUR CODE! Shit, we’re gonna have to use pig latin or something now.
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/31 @ 8:23 am #
Darleen, an excellent rant. I was this way through both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections and then, when I tuned 57, I realized that the youngsters can now take over. It’s their ball game now, and while I will vote and I will speak up to my colleagues and newspaper editors, my blood pressure will remain unperturbed. If Obama is the antiChrist, it’s about time, anyway, eh?
Comment by BJTex on 7/31 @ 8:23 am #
Stop it everybody. Keith is trying to save the planet. Put air in your tires, get tune ups, buy little hybrids and STFU.
Keith doesn’t give a white rat’s ass (wearing chaps) about energy policy. He really doesn’t care how much energy is or what the domestic supplies are and how we can get them or whethher or not we’ve been the laughing stock of the Arab world for our failure to exploit our own friggin’ resourses in a prudent manner for the last 30 years.
We all have to conserve to save the planet so STFU and pay up.
So the narrative weaves the tortured path of “It’ll take too long to drill” or “There’s not enough oil to bother” or “We can conserve that much oil” and the one left unsaid: “nuclear power is evil and unsafe.”
Just STFU and ride a bike, wingnuts.
Of course we know that all of the above statements are lies. That’s right, Keith, I’m saying that you are a lying propagandist water carrier for the left’s idiotic earth first environmental policy/fearmongering.
Got a problem with that?
What Keith fails to realise while he congratulates himself for dressing up the rotting pig corpse of energy dependance into a silk shirt of “conservation” and “alernative energy” is the the bulk of the American people, despite a non-stop media blitz directed at them, aren’t buying it for a minute.
Celebrate teh majority!
The failure to understand (or just plain willfull ignorance) is amazing when one considers that one of the supposed foundation stones of Democratic policy is that voters vote their pocketbooks! Remember “It’s the economy, stupid?” Nothing will affect middle class voters (especially those bitter, clingy godbotherers) more than out of control energy prices and no sustainable plan to correct them for the near and far future. Keith and his ilk’s willingness to overlook the fact that energy affects prices across the entire economy, and thus maximizes the impact on working families is the sort of sweet music even the morons in McCain’s campaign can appreciate.
So Keith? You and your candidate keep lying to the American voter. Make sure you tell Pelosi and Reid to hold fast. The American voter will notice and you and yours will, once again, be on the outside looking in come November and wondering how the ‘Thuglican warmongers “stole” another election.
Thank you for all of your efforts.
Comment by BJTex on 7/31 @ 8:26 am #
Ach! One bad closer! Darleen, can you fix it?
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 8:26 am #
Give ‘em hell, BJ. KTK is really not worth the effort, so I will leave it to the rest of you to fisk him.
I will just call him a mendoucheous douchenozzle.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 8:33 am #
Darleen, just a point of whatever: We have apologized for Japanese internment. I think someone has or wants to apologize for screwing the Native Americans. I don’t see why an apology for slavery is such a big deal. I realize the hyperbole is ridiculous and profoundly inaccurate. But I am not sure that it would hurt anyone to say “Sorry for slavery, muthafuckahs (but I will not give you any money, bitches so don’t even ask (don’t even axe for those of you living in West Baltimore)”.
See? Easy peasy.
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/31 @ 8:34 am #
B.J., what you say is so true, but will the idiot Republicans and the morons running McCain’s campaign – and that slug McCain himself – realize in time that the best and most volatile and positive issue they’ve got is OIL? The congressional ‘pubs seem to have gotten it, with douchenozzle (man, I love that word) Pelozi spewing her save-the-planet, soccer-moms-be-damned comments. The Senate ‘pubs seem to have gotten under Reid’s skin, too. But can McMaverick be more vocal about gasoline, prosperity, and the liberty they both support?
Comment by mojo on 7/31 @ 8:36 am #
I’ve never owned a slave. So you schmucks can kiss my ass for an apology.
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/31 @ 8:36 am #
Ah, more useless Democrat preening. Yes. It will benefit the nation. Moronic.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 8:47 am #
No it won’t benefit anyone. It is pretty stupid. But harmless. If people want to feel good by passing yet another pointless symbolic act (same as naming an airport after some idiot politician) let them.
Also Mojo: No one is asking YOU to apologize – why are you making it about you? Same as when Reagan apologized to the Japanese Americans on behalf of the NATION, it was not personal – it was an acknowledgement that the country had done something crappy and sorry and blah blah blah.
I don’t mean this in any kind of snarky shitty way, I am honestly wondering: Is the opposition to this based on an objection to silly resolutions of this nature in general or to the fact that it might open up a can of worms with black people who might feel like if the nation apologizes they might want some money? I don’t remember this much opposition to apologizing for anything before.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 7/31 @ 8:48 am #
I don’t see why an apology for slavery is such a big deal.
Lisa: my g-g-grandfather left his farm, wife, and young kids and wound up in a grave in Shitburg, Louisiana while he was helping to rectify the slavery thing.
Until Jesse Jackson hand-delivers a thank you note to every descendant of the veterans of the GAR, he can kiss my shiny mixed-race ass, as far as “apologies” go.
Comment by BJTex on 7/31 @ 8:50 am #
Well he’s caved on drilling and nucs. Once he caves on ANWAR, then we’ll know he’s really serious, although the whole “price the sky” thing will have to go as well.
OT: Speaking of rants this woman has been gone from political commenting for the last several years. She’s back talking about Obama’s celebrity status and the scalpel cuts deep and wide. (She’s also the cousin of a friend of mine.)
Comment by Neo on 7/31 @ 8:52 am #
It’s good to see the modern-day Copperhead Democrats apologize for slavery .. especially since it was the Republicans that ended it when the original Copperheads wouldn’t.
Comment by mojo on 7/31 @ 8:53 am #
Because nobody now alive was a slave owner, nor was anybody now alive a slave. The principals are dead, there’s nobody to apologize TO, even if we had anything to apologize FOR.
Make any kind of feel-good symbolic acts you like for yourself, but count me out.
Comment by daleyrocks on 7/31 @ 8:54 am #
I don’t think KTK looks like me.
That’s why he scares me.
He might also be one of those marxist environmentalist fudge packers.
Comment by daleyrocks on 7/31 @ 8:56 am #
I denounce myself and JD for good measure.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 8:58 am #
Again spies, it would not be a personal apology: It would be an apology from the nation its self for allowing slavery to take place. It Wow this really illustrates alot about the nature of race relations. The feelings are very personal – making it very difficult to discuss even the most mundane of race-related subjects without some personal feeling annoyance or affront.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 9:06 am #
Again, you can say “The United States of America regrets that it engaged in slavery” which would not be personal. I am pretty sure it won’t say “we white, rhythmless, and flat-assed crackers apologize for the noble and always fucking awesome black people being enslaved back in the day. We officially suck ass.” At least I don’t think so (Nancy might demand that everyone turn to the black person sitting next to them and hug them and say “sorry” at an allotted time.)
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 9:09 am #
And you really should keep your tires inflated Darleen. I know it is awkward, having to check your tires in your assless chaps and all.
;-)
Comment by poppa india on 7/31 @ 9:10 am #
I have three relatives that I know of who fought for the Union, two of them died for the cause. I have it in writing from one of them that he thought slavery was wrong. I don’t deserve credit for what they did, but I do feel that many Americans made their apology already, with their lives.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 9:15 am #
It’s not preening, Geezer. Lisa meant the gesture to be conciliatory, I’m sure. The problem I have is pinpointed in the “easy” aspect of the thing she suggests. The easiness belies the potential emptiness or hollowness of the gesture. (And there too is Darleen’s complaint – the gesture is nugatory and government ought not to be engaged in waste.)
If it were to be done at all, it ought to be hard to do.
Hard because it is taken seriously. Hard because a fitting amount of effort has been applied to the question: what do we mean when as a nation we say “We’re sorry for practicing slavery”. Who is saying? What is to be said? To whom is the apology to be made?
There is too much room for misunderstanding, whether intentional or unintentional. Moreover, after all the time that has passed since slavery was abolished, what is the hurry just now?
Comment by BJTex on 7/31 @ 9:18 am #
Lisa, serious question: Do you belive that the African-american community will find a sense of satisfaction and contentment in such an apology?
I ask only because the “won’t do any harm” doesn’t resonate with me when it comes to legislative business.
Trackback by From The Maas on 7/31 @ 9:28 am #
Remember when the left was all up in arms about how Bush never admitted a mistake?…
If W ever said this, we’d never hear the end of it:Logan: Do you have any doubts?
Obama: Never.Via PW…
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 9:29 am #
what is the hurry just now?
Elections!
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/31 @ 9:32 am #
Is this where I go to take part in the national discussion of race?
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 9:33 am #
Problems abound, such as: “…an apology from the nation its self for allowing slavery to take place…” with the highlight on NATION and ALLOWING.
Slavery was here in the colonies before the nation ever existed. The eventual need to rid the nation of slavery was contemplated at the time of the founding and the conflict of interests slavery created could, if pressed, prevent any founding, any nation, at all.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 9:51 am #
what is the hurry just now?
Elections!
You got it!!
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 9:54 am #
Sdferr true. And if we are going to engage in this meaningless bit of crankery, we should say “we did not invent this madness, however, we regret that it ever touched our pristine shores”. It should be a bland, non-whiteyhating peice of feel-good crankery.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 9:57 am #
I’d like better if the answer to “What’s the hurry?” were “Milkshakes!” than “elections. mmmhummphh.”
Comment by bergerbilder on 7/31 @ 9:58 am #
It seems that the Ethicist Kevin T. Keith has a case of Teh Bigoty himself:
http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2005/04/19/4166/
”
They elected another Pope. It’s Ratzinger – the Goebbels of the Vatican. Un-fucking-believable, even for an organization as self-destructively oblivious as this one.
Well, for Catholics and the dwindling number of Westerners who still take Catholicism seriously, it’s time to kiss the Dark Ages hello again.”
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/31 @ 9:59 am #
One of my ancestors was Cherokee. The Trail of Tears never interferes with discussing any subject.
Another branch of my family was Scottish; I don’t particularly have a beef against the British for their policies towards the Scots.
Why does something that no one alive experienced or committed have so much of an impact? I’m not saying it should be forgotten, but that maybe it shouldn’t be held onto as part of daily life. We need to be reminded that it happened, for the same reasons the Romans had a guy whispering “thou art mortal” into the ear of the general receiving a triumph, but beyond that…
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 10:00 am #
BJ this is not something to make black people feel good (because frankly I dont think many give a damn one way or another). I think it is to make white liberal people feel a sense of satisfaction and happiness. I am pretty sure it will fullfill its purpose on that front. I am sure that this idiot bill combined with pulling the lever for Barack in November will make them feel a sense of deep peace and oneness with the universe.
I denounce myself. I was for white liberals before I was against them.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 10:02 am #
Hey I have to go to someone’s retirement party. Talk amongst yourselves, white people.
;-)
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/31 @ 10:02 am #
In what way doesn’t the country express that sentiment? Yeah, there are people who resist it and resent it, but you get assholes everywhere.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 10:04 am #
Kevin T Keith exhibited his bigotry in plain sight on this very thread. There is no need to search elsewhere to find him.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/31 @ 10:04 am #
Well, then, ugh.
Comment by cranky-d on 7/31 @ 10:20 am #
Lisa’s gone. We can all talk about her behind her back now.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 10:20 am #
Can’t we just have Ken Burns do a documentary series on PBS about it? Problem solved!
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 10:24 am #
We’re going to talk about her behind?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/31 @ 10:32 am #
Well, we’ve just about talked out her tits.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/31 @ 10:34 am #
Finally, serious dialogue!
Comment by Great Banana on 7/31 @ 10:44 am #
I love this from Kevin Smith -
Republican “code†is well-known and well-recognized, but they still pretend they’re being clever in using it:
So, Mr. SMith, b/c a bunch of leftist claim something is true, that means it is true? Is that really what you believe? I’m guessing you have a graduate degree in a soft science. I find, and this is a fact b/c a lot of people I know and agree with also believe it – thus making it a fact – that people with graduate degrees in soft sciences are fucking retards.
Do you see how idiotic that statement is? Does that make you realize that the fact that you and like minded liberals believe republicans are all racists and thus everyting they say is racist code is NOT A FACT. Just because you are an idiot and believe that everyone who disagrees with you politically must therefore be evil and racist does not make that factually true. Do you understand the difference between a FACT and a BELIEF? Based on what you have written here, I doubt very much that you do.
Also, coming to a site and basing your entire argument on your assumption that everyone you disagree with on a subject is evil, or racist, or whatever other childhish adjective you have for those you disagree with is not the height of rational discourse, as you seem to believe. Did they not teach you that at ethics school? Have you ever had a class in logic?
Try starting from a position that those who disagree with you do so for reasons other than evilness. Then, craft an argument based on facts and rational thought. Then, we may be able to engage in a rational discourse wherein we exchange opinions based on our analysis of the facts. Indeed, some persuasion may even occur wherein you persuade some of us to your point of view or vice versa.
I’ll start us out by starting us off on some historically verifiable facts that can begin our discussion:
1) Slavery is and was bad.
2) U.S. slavery ended more than 100 years ago while slavery still exist elsewhere in the world. Thus, U.S. slavery was not more persistent then other nations’ slavery.
3) The U.S. has done tremendous amounts to address racial issues: from the Civil War, to hundreds of federal and state discrimination laws and regulations, plus things like affirmative action.
4) Racial issues are discussed in the U.S. ad nauseum on a daily basis, in the media, in politics, etc.
I think you’ll agree, based upon the above, that:
1) U.S. slavery was not worse or more persistent than other nations’ slaver;
2) Engaging in discussion of racial issues is hardly difficult, brave or unique in America today. Indeed, that is almost all we ever seem to talk about in most political campaigns.
So, now, what was your point again?
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 11:09 am #
It was good to see Jake Tapper take Obama to task for falsely sliming McCain for a “racist and xenophobic” campaign.
http://tinyurl.com/6p3mhh
Comment by Minister Jack X Klompus Africa-Muhammad Ali Shabazz on 7/31 @ 11:54 am #
There’s a funny post on Kevin Keith’s blog that starts out “I know this is a low traffic blog…” Imagine that. Is there no end to number of alleged intellectuals who trade in nothing but the same old boring, leftist, whining, this -ist that -ist, humorless claptrap completely unaware of how they are just complete clones of one another? Ethicist??? Kevin just comes across like a ranting lockstep ideology spewer who plays juvenile word games to make his unfounded beliefs and opinions into “facts”, e.g. “we all know…”, “playbook,” etc. Oh and another thing about Kevin is that he plain and simply comes across like a complete asshole.
Comment by Dread Cthulhu on 7/31 @ 12:09 pm #
Lisa: “No it won’t benefit anyone. It is pretty stupid. But harmless.”
Hardly — it will encourage the poverty pimps that much more, repeating the cycle of agitation and expectation. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Lisa: “I don’t mean this in any kind of snarky shitty way, I am honestly wondering: Is the opposition to this based on an objection to silly resolutions of this nature in general or to the fact that it might open up a can of worms with black people who might feel like if the nation apologizes they might want some money?”
Are you so sure it can’t be both?
Frankly, my biggest objection is kowtowing to the collection of hypocrites, poverty pimps and race-baiters spear-heading this silliness. That they will use any apology to try and pick my pocket is just an added fill-up to my disdain.
Lisa: “The feelings are very personal – making it very difficult to discuss even the most mundane of race-related subjects without some personal feeling annoyance or affront.”
How can they be personal — is there some centagenarian survivor of the peculiar institution harboring a grudge?
Black Africans were enslaved by Black Africans and Northern Africans and sold to willing buyers long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, selling them into bondage in the Arab world.
Being an “Ellis Island” American, I have nothing to apologize for, nor do I see any benefit from such an apology, only mischief.
Lisa: “this is not something to make black people feel good (because frankly I dont think many give a damn one way or another). ”
Then why bother, if no one cares, beyond a few self-hating Caucasian liberals?
Comment by Minister Jack X Klompus Africa-Muhammad Ali Shabazz on 7/31 @ 12:29 pm #
Does anyone think that after the apology that those who claim to speak for an entire race of people will say “Okay apology accepted. Break the set down boys! The show is shutting down, thanks for a good run!”? Hey having to accept the often difficult scenario of being an autonomous individual can be a real bitch sometimes. I guess it’s better to just lapse into identity politics based on superficial characteristics like race, believe that you’re owed something because people that share that superficial characteristic were at one time systematically oppressed because of it, and excuse yourself from asserting your dignity as a single, individual human being. Why bother when there’s a political culture that believes that you’re owed something – just wait around until you get it. What happens after you get it? Is there a dollar amount that will satisfy? Doubtful.
Comment by Lisa on 7/31 @ 1:56 pm #
Once again dread: No one is asking YOU to apologize. You didn’t do anything. And I haven’t, as a black person, had anything done to me. I don’t see it as necessary. I see it as rather ridiculous. However, I don’t think it is “problematic” either. It is just putting on record that our nation regrets its brief affair with slavery. Totally ridiculous, but not heinous. I am a bit flummoxed by the resistance. I see it like someone asking for us to name an airport after a particularly annoying politician. It does nothing for anyone at all – but somehow, someone thinks it is honoring something or other.
Comment by B Moe on 7/31 @ 2:10 pm #
Assless chaps are so passe.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2205/1529129884_518670bec3.jpg?v=0
Comment by happyfeet on 7/31 @ 2:10 pm #
Well, people are just kind of over not this whole thing but this whole kind of thing. This is the sort of proclamation you expect more from Student Council than from grownups in the year 2008. Congressdorks. They should all die screaming.
Comment by Sdferr on 7/31 @ 2:14 pm #
Is there a genuine sense in which we should make the argument that our nation is NOT ALREADY on record regretting its (not so) brief affair with slavery?
That boils down to another quibble about the meaning of “on record” which as has been pointed out ad nauseum above, makes as though nothing of the lives of those lost in war and in peace over the issue, the uncountable words said on the matter in Congress, in Schools, at conferences, in daily conversation, the books, the papers, laws, changes to the constitution, tax monies spent, ALL, all that leads to the conclusion (somehow) that the nation does anything other than REGRET the awful thing already.
It’s inconceivable to me anyone would think the contrary. So, again, nugatory is the charge.
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 7/31 @ 2:27 pm #
_ WE CANNOT “INFLATE TIRES” OUR WAY OUT OF THIS!
Comment by poppa india on 7/31 @ 3:18 pm #
Naming an airport after a defunct politician is one thing-naming it after a live one who you suspect will use that honor to ask for more runways and a new terminal every year,” ’cause these just aren’t enough” is another.
Comment by Dread Cthulhu on 7/31 @ 3:23 pm #
Lisa: “I don’t think it is “problematic†either. It is just putting on record that our nation regrets its brief affair with slavery. Totally ridiculous, but not heinous. I am a bit flummoxed by the resistance. I see it like someone asking for us to name an airport after a particularly annoying politician.”
No, it is not, Lisa. It is more like chumming for sharks. The poverty pimps and their ambulance chasers, professional victims and assorted other sycophants would be on that apology like flies on a fresh turd.
It’s more like Mayor Street, a particularly annoying politician, putting his hot-dog vendor brother in charge of the city airport to the tune of a couple of million a year, freshly fleeced from the populace’s pocket.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 7/31 @ 3:28 pm #
We showed our regret and paid the price for slavery in the blood of hundreds of thousands of our young men on the field of battle. There is no greater testament and display of rejection. Hollow apologies at the public’s expense are not just insulting to us, they’re insulting to the men who died for liberty to be extended to all.
Comment by Cave Bear on 7/31 @ 3:31 pm #
Hey Lisa (and note I’m being nice and not saying anything about “Sugartits” or anything like that), watch those cracks about “flat assed whites”. I will have you know that I’ve had many women tell me I had a very nice looking BUBBLE butt. Hardly flat. Maybe it’s not so much now, but hey, you get older, and some things are not quite as round and firm as they used to be…:)
Comment by Mikey NTH on 7/31 @ 3:56 pm #
Darleen, KtK is merely engaging in intellectual thuggery. The charge of racism is used today; back in the 1950’s it would have been a cry of “And you sir, are a Communist!”.
Social ostracism is supposed to follow the charge, no matter how baseless it is, with the accused vainly offering a defense. It is the tactic of a scoundrel with nothing left in his intellectual quiver. I think KtK may be learning that the old charge is losing its sting, and the ostracism isn’t as forthcoming as it once was
Comment by bigbooner on 7/31 @ 4:13 pm #
“Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness”. Somebody said that. In a movie or something. I like it. That apology bullshit will just be the tip of the iceberg. Once you apologize you claim ownership. Fuck that.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 7/31 @ 4:13 pm #
#152 – Lisa:
From Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
The Southern portion of this country was devestated by War. Read the whole address, please; it is one of the best.
I think progress can only occur when the past is allowed to stay past; not forgotten, but not driving all discussion today when today’s problems have more immediate causes than this one. I think those that still harp on this are akin to the French General Staff in 1939-1940 – full and ready to fight the last war, acknowledging nothing has changed in the interim. I think a heavy price will be exacted, is being exacted, by that failure to identify the changes in the last 140 years.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 7/31 @ 4:20 pm #
Here is a link (I hope) to Michigan History magazine. Unfortunately the story on the restoration of a Civil War soldiers’ monument and the graves and tombstones of African American soldiers isn’t on line.
http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/magpage.html
Comment by ccoffer on 7/31 @ 5:10 pm #
What is in order is a giant, collective Thank You from American brown folks to their American white neighbors for being responsible for their deliverance from the wretched shit hole that is sub-Saharan Africa.(If you believe in ancestral responsibility, that is)
I mean, if I’m the reason some Afro-American teenager is able to go to an American high school instead of wasting away in some godforsaken mud puddle in the middle of bumfuck Africa waiting for the day he is devoured by a lion or kidnapped by some friggen bone in the nose Chieftan, then I believe the least I deserve is a hearty Thank You. (If you believe in this dumbass premise of ancestral responsibilities, that is.)
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 7/31 @ 8:02 pm #
Except they were probably sold by their fellow tribesmen or other tribes to the white devil and shipped overseas. That little aspect of slavery keeps being overlooked, conveniently. That, and the fact that slavery is still going on in Africa in Muslim countries.
Comment by ccoffer on 7/31 @ 8:26 pm #
Yeah, but I’m trying to keep it all black and white in terms of duty and responsibility. Thats all that matters politically.
Comment by Kevin T. Keith on 7/31 @ 10:39 pm #
MtheT:
First, let me thank you for your graciousness of tone; I’ll try to reciprocate.
One of the themes that the host of this blog has explored at great length is a exposition and defense of the intentionalist hermeneutic. The imputation of racism to Darleen’s commentaryâ€â€the signification of her speech actâ€â€under the intentionalist hermeneutic, requires more than a cursory read of her comments; one must attempt to get at the intent of the author. Indeed, it requires as much inquiry into intent as is practicable . . .
I don’t have time to respond in detail, and we’ve each covered the various points of contention more than once. Let me just address your general theme.
I don’t think you can explain Darleen’s remarks away by some sort of airy reference to “intentionalism”. For one thing, that takes all the meaning out of the words themselves – you can’t understand what she meant from what she said, you have to put together some sort of psycho-historical profile based on everything she’s ever said, and then guess what she might have meant this time in light of what she might have meant all those other times. That’s cheap, and silly. It’s a way of disavowing your own statements, while ensuring that you can never be held accountable for specific things you said, because their meaning is always elsewhere and the listener can’t claim to really know what it was. It’s a proactive form of the fake apology: “I’m sorry if anyone thought I was saying something rude.” I didn’t really, and it’s your fault for thinking so, because you can’t say I meant what my words mean when I said those words.
Aside from increasing the imprecision of language, that sort of stance simply leads you to say dumb stuff. You wind up going on and on, for instance, about the supposed history of oppressive legislation in some unspecified context, etc., etc., in response to the simple observation that “Let’s welcome the Pressure Police” is a non-sequitur reaction to Obama’s observation about saving oil. Trying to rationalize that kind of thing – and on the basis of some sort of exalted theory of linguistics – just makes you both sound kind of nutty. Wouldn’t it have been easier – and a lot truer and more honest – just to admit she was wrong? You really want to invoke literary theory to explain a perfectly ordinary case of right-wing knee-jerkism?
And you wind up saying things like there are no sly racist innuendos used by conservative politicians, and that saying the apology for slavery is like a commendation for prairie dogs carries no racial overtones – things that are simply incredible in the American political context. Basically, you wind up saying race is irrelevant – in a discussion about race – which is pretty much the hallmark of contemporary “post-racist” posturing. In this case I suppose it wouldn’t have been simpler to admit she was wrong, because she was wrong in a way that is impossible not to think was racist – but it would surely have been a lot more believable than to insist that anyone says those kinds of things by accident, or that they have some hidden “intended” meaning that’s different from their plain meaning.
In short, to believe what you claim to believe, you have to imagine that nobody’s words ever have their clear meanings, but only an intended meaning that isn’t obvious, and that that’s how we should expect people to talk. Why can’t we just expect them to actually know the meanings of their own words, and then use them that way? Perhaps more to the point, I think the obligation is on the speaker to make themselves understood. Language can be ambiguous, and there are misunderstandings, but by and large it doesn’t seem that hard to just say what you mean and be understood in that way – most people do it all the time, and get along fine by doing so.
You tell me the listener is at fault for being so naive as to imagine the speaker meant what she said. I’m not buying it. I think she’s responsible for what she said, and I’m entitled to believe she meant it because she said it. If she meant something else, she should have said something else. If she didn’t mean what she said, then she spoke badly, which might be an excuse but it’s not a linguistic theory. I presume next time she’ll say it better. At any rate I’m not going to bother to guess what it might have meant but didn’t, and I’m even less inclined to bother if you tell me that in fact she says what she doesn’t mean all the time, on purpose.
folks around here, in general, operate under the assumption that intentionalism is valid. Given that, we’d expect you to do more digging into the history of Darleen’s comments and even take the radical step of asking her what she means.
Well, clearly intentionalism isn’t valid. By your own description, none of you knows what any of you is saying, you can’t know until you have researched every bit of each other’s backgrounds, after you’ve done that you still won’t know, and you’re all talking that way on purpose without even trying to express a plain meaning in your words so you could cut out all the nonsense. That’s an asinine way to behave, even if it made sense as a literary theory.
But more than that, you clearly don’t believe it. In this discussion, you express yourself plainly, using words that are obviously relevant and in-context to the discussion at hand, employing recognized logical constructions, and in general talking like someone who knows how to state things clearly and comprehensibly. When you criticize my arguments, you quote the relevant sections and make an effort to respond to them logically, using evidence and arguments that would tell against the things I have said. I presume you mean those passages as criticism of my arguments. And, I presume you expect me to understand them as such. But I don’t know anything about you or your background, and I don’t need to. I can understand your arguments simply by reading them – and you obviously expect me to. You keep making references to my apparent education or beliefs, but you don’t really know anything about that and it doesn’t matter – you can understand what I write just by reading it. When I responded to you the first time, you gave a variety of counter-responses, but none of them included a claim that I hadn’t understood your “intention”. And so this whole discussion – using language and logic much more complicated and sophisticated than Darleen’s – has gone on without the slightest reliance on any theory of “intentionalism”. You have only invoked intentionalism to try to explain away dumb and offensive things that Darleen has said. When you write, and when you read, you don’t use it at all. It obviously serves no purpose other than as a convenient excuse for someone who doesn’t want to take responsibility for their words – then, suddenly, it’s all so complicated and deep that you need lengthy historical research to unpack it all. But when you’re confident you know what you’re saying, it becomes easy to just say it.
Also, let me express skepticism that this blog is some kind of hotbed of linguistic analysis. Judging from the comment thread, this isn’t exactly a Chomsky graduate seminar. Your “theory” seems to be just another code-word – something you can say to each other to reassure yourselves that you’re all very bravely “un-PC” and at the same time don’t have to answer for anything you say or believe.
Finally, it’s obvious to me that you don’t really believe in “intentionalism” because not only do you not use it yourself, but you don’t even think it’s necessary in analyzing the very things you said it was necessary for.
You say I should “ask Darleen what she means”? Well, I (implicitly) did that: I read her words with the intention of finding their meaning. Since I was familiar with all those words, and their meanings, I was able to infer her meaning from the fact that she used those words. Did you mean I should read her words and then ask her what they meant? But I knew what they meant. I merely presumed that she used them because that was what they meant. Besides, what would be the point in reading someone’s writing and then asking them what they meant? Isn’t the purpose of writing to express your meaning? Again, your “intentionalism” stance just leads to absurd behavior: authors write things they don’t mean, as a signal that readers should then ask them what they do mean, and readers read the writing and then ask the authors for their meaning without reference to what was written. Forgive me if I get off that merry-go-round before I get dizzy.
But my real point was this: you said I could find out Darleen’s meaning by asking her. How is that different from just reading her writing? Do the things she says orally have plain meanings, and the things she says in writing have hidden meanings? Or is it that you get the real meaning only the second time? Or, according to your theory, wouldn’t I then also have to go do all that background research and psychological profiling to find out what she intends by talking, just as much as I would have to do it to understand her writing? The latter seems the only way to be consistent with your “intentionalism” theory, but that isn’t what you told me to do. You told me I could get her meaning just by asking her. Well, then, I ought to be able to get it just by reading her writing, too – and she ought to communicate it in writing if she’s able. At the very least, I ought to be able to assume that’s what she’s trying to do, and to read it with that expectation.
Now, since neither of us is an intentionalist, and Darleen is one (by way of you) only when she has to be, can’t we drop the charade and simply ask her to take responsibility for what she says and thinks, like everyone else?
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 10:55 pm #
The listener is sometimes a mendoucheous douchenozzle, KK.
Racist
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 11:06 pm #
You are entitled to believe all sorts of twatwafflery, KK. Does not make it true.
Aggressively ignorant or willfilly obtuse? I will leave it to everyone else to decide. I vote for asshat.
Comment by JD on 7/31 @ 11:08 pm #
Where can I get a racist code word decoder ring? Or at least something to translate from. Keith apparently has the unabridged version.
Comment by M. Simon on 7/31 @ 11:51 pm #
Say,
I think Obama forgot to mention that Wall Street was named after the Jewish ghetto in New York. How much more tragic can you get than that?
Comment by E. Nough on 8/1 @ 12:04 am #
Kevin Keith sure has a knack for saying very little using a lot of words. But it all comes down to drivel like this:
No one ever said this, at least not in this thread — not directly, and not by implication. The claim is not that no “sly racist innuendos” are used by conservative politicians; instead, it’s that not everything that emanates from a conservative is a “sly racist innuendo,” even if race is involved. Like I said earlier, Kevin, your skill at strawman construction is only exceeded by your skill at strawman destruction.
Her comment was that congressional resolutions apologizing for slavery are as meaningless as congressional resolutions on any other topic. Prairie dogs were picked as a facetious example, precisely because it is utterly disconnected from any discussion on race. Interesting that your mind instantly created a (previously nonexistent) connection — methinks there is more than a little latent racism up in that subconscious, which you are fighting a little too hard to repress, y’know?
Prairie dogs carry no racial overtones. Really. What’s incredible is that any sentient higher primate would think otherwise. This constant search for “code words” seems to me more than a little schizophrenic. See also Freud, cigar.
It wasn’t a “discussion about race” — it was a rant about a pointless, pandering, meaningless resolution from a governing body which ought to be concerned with, you know, passing laws and running the country and what-not. Instead it wastes time issuing deep pronouncements that — sit down for this, America! — slavery sucked. What else is on their agenda — a resolution in appreciation of pi being a very useful number? …Oh, but of course, I shouldn’t equate race with geometry, lest I too prove myself a “racist.” After all, hypotenuse could be a code word.
Darleen did exactly that. Your poor understanding of her English, tinted with a …shall we say, overmotivated search for racial overtones where there were none, is strictly your problem, not ours. Suffice it to say that if someone insists they can hear dog whistles, all the time, it’s not due to their superhuman ears.
I won’t bother with the rest of your tedious, pompous, and at times hilarious screed, but I’ll comment on this:
I had no idea I’d have to “answer” for what I believe (allegedly, according to whatever code pages your meds-deprived brain is constructing on the fly). Were I as prone to cheap hysteria and outrage as you, I’d start throwing around accusations of fascism and thought police. Instead, I prefer to do what I always do with crazy street people* — ignore them, and laugh when they get too loud.
* No doubt, another racist code word, surely.
Comment by M. Simon on 8/1 @ 12:05 am #
Q: What percentage of the 12 million African slaves shipped to the New World came to “America�
A: Around 4%. (Source: Skip Gates, et al)
Let me see 4% of 12 million is about 500,000. So only 500,000 slaves were imported to the USA? and only 4% of any given load were brought to market? That doesn’t sound very profitable. It is a wonder the slavers could keep the slave economy going with economics as bad as that.
Comment by M. Simon on 8/1 @ 12:08 am #
Say,
Obama and Congress he is a member of forgot to mention the tragedy of 300,000 Northern dead in the War That Ended Slavery in America.
We need another resolution.
Comment by hoot on 8/1 @ 12:34 am #
This thread is incredible. What small, reflexively hateful people you are. I truly feel sorry for you and hope Lisa will realize she’s wasting her time.
Comment by M. Simon on 8/1 @ 12:36 am #
Also Mojo: No one is asking YOU to apologize – why are you making it about you? Same as when Reagan apologized to the Japanese Americans on behalf of the NATION, it was not personal – it was an acknowledgement that the country had done something crappy and sorry and blah blah blah.
Another case of Republicans cleaning up after the Democrats have screwed the pooch.
Comment by E. Nough on 8/1 @ 6:01 am #
I admit it: I’m thoroughly “hateful” both towards meaningless, deliberately skewed pieties such as the congressional resolution that started this whole thread, and towards cheaply manufactured outrage!!!™ and sanctimony that KTK served up here in bulk. Not that they cause me to lose any sleep; I just enjoy skewering them and laughing at their authors.
Comment by JD on 8/1 @ 6:32 am #
You see, KTK. hoot is able to simply just call us racists in about 20 words. You should try that sometime. Brevity rocks.
Comment by Dread Cthulhu on 8/1 @ 6:32 am #
hoot: “What small, reflexively hateful people you are. I truly feel sorry for you and hope Lisa will realize she’s wasting her time.”
Aw, we didn’t pass the hoot sensitivity test… I’m crushed.
hoot, is we accept Lisa’s argument that the issue is only important to a handful of self-loathing white liberals, why should the bulk of society, black and white, that even Lisa acknowledges DOESN’T CARE, be dragged along into the obvious mischief and debacle that would follow this empty and vacuous gesture?
Comment by JD on 8/1 @ 9:22 am #
I keep coming back to how incredibly gigantic KK’s mendoucheity is. It rivals the size of that anvil-head on Sen. Swimmer. Breathtaking in its ginormity.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 8/1 @ 12:09 pm #
Let me see 4% of 12 million is about 500,000. So only 500,000 slaves were imported to the USA? and only 4% of any given load were brought to market? That doesn’t sound very profitable. It is a wonder the slavers could keep the slave economy going with economics as bad as that.
Most of them went to the West Indies or South America. The United States got the smaller portion of the slaves, which doesn’t make it okay, it just makes it a smaller issue than people seem to pretend.
But my real point was this: you said I could find out Darleen’s meaning by asking her. How is that different from just reading her writing?
I’m sure, if you thought about it long enough, and were honest with yourself, you could work out that asking specific questions about a general article might enlighten you about those areas. Give it a shot.