Bill Maher on This Week

Bill Maher was a panel guest on ABC's This Week, and he stated that not all Republicans are racists but if someone is racist they are Republican. Maher can get by with this on his show, but he looked bitterly partisan this morning and over his head. Why This Week would have someone like Maher on the panel is difficult to understand -- if it's for ratings, I don't think it helps. Anyone watching This Week is not looking for typical left buffoonery, but an intelligent conversation.

Much has been written about the simplistic rhetoric on the right, but the left's mindless babbling about racism is our biggest problem with public discourse. Real racism is a serious issue -- using racism as an all-purpose weapon against the right demeans its actual occurence and effects. I hope those in the national discourse who are more intellectually astute and who condemn entertainers on the right will do the same with Maher. 

The Democrats' campaign to manufacture votes

Think what you want to think about Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but they've hit on something important in all this hoopla surrounding Arizona, and the depiction by the left of the Tea Party as racists. The Democrats are in big trouble, as I've written about several times, in the coming elections, if all the people who don't usually bother to vote head for the polls. There's the possibility that tens of millions of extra voters will be in the game and they'll most likely hurt the Democrats.

The Democrats are desperate, so they're playing the race card big time. This desperate move is a miscalculation and it'll backfire. They need to increase the hispanic vote, the black vote, the female vote, and they have to intimidate independents by framing the alternative as a racist choice. The Dems will overplay their hand as usual, and as more people become familiar with the issues in Arizona and Texas, it'll become obvious that the charges of rampant racism are bogus and the Dems are simply playing politics. These political tactics are going to make the Dems look desperate and dishonest, moreso than they actally are. They just don't get the message. They don't yet realize that the old ploy of repeating a lie fifty times to make it true will not work when competing information is being released as quickly as they can lie.

The Republicans need to be learning from the Democrats' mistakes -- its a new game with new rules. We don't have time for this foolishness, there's a big economy that needs to be rebuilt.

They know not what they do

http://theamericanscene.com/2010/04/17/race-as-a-cudgel-against-the-right

Conor Friedersdorf wrote a good post regarding charges of racism against the right. I don't know what Conor has done to attract the following of commenters on his post, and I hope these comments aren't representative of the left's attitude toward Republicans, conservatives and white Christians, but more and more on different sites I read the same outlandish attacks.

The media has reported on rightwing attacks on the left, and many prominent people have expressed their concerns regarding demonization and heated political rhetoric. What hasn't been reported in depth, at least in the media outlets I read, which are politically diverse but mostly with a liberal tilt, is the left's demonization of right as racists. When it is reported, it's reported as simply what the left's accusing, but not whether the accusations are valid. In other words, there doesn't seem to be the same concern regarding the heated rhetoric coming from the left, and whether this rhetoric is dangerous.

I would much rather see a battle over ideas and policies rather than personal attacks and charges of racism. The right, also, would be better served criticizing the ideology on the left, and leave off all personal attacks. It's not unstable individuals in society going off the deep end that I worry about, although this could happen at any time. I'm not sure that over-heated rhetoric actually causes disturbed individuals to act, but it could be a contributing factor. The main reason to stick with ideas and policies, though, is that they're the most important concerns.

Those in power should try to defend and justify their ideas, not silence all opposition. Our form of government was never meant for political parties to gain power then attempt to exand that power by any means necessary -- this seems more like Third World politics, something unstable countries practice in an on-going battle for power and control. It's this aspect of modern American politics that I find dangerous. We give our consent to government to govern wisely and obey the limitations of the Constitution, but more and more, each party in power attempts to expand power -- they haven't used power wisely.

The danger in this is a tipping point whereby power is expanded, backed by public anger over class/race/religious divisions, to the point of electing a charismatic authoritarian or totalitarian who leads a majority to a place we don't want to go -- a place at which the minority doesn't want to be.

In defense of Rush Limbaugh

Right is right, and wrong is wrong -- what the MSM are doing to Rush Limbaugh is wrong. It's as bad as McCarthyism, and this is not hyperbole. The attackers cannot produce evidence that Limbaugh is a racist, yet they are pounding the race card on the table.

You can disagree with a person's politics, but this is downright despicable and cowardly. It's pitiful to watch professional journalists carry on this type of smear and destroy mission -- the irony is that it will backfire. 

More frivolous, gutless charges of racism

http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/09/andrew-jacksons-mother-advises-this.html

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has joined the gutless crowd of "racist" slingers who are placing themselves in the position of approbium in the eyes of all reasonable people who give a damn about fairness and the evil of real racism. May his stupidity make him invisible -- now, he is to me.

I understand how it feels to be accused falsely of racism, and if R.S. McCain is from Georgia, then he probably wants to handle it the old fashion way -- a good bop upside the head -- I know I did the few times it's happened to me. About three years ago on a writers' workshop site I was attacked by a rabid gang of progressives who escalated their attacks on my libertarian views until it grew to baseless charges of racism -- their proof was that I live in Georgia, have blonde hair and believe in limited government and capitalism.

They harassed me at that site then followed me to another writers' site and harrassed me there. Recently there have been implications made of racism, merely, I suppose, because I don't have much regard for our interventionist government.

These types of frivolous charges have a way of backfiring. As I wrote in the comments section to Friedersdorf's post regarding Limbaugh, or something, that went off into racism -- I grew up in the 50s and 60s, born 1953, and witnessed the evil of true racism, and for people to frivolously use this charge in a nation with a black president, simply for political and personal vendetta reasons, is inexcusable -- and it's an insult to all who have experienced racism. I'm not saying racism has disappeared, but this crap by Johnson and others is ignorant and childish.