Reasons Carney, writing in the Washington Examiner:
I think it’s pretty easy for a white person to (1) decide to treat black people equally, (2) assume he is treating black people equally, (3) if he witnesses no or very few acts of blatant racism decide that generally black people are treated equally, and then (4) conclude that the proper approach to race is total color-blindness.
Preaching color-blindness often implies a couple of things: (A) completely rejecting any type of affirmative action; and (B) wanting minorities to quit putting so much stake in their minority-ness. Both of these stances are mistaken, in my opinion, because the premises behind the doctrine of color-blindness are mistaken.
Folks who preach color-blindness, I think, often fall short on both introspection and empathy.
On introspection: It’s really hard to actually be colorblind with strangers. You can probably forget that your friend is black, hispanic, or Indian. But when a stranger, or a rough acquaintance enters the picture, race probably subconsciously enters your judgment of that person. If you decide a certain character on the subway is sketchy, it’s often for reasons you can’t fully articulate. Clothes, demeanor, grooming, posture all matter. And sure, you’ll be more wary of the leering tatted-out white dude than the black guy in a suit on his iPad. But skin color probably plays a role in your subconscious, even if it’s not always the deciding factor.
In other words, even when you’re trying to be color-blind, you’re probably not being color-blind. This shouldn’t be surprising. Man is a fallen creature.
And this leads us to the empathy issue. Black males grow up being eyed with suspicion more than white males do — whether because of subconscious racism, people profiling based on crime statistics, or overt racism, it happens. So, if you say to a black person, “stop acting as if your race matters,” you’re asking him to be color-blind in a society that isn’t.
Probably more important: even where no White Man is Keeping Them Down at the moment, African Americans still suffer from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. Black children are more likely to be born into poverty, and into a fatherless home, which makes it harder for them to get out of poverty, and more likely they will fall into crime — and maybe leave their own kid in fatherless poverty.
The average white person alive today may not bear any blame for this situation, but that’s why I’m invoking empathy here — just because it’s not your fault that a black kid started life with a disadvantage doesn’t mean you should pretend he didn’t start life at a disadvantage.
There is so much wrong here that I barely know where to start, but let me begin this way: to determine that the “premises behind colorblindness are mistaken,” one must first detail what those premises are, then explain why they are mistaken. For Carney, the empirical fact that we are able to see different skin colors, coupled with the fact that we’re aware of certain empirical facts about people of certain skin colors (when meshed with all the socioeconomic cues Carney details), makes it impossible for us to truly be colorblind — therefore, we should simply abandon the ruse.
This is very similar to arguments made by those who reject intentionalism: we can never be certain that we have reached the proper decoding of an author’s desired meaning, therefore we are permitted to ignore it altogether. But the fact is, the striving for colorblindness — as an ideal, and as it relates to the notions of equality, not to notions of sensory observation — is what we supposedly misguided champions of colorblindness are after: we recognize that there are people of different colors, and we are quite capable of recognizing the potential cultural or ethnic differences within various communities. None of which changes the fact that the goal is to treat these people all equally before the law, and to grant them the basic humanity explicit in the dictate that “all men are created equal.”
So premise one, the failure of proper introspection on the part of those who advocate for colorblindness, is a classic straw man argument. It misrepresents colorblindness by deploying the term literally and then treating the literal to an analysis that doesn’t jibe with the figurative meaning of the phrase as it is deployed by those who’ve adopted it.
Moreover, it is the very “empathy” that Carney believes (in premise two) those who champion colorblindness lack that, I would argue, is responsible for the continuation of a society that persists in using empathy as an excuse to avoid taking the necessary measures toward creating the colorblind ideal.
It is not empathetic to keep alive the same kernel assumptions about disadvantaged birth, a history of slavery and Jim Crow, etc., as excuses for the plight of many in the black community. Instead, it is self-indulgent, sanctimonious, historically obtuse, and dangerously enabling.
After nearly 50 years — and all sorts of Great Society programs, affirmative action programs, jobs training programs, etc., — all we’ve succeeded in doing is entrenching the idea of permanent victimology into various racial and ethnic groups who come to rely on that as part of their identity.
And that is much easier to do — on both ends, from the perspective of the cosmopolitan and empathetic racial “realist” and the perspective of those who have been treated as projects and pets by often well-meaning whites — than to begin to make the changes necessary to bring about the ideal as expressed in our founding documents and implicit in our notions about liberty, property, and opportunity.
The fact that “Black children are more likely to be born into poverty, and into a fatherless home, which makes it harder for them to get out of poverty, and more likely they will fall into crime” is hardly the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery. Instead, it is the legacy of government intervention, paternalistic policy, manufactured and encouraged racial divisiveness, and, frankly, institutionalized cowardice to pursue the dream Martin Luther King Jr himself had, where people weren’t judged by the color of their skin but rather by the content of their character.
King never said that people wouldn’t be noticed as having different color skin, nor should they be — and that’s not something those who adhere to a colorblind philosophy have ever demanded. Instead, the idea is that, because we are all of us unique individuals, skin color needn’t be determinative of anything — and that a truly diverse society is one where those kinds of differences are acknowledged and enjoyed, while the common identity of Americans as free individuals is the overarching ideal.
That we haven’t obtained it in any perfect platonic form doesn’t mean it is not a goal worth pursuing. And rather than continue to pretend the legacy of racism in the US is responsible for current racial inequality, where it exists, we’d be better served not taking the easy “empathetic” way out and instead do the hard work (as have, eg., the Thernstroms and others) of noting that it is instead a kind of sickening and undeserved enforcement of this notion we all be empathetic that is itself the problem — that the pose of empathy is in fact the very poison that keeps us from pursuing solutions that, one day, may evince an actual empathy, and ultimately keep the playing field permanently even.
Discuss.
Probably more important: even where no White Man is Keeping Them Down at the moment, African Americans still suffer from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. Black children are more likely to be born into poverty, and into a fatherless home, which makes it harder for them to get out of poverty, and more likely they will fall into crime — and maybe leave their own kid in fatherless poverty.
The current 78% unwed births in the black community is a legacy of Left-Liberal policies, NOT slavery (140 years ago) nor Jim Crow.
As long as people want to wallow in their victimhood, eschewing personal responsibility, then the cycle won’t be broken. And it starts with refusing to be a herd animal waiting for the benevolent farmer to slop the trough.
A couple of things, to start.
First, though we have had Dr. King’s dream terms [“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”] drilled into us, yet the underlying assumptions there have not been especially well analyzed [What does it mean to judge? What standard(s) of judgment are intended by King to be employed? With regard to what aspects of human character are we intended to judge and be judged? etc.]
This isn’t to say that King himself did not provide the means to achieve the necessary analysis, but that the commentators on his speech have not been sufficiently assiduous in their own commonplace treatments of it, but have merely used it for such purposes as they — apart from King’s purposes — may see fit.
The second thing (to do with race specifically) Jeff has covered in many respects. But I only wish to add that in the main, the question seems to me to resolve at our simple inability to assure ourselves that race actually is something, as opposed to is nothing (in the fictive sense that phlogiston is nothing, for instance), and that the intention of colorblindness is simply to recognize this profound ignorance on our part.
We humans may be always creating a fictional entity — race — whenever we speak of it, and due to the non-correspondence with anything actual in the world, drive fictive nonsensical stories in every detail as we handle these pretensions.
This reminds me of a thought I used to get in my younger and more vulnerable years, like back when I considered myself ” liberal”. If you white people all are organized to keep you down, or at least indifferent to your troubles, why not just say “f-’em” and move on and make your own way. Why are you standing around waiting for whitey to do anything for you?
I assume this came from my “white privilege” background* where my experience was that if someone decided they didn’t like me, I didn’t waste too much time trying to convince them what a great guy I was.
*if growing up without a father, a mother with emotional problems, and on government handout is “white privileged”
Sadly, the people the most need to hear this message are used to consuming carefully-crafted, watered-down messages from the very people responsible for – and benefitting from – the current state of affairs with regard to race relations. As a result, they are unlikely, for a number of reasons that will no doubt reveal my racist tendencies, to ever be exposed to Jeff’s (in my opinion) exceptionally well-expressed thoughts on the matter.
One of the things I think that conservatives in general and the RNC in the specific are trying to do is get the actual message out to the general public. Thanks to Gramsci etc. it’s a very difficult challenge. Talking about making inroads in popular culture are a start but like infiltrating academia there will likely be a long-game to consider and I’m not sure the Republic will survive that long.
The solution, therefore, is ATF (acquisition of, not the agency). It’s really not in my nature to be Eeyore but being beaten down by current events takes its toll.
should read “If you thinkwhite people . . .”
About the time I was told, “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand” I stopped trying to understand. You don’t want a dialog and I don’t want a diatribe. Let’s see to it that we get what we want.
I’ve pondered on this question of race for many years. Other blacks from Africa and the Caribbean manage to make successes of themselves when they arrive on our shores with the rags on their backs and their intelligence at the ready. Vietnamese boat people came here with nothing, not even a common language and managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Japanese I have known who were born in Internment Camps have managed to soldier on. Nearly illiterate Chinese manage as do first generation Mexicans.
What is it that puts American born blacks on their backs and forces them to fail out of school, birth children out of wedlock and turn to crime? The only thing I’ve been able to determine is that it is easy to be bad and difficult to be good. All the hand-wringing in the world and billions/trillions of dollars later and things are no better. It’s time to point the finger of blame back at themselves and turn off the money spigot. Stand up straight, tuck in your shirt, pull up your pants, tie your shoes and learn to speak English.
Next stop: a job.
That is exactly what I would expect from a typical white person.
What you see is what you get, ma nigga.
“Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause.
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.”
I can understand this reaction, but you can’t expect to be seen as anything else as long as you spitefully embrace the negative characteristics others attribute to you.
Let me see, who do we know of color, that achieved the highest office in the land, by tucking in his shirt, standing up straight and learning to speak English?
For all the talk of “you don’t know what it’s like to be black,” is it not equally valid to say “you don’t know what it’s like to be white?” The prevailing notion seems to be that white people get better educations and jobs just by showing up without all that melanin. I know plenty of poor white folks; I might have even been one myself. I could certainly find a few modern examples. Curiously – or not so much – these poor whites have a lot of things in common with poor blacks; single-parent households, poor education and lots of dependance on government. What they don’t have in common is the ability to hang all of their problems on structural racism.
hey you whatcha doin
oh hi happyfeet I’m suffering from the legacies
oh my god I am soooo sorry that completely sucks. ok stay there I’ll make you a protein shake like how my friend F does it – we just take the powder and the skim milk – ok now we’re gonna add a large avocado and a teaspoon of imitation vanilla from mexico – ok now we just blend it up…. if it were nighty night time we would add some cottage cheese don’t ask me why but it’s not night time so there you go! And here’s one of those fancy straws where one end is a spoon/straw – I got a whole box at Smart n Final
thanks happy! That’s super tasty I wasn’t sure I was gonna like it cause of the avocado but it’s really good – thank you so much I feel much better
you are very welcome
Is that Happyfeet embracing the stereotype of Happyfeet?
Blake, you’re just being raaaaacist. And don’t try to pretend you aren’t, buddy.
it’s friday and I’m depressed
new job is extremely labor-intensive on the part of
me
that’s not a plus
I was sitting here, consulting my muse, when the muse spoke: “If ignorance is bliss, why is the Obama Administration always so angry and defensive?”
Back to our regularly scheduled discussion.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I care when someone threatens you and burns a cross on your lawn. I don’t care if your feelings get hurt, or if you suspect people may be thinking thoughts you don’t approve of. I care about Racism Prime. I don’t care one damned bit about Racism sub-one. or Racism! (TM), or Ontological Racisim, or Unconscious Emanated Systemic Racism, or Crypto Racism.
If the white sheets have been traded in complaints about high taxes then that sure sounds to me like a frivolous conflation of actual publicly impressed harmful racism with some annoyance any adult should easily deal with and endure by virtue of being an adult.
It is not racist to shoot someone pounding your head on a sidewalk. It is not noble and enlightened and inclusive to let some asshole pound your head on the sidewalk over a misunderstanding. Non slave owning presumed descendants of slave owners do not transform into slave owners nor so presumed descendants of slaves transform into slaves when the topic of slavery is brought up.
This has nothing to do with Jay Carney who is an obnoxious, unimaginative, hypocritical, white, male privileged and dishonest scold. His job is to sell the big lie to a press that will in most cases lie for him without prompting. Fuck his opinions on racism. Nobody asked him and nobody should. He’s a wanna be Jim Moran only without the actual “got elected” part.
I have recently decided that somebody needs to write a fake “Shakespeare ” comedy about Batman.
“That is exactly what I would expect from a typical white person. ”
I see plenty of other “races” doing it and prospering. I even see plenty of black people doing it. And they get shit for it.
“And they get shit for it.” -> and they get shit on for it.
Hypothesis of Greater Science #234: Anyone who bitches about Trayvon being racially profiled in one breath and then tells us all about white privilege with the next is a venal, hypocritical, shrieking dumbfuck.
…and who can argue with SCIENCE!
Al Gore.
Curiously – or not so much – these poor whites have a lot of things in common with poor blacks; single-parent households, poor education and lots of dependence on government. What they don’t have in common is the ability to hang all of their problems on structural racism.
That’s the thing: the vast majority of Americans living below the poverty line are white. If black poverty is caused by racism, what causes white poverty?
Blacks are overrepresented in the ranks of the poor (17% as compared to 12% gen pop), and we can go ahead and blame that 5% on Jim Crow.
However, the condition that puts you in a bad way isn’t necessarily the condition that’s keeping you there. If I knock you down and walk away, you can’t blame me if you fail to brush yourself off and stand back up.
It’s extremely dispiriting how relentless the cycle of poverty is. Kids raised by single moms, often from different fathers, in the context of substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse, and sometimes sexual abuse, in the absence of a role model for Successful Behavior — they’re going to remain stuck in their impoverished condition regardless of race or background.
But poor blacks have been warehoused in urban projects whereas po’ white folks are spread out in trailer parks and along rural roads and in Appalachia. Being spread out makes it harder to form street gangs.
And it’s much, MUCH harder to frighten the MSM and other elites if you live in the backwaters and trailer parks of flyover country.
The pathological behavior of all poor folks is identical. Anyone in this society who engages in them, regardless of their beginnings (except for those who are sheltered from the consequences of their stupidity by their enormous wealth), will have the same outcome.
But We Can’t Address That, because it implies that behavior is at the root of success, not luck or cheating. It also obviates the need for Liberal White Saviors to even exist.
I think we can all do the math from here.
This has nothing to do with Jay Carney
Timothy Carney, but the confusion is wholly understandable.
– While we’re contemplating the covieniant stupidity of the Left, theres this to throw on the dissonance pile.
– Back when people used to say the Left wouldn’t say a word if Bumblefuck murdered someone. 100’s of drone strikes later, where a large number of colateral women and children got nailed in the process its pretty safe to say people were right.
Just slightly filled that part out. So there’ll be no hurt feelings, you see. )
I’ve not met any carnies who impress me, really. But speaking of fairs, I just had some of these. Surreal, really.
More ‘Carney’…
President Obama floated a more modest strategy today, saying that any U.S. action in Syria would have “no objective whatsoever.”
You really shouldn’t misidentify articles from The Onion. People might think they’re real.
So that’s what liberal condescension looks like when it twerks.
I didn’t know you could do that in print
proggtardia news
Feds forced churches to get baptism permits
Feds forced churches to get baptism permits
So . . . without looking at the link, let me guess . . . brain eating amoeba? That is, brain eating amoeba are chowing down on Federal agents?
if only
orangeman news
Boehner ‘Protecting’ Those Who Know Truth About Benghazi
It’s the full body baptism folks and the running streams they like to use. Brain-chowing amoeba are being reported in many of these locales.
Maybe they could offer to forcefully baptize the Feds and ensure they are fully brain dead.
Large boulders can become small stones, or just disappear. These Feds don’t know who they’re messing with.
Freed slaves often did better for themselves than the vast majority of those who, 8 generations later, use the bondage of their ancestors as their excuse for being failures.
I have recently decided that somebody needs to write a fake “Shakespeare ” comedy about Batman.
The first time through, I read that as “comedy about Bataaan”, and that just didn’t seem right.
Brain-chowing amoeba are being reported in many of these locales.
nyc, wash dc, sf, la, det, chitown et al hardest hit
s/Bataaan/Bataan/
Sigh.
President Barack H. Pikachu.
True, Pablo. Also, being poor and uneducated is no excuse for acting like a slob, a slut, lazy, a thief, let alone a killer. My own grandparents never made it past the primary grades in school and still managed to keep jobs, own property, dress nicely, kept a nice home and raised well behaved children who stayed out of trouble.
That was after making a start 1200 miles away from family when they trekked to California to pick fruit—just like “The Grapes of Wrath”. Hell, my mother and her siblings lived in a garage and slept on a mattress for at least a year while my grandmother worked and they went to school.
People who want to tell hard luck stories about today need to STFU. They wouldn’t know hard times if they bit them in the ass.
I also got beef to squash with Carnie Wilson from Wilson Phillips. ALL you Carnies are going down!
well “carney barkers” no?
hooray for pres. pikachu and swiss cake rolls!!
Heh. I was just reading the WSJ and Taranto has a column about Syria entitled “Show of Farce”. That about sums it up.
Also, Sally Kohn (she’s the big blonde lesbian commentator on Fox) is really tacking a beating on twitter for her gung-ho stance on bombing Syria.
“So we’re bombing Syria because Syria is bombing Syria? And I’m the idiot?” – Sarah Palin
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151832583113588&l=9dad685d2e
Thought you might enjoy this broadside from Sarah Palin, leigh.
thanks to Insty.
guins, I’ll admit Obama is a fool and a charlatan, but, smooth reading, a ready grin and clean fingernails obviously took Obama a long way. That and a bunch of completely ruthless political operatives.
I saw that, Blake. I snickered at it. Go Sarah.
WH has sealed its visitors logs for the next twelve years following a FOIA request from Judicial Watch.
Most transparent EVAH!
leigh, I would get into high dudgeon over the idea of the White House sealing what should be public records, but, the reality, the law doesn’t matter any more in this country. This is what happens when you let the Executive run amok and Congress is too spineless to do its duty.
Freed slaves only had to contend with carpetbaggers, landlords (or whatever you call the guys tenant farmers were sharecropping for) and the klan. Their decendants, on the other hand, have to contend with the full array of government services available to “help” them.
Give it a few more years.
please open your eyes @3:30
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.”
C.S. Lewis.
Another C.S. Lewis quote, and this one is remarkably prescient:
“What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence — moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how ‘democracy’ (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be ‘undemocratic.’ Children who are fit to proceed may be artifically kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when ‘I’m as good as you’ has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers — or should I say nurses? — will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men.”
I had no idea that this shit was prevalent during CS Lewis’ lifetime.
That is depressing.
Abolition of Man, right?
Chili con carne? I’m coming for you!
Ernst, I’m not that smart. I remembered the quote about tyranny, looked it up and it lead me to this page:
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes_by/c.+s.+lewis
cranky, this shit started with the Hayek’s Road to Serfdom inspiring document known as the Beveridge Report.
We’re living in Mony Python’s Dead Parrot sketch.
Hah, Ernst. I was working on a riff about Orwell, Rand, Hayek and Lewis warning us about the direction of the west and suffering the fate of prophets.
” that bird ain’t dead” baracky
Monty Python and Hayek in the same conversation. With asides about a carne vendetta.
Only on PW.
Huh. It’s from Screwtape Proposes a Toast, (1959).
Ayn would be very cross with you for including her in Clive Staples’s company.
Like throw her glass of wine in your face and kick you in the testicles cross.
It’s been dead since 1942, but the grocery clerks keep sending errand boys to tell us it’s getting better.
Well, Clive might have a thing or two to say about being included in the same company as Rand.
the Labour Party had entered into a coalition with the Conservative Party.
eff them then and now
for the fun
Steely Dan – Kings
There was a war on, you know.
with whom?
The Nazis. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?
What everyone seems to forget, is that blacks in this country were making huge gains, culturally and economically, before the Democrats decided to “help” them in the late 1960’s. Blacks were actually catching up to whites in many areas.
After Lyndon Johnson got the “Great Society” permanent welfare act passed, and declared, “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”, all of the gains made by blacks went into reverse.
And now they are going to put the Hispanics in the same boat for their political gain.
Pure, fucking, evil.
Oceania
The first time the proggs kicked back their progress was Woodrow Wilson’s segregation of the armed forces, screening of Birth of a Nation in the White House (which was written by a pal of his), and Margaret Sanger’s attempts to prevent them from reproducing, for their own good.
You’d think there were something going on here.
I thought we were at war with Eastasia.
I wish my betters would tell me these things.
No no no. We’re at war with Eurasia.
We’ve ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.
“High confidence” assessment from highly skilled confidence men.
I wonder if “his military” will be the one putting themselves on the line to carry out his and his team’s orders or will it be our military instead who does the dirty work as usual.
The mythical “international community” beloved of community organizers and other commun*** types takes a bow too.
Lots of words about feelings but little substantive rational fact.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
I initially read that as ‘trannies/tranny’… which works, too.
Don’t judge me!
– Trannies is an important category for societal safety. Otherwise you don’t know who to keep away from the keys to the silo’s and the launch codes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! We’ve always been at war with Laurasia. In solidarity with our allies, the peaceful and democratic Republic of Gondwanaland.
What everyone seems to forget . . .
Why do you assume this Warmongrel? That certainly isn’t the case. Most of us aren’t young pups and can remember robust black communities. Are blacks the only group to have been displaced by The Man? Hardly. Read up about the Diaspora for starters or the Russian Revolution and the fate of the kulaks.
The list goes on and on. Blacks must be some sort of hot house flowers if they have lost their resiliency gene and degenerated into thuggery and squalor in a few generations.
Putin to Obama, “My mockery dial is only on two, pray I don’t have to turn it higher, you wouldn’t like higher.”
It’s pretty funny seeing the Russians, who scooped up and retain significant chunks of the nation of Georgia making pronouncements to Obazma on keeping respect for international law. But then at the time of the Russian invasion of their neighbor, Obazma had the bright idea to treat the Georgians just as he treated the Russians, i.e., as schoolchildren in a playground scrap.
– Putin to Obama – “You spend too much time in your adoring running dogs and ankle lickers echo chamber. You don’t even know when you’re being punked, punk. So whos the child again bitch?”
I guess he was finally shamed into telling us what’s going on . Ha!
Pigs aren’t flying, but, damn if I don’t agree with Putin.
Obama’s late for his announced statement, as usual.
Obama’s late for his announced statement, as usual.
As with dressing for a formal event, Valerie has probably had a few changes of mind during the last hour or so . . . hence, the delay.
We call that “Indian Time” around here . . .
Okay, did I miss the big announcement, or is Presbo that late?
He just trotted out with Joe the Biden in tow.
Is he talking about gang violence in Chicago? “Thousands dead, many of them children.”
The noted Constitutional scholar just called us the oldest “Constitutional Democracy.”
And now Presbo is justifying the lack of debate because we need to act and don’t have time for debate.
Obfuscate, delay and deny are the operating principles of our government.
Even money Presbo just lied when he said Boehner and Mitch are on board.
Persnickety nigglers, that’s what you people are. I…
So our Representatives should be informed by us that we say “Absolutely not” to Obazma’s “request” for an authorization to take military action in Syria. Pretty simple, really.
I’ll take that bet, Blake.
Wow, Presbo turned tail and ran, I mean, walked rapidly away from his speech. I blinked and Presbo was gone.
That was seriously screwed up. The President gave a speech in his “serious voice” and as soon as the last word was spoken, turned and ran away.
It’s almost like the President resented having to attempt to justify his actions to the proles, I mean, American public.
And that was it.
geoffb, perhaps the President thinks hectoring and dialogue are the same thing. After all, the President, noted Constitutional Scholar that he is, just called the US the oldest “Constitutional Democracy.”
Not kidding, it would be helpful if everyone writes their Congressman and Senators right now. A flood of early refusal to authorize force can’t hurt, and may prove decisive. Clog their e-mail accounts. Heck, do it every day from here on out.
I’ve gotten a head start and signed several petitions to refuse to authorize force.
I wonder how many XOs threw their field tables across the room at that speech? Nothing like having your nuts cut off by the president when you’re stationed overseas with a bunch of amped up troops who you now need to tell to hurry up and wait.
Of course, evereyone knows we meant Constitutional Maonarchy.
Doing what he does best, Obama is kicking a problem down the road. Though I don’t think this is what he originally wanted, he is escaping from a metaphorical chess pin (damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t) by saying he wants to strike while anticipating that Congress will balk. He can then say he was strong without having to actually take military action. This is not to say there wouldn’t be repercussions.
I may well be totally wrong. Just jabbering here.
To quote a former British Prime Minister TaiChiWawa, this is no time to go wobbly. That is, to go wobbly with considerations of the appearances of Obazma’s poses. What counts is what business you think the United States has in using force under the Poser’s command in Syria, and to let your Representatives know where you stand.
Ahh… of course, umm… everyone knows… uhh, we meant… ahh…
…
every.
On the other hand.
Perhaps Commissioner Inez Tenenbaum’s “psychic hotline” was hard at work here too. Smoke, mirrors, and reality adjusted daily as needs arise in the narrative and Barry’s quest for a “mock-free” zone around himself.
Now we know why he left so fast, didn’t want to miss his tee time.
geoffb, fabulous, our Administration is now somewhere between Lewis Carroll and Salvador Dali. With perhaps a bit of Timothy Leary tossed in.
What did this joke of an administration know, when did they know it, and why did they withhold life-saving information from the World! Could we, Americans, have saved saved those children, just by speaking out?
Obama will dance on the graves of children to advance his far-Left ideology here, but not raise a finger to save children in Syria.
Operation Fore-ward, to the 19th hole.
Obama’s Homeland Security Seizing Private Citizen Property Via Eminent Domain Along Mexico Border