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The Spectacle Blog
Well.
That was an amazing bit of television.
It seems that California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman claims to be unaware of the much publicized (other than the mainstream media) Black Panthers voting rights intimidation case. At a townhall meeting captured on video he pleads ignorance and is greeted with bellows of incredulity from constituents. If you haven’t seen it, find it here.
So Sherman’s remarks were the topic for discussion on Megyn Kelly’s Fox afternoon show yesterday. What began as a normal fair-and-balanced discussion between conservative consultant Andrea Tantaros and liberal NY Post columnist Kirsten Powers, with Kelly moderating, suddenly, well…blew up.
It is, but of course, now everywhere on You Tube, including here.
Powers had apparently not read the testimony to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission offered by J. Christian Adams, the Department of Justice whistle-blower. This did not…ahhhh…go down well with Ms. Kelly, a decidedly razor sharp lawyer.
You know that weird sensation you get when you realize those two seemingly friendly people in your vicinity — colleagues, family, friends, spouses, siblings — are suddenly and unexpectedly getting into it? Big Time? The sort of turn from “uh-oh” to astonishment to yikes to…I know I should leave but I’m afraid one of them will go Gibson? Is this really happening?
That feeling?
Doubtless this piece of video will have an eternal audience. Ms. Tantaros, no shrinking violet she, was doubtless simply stunned into silence as Kelly and guest Powers went at it, complete with a threat (from Kelly) to cut Powers’ mike.
Uh. Gee.
One thought and then I’m running to get under the bed in case either of these two starts pounding on my television screen.
Ms. Kelly, as is well known, not unlike fellow lawyer and host Greta Van Sustern, can be sure to have read legal document X if it’s up for discussion. For whatever reason, Ms. Powers chose not or at the least seemed not to have read the documents under discussion and ventured forth at her peril.
But there’s a larger point to be made here to Powers. One that we have made a number of times in general, most recently with a column on Christian Adams, Bill Clinton, Robert Byrd and The Panther case, found here.
The point is that progressives — or liberals, Democrats, however you wish to describe the American Left — have a horrific and lengthy history on racial issues. Supporting over the decades everything from slavery to segregation to lynching to racial quotas and now illegal immigration, Powers’ philosophical ancestors and, alas, a number of her contemporaries — some of whom are running the Justice Department in the 21st century — have made it crystal clear that they judge others by skin color.
So for Ms. Powers to blithely dismiss the video of Black Panthers in some pseudo-military uniform, one with a nightstick, standing in front of a polling place indicates she has a problem much worse than not reading Mr. Adams’ testimony at the Civil Rights Commission.
I need to be crystal clear here.
I am not in the least imputing racism to Kirsten Powers. Not so and pox on those who would even imply it. But the hard historical fact is that her side is the one which used the Ku Klux Klan as, in the words of Columbia University historian Eric Foner, “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party.” Bull Connor, the night stick wielding villain of Birmingham infamy who set the police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights demonstrators was a member of the Democratic National Committee. The left thinks in racial terms — for reasons beyond the political I confess I will never understand.
But think that way they do.
This is precisely what those Black Panthers were trying to do outside that polling place in Philadelphia in 2008. Use racism as a “military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party” just as their Klan predecessors did. There was nothing — sadly — new here. This is what the American Left has done for, as noted, centuries. They are doing it right this minute in Arizona — trying to scare Latinos as once they used race to scare whites and blacks.
Ms. Powers seemed blissfully unaware of this history, and made the appalling and sarcastic aside, in her momentary anger at Ms. Kelly, I’m sure — poo-pooing the image of a “scary black man.”
The “scary black man” with a nightstick outside a polling place of today is the “scary white man” with the hood from yesterday and possibly some “scary Latino man” from tomorrow. The point — Ms. Kelly’s bottom line — is the sentiment well expressed by President John F. Kennedy in his address to the nation calling for the resurrection of the Civil Rights laws passed by Republicans in the post-Civil War era. Laws so thoroughly eviscerated by the Democrats of the day — many of them wearing hoods outside polling places. Looking pretty scary.
“Race has no place in American life or law,” said President Kennedy. A Democrat. Who became an instant hero with many Republicans for simply, at last, putting his party on record with Lincoln in this fashion as a sitting president. Unlike, say, Woodrow Wilson, who held a private White House showing of Birth of a Nation.
This mid-afternoon televised dust-up between Kelly and Powers can hopefully serve a useful purpose to a wider audience beyond being mesmerizing YouTube..
And the combatants should go have a drink and cool off. OK, maybe a café latte would be wiser.
Have to run. There are two blonde women pounding the inside of my television screen. I’m going to watch Animal Planet now.
View all comments (92) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Jeffrey Lord
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/14/megyn-kelly-v-kirsten-powers-t
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patrick Mulqueeney| 7.14.10 @ 3:20PM
Jeffrey, Great analysis! Kirsten usually does a better job of expressing her point of view, however she was way overmatched on this one. She like the liberals and progressives she associates with need to do their homework and avoid reliance on their daily distributed talking points. PMM
SirJason | 7.15.10 @ 6:22PM
King Samir Shabazz, the chairman of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) Philadelphia chapter said, “You want freedom? You’re gonna have to kill some crackers. You gonna have to kill some of they [their] babies.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
In a videotaped interview with Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher, NBPP Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz said, “[Beck] can bring his Tea Party, and we’ll bring our party, and we’ll see Glenn Beck.”
<iframe src="http://videos.mediaite.com/embed/player/RDZQQW23GL8JMTTQ" width="420" height="421" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07.....z0tUfM4z00
Nobama2010| 7.14.10 @ 3:34PM
Kirsten is an inch deep and a mile wide. She is a lightweight who wouldnt even been on the air if wasnt for her looks. I always thought she was an empty vessel.
phillipgaley| 7.14.10 @ 6:09PM
In the video, as shown on YT, the one woman didn't know that, "In otherwise logical disputation, to attempt to hide behind some one else's dirty laundry is to be hardly received."--it was strange, one in her position, . . .
Daezy | 7.14.10 @ 3:51PM
Well done, Mr. Lord. Well done!
sissy| 7.14.10 @ 4:18PM
Meghan is a big mouth bully
Wally| 7.14.10 @ 5:51PM
You're just saying that because she cleaned your girl's clock! Haha!!
John W.| 7.14.10 @ 6:27PM
Actually, Wally, sissy is sort of right. Forcing any member of the Indoctrinated Class to confront reality and deal with facts does fall into the category of inflicting pain. I feel very, very bad for enjoying the way Megyn cleaned the idiots clock.
Inquirer| 7.15.10 @ 4:50PM
If Megyn ever starts to cross-examine me, I shall immediately plead guilty.
JP| 7.14.10 @ 4:38PM
That on-air dust up enscapulates the reasons I stopped watching news (Fox News included) 7 years ago. I just cannot waste my time listening or watching 2 people yell at eachother. I get enough of that from my small children.
Gone are the good ol' days of Firing Line.
brd| 7.14.10 @ 5:39PM
history is an important context when making your claims about the left and racism and the KKK. when the national democrats started pushing civil rights legislation, where did the dixiecrats go? to the GOP. i can't stand when someone tries to impugn racism on the DNC using the dixiecrats as an example. it's a horrible understanding of history. it's a lot like saying the current GOP is the party of Lincoln. give me a break.
glenny| 7.14.10 @ 6:20PM
brd,
Yeah, right! Let's see, Al Gore Sr., KKK Byrd, Hollings, Eastland, Bull Conner, et al. Future Republicans all ! glenny
glenny| 7.14.10 @ 11:44PM
Ooops !!! Almost forgot, George Wallace. And I also forgot David Duke, who in his student days at LSU in the late 1960s-early 1970s, was a DEMOCRAT. I know b/c I was there. glenny in baton rouge
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 7.14.10 @ 6:27PM
Brd: You know what I can't stand? When Democrats/Progressives/Liberals/Commies (whatever the hell you call yourself these days) try to whitewash their actual history and change the facts, to make themselves feel better. Let me remind you, Senator Robert Bryd (who just died last month), was an actual member of the KKK, Hood wearing, card carrying, dues paying member in good standing, and he was a, umm? Oh yeah I remember now, a friggin' Democrat!! The Left has been, and still is, and probably always will be, all about race, racism, and hate!! Rewrite history all you want, point fingers in the wrong direction, blame the Republicans, blame Bush, blame everybody, but, BUT!!, never look in the mirror. Because if you did, you might see the ugly truth looking back at you, and that would be too hard to handle. That's the context that I'm putting it into Brd, so give me a break. Give us all a break!!
Missy| 7.14.10 @ 6:34PM
Communists ALWAYS re-write history--it's the only way the mindless thugs can stay in power.
Liberals practice "Plantation Politics."
John W.| 7.14.10 @ 6:33PM
Having grown up in Alabama, and being old enough to remember segregation, I can attest from personal experience that you are wrong. In fact, when Southerners turned away from racism, they turned away from the party of racism and put Republicans in office. And before you reply, you might look into where the Civil Rights Act was written, who the principal author was, and the voting break down by party. Moron.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.14.10 @ 6:54PM
brd...
You are missing the point. Appealing to race is in the DNA of liberalism. Were those progressives under those KKK hoods appealing to whites? Yes.
But more to the point: Are those progressives in the Obama White House appealing to Latinos in Arizona? Yes.
Which is to say: This is a party that genuinely seeks to divide people by race. In 1810. In 1910. In 2010.
And Kirsten Powers slipped immediately into a defense of this.
Nate| 7.14.10 @ 8:50PM
Mr Lord --
You've really dug yourself into a hole here.
Are you telling me that the majority of blacks vote for a party that espouses the same values as the KKK?
Look:
Advocating for historically marginalized groups is the ESSENCE of liberalism. Liberalism seeks to EXPAND the political and economic autonomy of people who have been left out.
When Democrats were pro-segregation they were being CONSERVATIVE -- that is, hostile to change and hostile to the increase of the autonomy of blacks.
As you know, white racists FLED the Democratic party in the 1960s after the civil rights acts of 64 and 65 were passed. Those racists were WELCOMED by the Republicans, who had begun to sour on civil rights anyway. They were welcomed by the Republicans, and with tacit approval, they still are welcomed by Republicans.
You need to brush up on your U.S. history.
tonypal| 7.14.10 @ 9:26PM
Nate, I suggest you scroll up to a post by glenny, who lists some democrats of recent vintage who were democrats their entire lives. Now since you've made the accusation, please list the racist senators from the south that joined the republican party after the civil rights act was passed? Also, why would these alleged racist senators willingly change party affiliation to the party that just voted overwhelmingly for a legislative act they unequivocally oppose?
SoCon| 7.14.10 @ 9:57PM
Deceased Senator Robert Byrd (DEMOCRAT- WV) was a Grand Kleagle in the KKK . Byrd was an officer in the racist organization who was responsible for recruiting hundreds of new members for the KKK.
Byrd was the only remaining ex-klansman in the Senate and at one time filibustered Civil Rights legislation--no Republican he.
Guess that "racist" was welcomed with open arms by you Democrats. You're the one who is history challenged.
Facts are stubborn things--aren't they, Nate?
Nate| 7.14.10 @ 10:37PM
SoCon and tonypal --
Somehow you've convinced yourselves that the Democratic party is the party of the KKK, which is why, your argument continues, something like 90% of blacks vote Democratic. I'm not sure how you square this with your God-given sense of reason, unless you choose to believe that most blacks are fools or idiots. I think they probably vote their interests, and since the sixties, when the DEMOCRATS passed and signed into law the two great civil rights acts, they've voted for the Ds.
Now, you've got a point. Before the 60s an overwhelming majority of southern Democrats -- they were called Dixiecrats back then -- were pro-segregation, and that included Byrd and a few others you've alluded to. But they didn't define the party for all time, and they couldn't stop the party from moving against segregation.
I never said any senators moved from the Democratic to the Republican party. VOTERS moved from the Democratic to the Republican party, and the Rs made a concerted effort to attract and keep them by pushing back against the civil rights agenda.
When exactly does this seminar have to end? You do know about WWII, right? You've heard of Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs? This is all fairly well documented history you should have learned in school, and I'm amazed how easy a few hysterical djs on the radio can undo what must have at one point been taught to you. Your sense of the "facts" in this matter is disgraceful.
sick and tired of fools| 9.11.10 @ 4:14PM
As to your comment about blacks voting 90% Democrat it only stands to reason that they would logically vote to keep the welfare checks and food stamps flowing.
The Democratic method is always about control and what better way to control weak minded people than to get them addicted to handouts that you control all while proclaiming that you are doing it to "help" them.
Stop the D vs. R crap and wake up to the reality that they are both bad and we the people have been had.
Seek| 7.15.10 @ 4:03PM
The Democrats who supported the KKK in days distant past were not liberals -- Democrats, yes, but not liberals. In any event, the party is the party of affirmative action. That's why for every "Klansman" supporting the party there must be literally one million blacks.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 4:39PM
Democrats haven't changed: They used Black Americans as slaves on Southern plantations then and they're still using them today.
Today's Democrat Plantations are our dead and dying inner cities.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.15.10 @ 9:44PM
Seek....
Which only means the party has exactly the same position now as it did two centuries ago. What was the Klan about if not "affirmative action" for whites? That is precisely the point. It was not about equality or individuals, it was about race.
Seek, you have made the point exactly.
Thanks.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.14.10 @ 10:31PM
Nate...
"Are you telling me that the majority of blacks vote for a party that espouses the same values as the KKK? "
I am saying, Nate, that anyone who votes for someone because of the color of their skin is sharing exactly the same values as the KKK. Furthermore, the KKK was not a bunch of conservatives. They supported Woodrow Wilson & Franklin Roosevelt, among many, many other liberals. Senator Bilbo was a huge liberal - and a Klan member.
You are, respectfully, fully versed in modern liberalism's historical fables. Not in the actuality of history. I was in the Reagan White House - with, yes, black colleagues. Not a Klan member in sight. For that you had to visit the Senate Democratic Caucus. Sorry.
And....
"Advocating for historically marginalized groups is the ESSENCE of liberalism. Liberalism seeks to EXPAND the political and economic autonomy of people who have been left out. "
Wow. If this is so, why are there so many unemployed? Why Fannie and Freddie and giving mortgages to those who can't afford them - and suckering them into poverty? Economic autonomy? Wow again.
The hard reailty is that once upon a time - in a world where your side kept blacks from economic and voting freedom - to be a poor white was to be, as you say, "marginalized." So you created the Klan. This is what your side does. As said, in 1810 (when it was pro-slavery), 1910 (when it was pro-segregation) and 2010 (when it is pro-illegal immigration.)
Nate...you are not reading history you are reading propaganda. Don't you find it just a tad odd that the Justice Department is forbidding equal justice under the law to all voters equally in the Panthers case - yet is filing a law suit against a law that specifically forbids racial discrimination in Arizona?
Where on God's earth do you think they get this idea from? They have always had it...and judging others by skin color, whether you are the Klan, the modern (not the old) NAACP, or La Raza (!!!)...is of a piece.
Wake up. You are being played. And this is not in the least anything new.
Nate| 7.14.10 @ 10:50PM
I created the Klan?
Mr Lord, when minorities seek to win their rights after decades -- centuries -- of oppression, they BAND together.
I'm not sure where to begin in explaining why. But here's the thing:
Step into my time machine. We're in Paris in 1952 meeting with a family of Jews who survived the death camps in Poland.
The Jews tell us that they hate Germans. They believe all Germans are complicit, and all Germans are evil.
Now, are they being unfair? Yes, sort of. Are they being "racist." Sort of, yes.
But we judge their attitudes differently because of our knowledge of the historical situation in which they've taken shape.
We don't say to them, the past is the past. We don't say that because they're judging the Germans as a GROUP, and not as individuals, they're no better than the Nazis.
I realize of course that blacks today are not the same as the Jews in my hypothetical situation, but we still need to maintain an historical perspective on these issues.
To claim the NAACP is the same as the KKK is just foolish. It's morally insane and just false.
Oddly you're practicing a form of RELATIVISM that conservatives used to descry in liberal thinkers.
Analogies -- particularly historical analogies -- are difficult tools to use properly. I'll do my best to wake up and come to terms with my past as a creator of the KKK, but I suggest you take the opportunity of my silence to reconsider how you make your arguments on this topic.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.14.10 @ 11:30PM
Nate...
I suspect you are a little to young to have been around in the aftermath of the Civil War. I know I missed it.
But your philosophical ancestors, using precisely the grounds you have laid out above, created the Klan. That, Nate, is fact. They were Democrats under those hoods. Progressive Democrats. That is fact. Check out the 1924 Democratic Convention, while you're at it. That would be the "Klan Bake" at Madison Square Garden. They were all for the little guy, the weak, the poor.
Nate, you talk about "minorities." What happened to "all men are created equal"? If we're all equal in the eyes of the law...who's a minority?
Am I a minority because I'm not as rich as Donald Trump? Or Oprah? As long as I have the same freedom and opportunity, that's all I ask. There's not a conservative of any seriousness who is opposed to freedom and opportunity. Not one. That is the core of conservative philosophy. We are not trying to take from one - steal, as it were - to give to someone we are keeping poor, to make us feel better.
Look around. If, say, Detroit and all its long history of Democratic mayors was using a workable philosophy...why is it in such miserable straits? Becuase its black? No. Because its Left. Like All White East Germany or All Yello North Korea. Etc.
Principles count. You may cherish the belief gravity doesn't exist or its a foolish theory of that dead white male Newton. So go jump off the top of the Empire State Building without a parachute, already. Good luck!
Am I, a baseball fan, equal to...say... A Rod? I'd love to think so...but alas. He's got me. He's better. And it has zero to do with the fact that he's Hispanic. The plumber is a better plumber than I am. He's got me too. You appear to want equal results. And that, Nate, is not only an impossibility - but a cruel thing to try and get people to believe. You could give me an eight figure contract to play baseball - but just because I get the same money as A-Rod won't have me playing like A-Rod. The Boss would be rolling over in his grave before he even gets there. Not to mention when he found out I'm a Red Sox fan!
Ryan| 7.15.10 @ 8:21AM
I'm going to interject here. This is the same conservative Ryan who posts consistently - mostly on religious and economic topics.
Both Nate and Jeffrey are right and wrong here.
This isn't the 20th century anymore. I think both sides are ignoring that matter. The political landscape, when it comes to race, radically changed starting in the 1960s.
The left pretty much took over the Democratic party (which had always been mostly conservative - sorry Jeff, but you a wrong here, they were against major change - with a populist bent and fairly racist) - a left which ALSO included racists from the other side - black, latino, etc. Dixiecrats were by NO means leftist or liberal. Support for any true leftists was more likely to be racially-based or anti-big business than anything else.
Many racist whites - Dixiecrats - who no longer had a home and couldn't really form a third party either kept much of their power base in the South or eventually toned down or dropped their racist language and issues and joined the Republicans.
What IS apparent is that practically ALL the racist language is now coming from the Democratic party. We hardly hear a peep from the right on the issue other than opposing racism or fighting charges of racism. Someone - it may have been Jeff - wrote a pretty good article here on AS speaking about how even when the conservative whites left the Dems the attitude that race is behind everything stayed the same.
Nowadays, I see anyone who claims racism as already having lost the argument. It's the fallback of someone who cannot see reality.
SoCon| 7.14.10 @ 10:52PM
Forget it, Jeff, the troll's a true believer.
All I know is Lincoln, a Republican President, freed the slaves and the KKK, started by Democrats, terrorized Black Americans for decades. Case closed for me.
Nate lies because he's deeply ashamed of the terrible injustice his Democrat party visited upon Black Americans in the past. I don't blame him, I'd be deeply ashamed of my party's past, too, if I were a Democrat.
Ms. Jones| 7.15.10 @ 4:24PM
Interesting that civil rights lawyer and lifetime Democrat (RFK's NY campaign manager) was a witness to Black Panther leader Shabazz's voter intimidation. In an interview by Bill O'Reilly, he stated that he had seen nooses hanging from trees near voting places in the Jim Crow south, but had never experienced such eggregious voter intimidation as took place in 2008 Philadelphia at the hands of the New Black Panther party. The only DOCUMENTED, proven racism at work today is at the hands of the progressives. Remember, brd, repeating a lie does not make it truth.
Tina| 7.14.10 @ 5:51PM
Megyn showed up for work prepared. Kirsten came armed with the usual "blame Bush" answer that the far-left seems to honestly believe is the correct answer to all criticism of the Obama administration. There seems to be some kind of amnesia on the left. They scream about how wrong it is to disrespect the office of the president (which it is), apparently forgetting the hate speech against President Bush that went on unabated for eight years (well, more than that because it still hasn't stopped). The conservatives in America are speaking out against the policies of this administration and at every turn are being accused of being racist. This particular case is about race and about how someone in the DOJ has come out and exposed a policy of unequal treatment under the law based on race. Rather than discuss the facts in the case, Kirsten chose to defend the bad behavior of the Obama administration by pointing out that the Bush administration did the same thing. My kids can't get away with a ridiculous argument like that. I'm glad Megyn didn't let Kirsten get away with it either.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 7.14.10 @ 5:55PM
Sissy said: "Meghan (sic) is a big mouth bully." What's the matter there Sissy, you can't handle little old Megyn? What are you a sissy, Sissy?
Megyn Kelly ended this interview with: "You can disagree with me all you want, if you have your facts right,... which you don't!!" Ouch!!
I'm glad FOX gave Megyn her own show, because she's real smart, and loves a good fight, and even more important than that, she's HOT too!!
Smart and Hot, it's a winning combination, and I never get bored watching her. She won this argument within the first minute, TKO!!
SoCon| 7.14.10 @ 5:58PM
Man, Meghan sure has a temper! Kind of scary.
Kirsten Powers already looked ticked off before the argument even started. That was a bare-knuckle fight.
I like both of these women, and I was honestly sorry to see such a heated, bitter exchange between them.
glenny| 7.14.10 @ 6:01PM
Would like to see the photo of that voting place with the Black Panthers edited out and two robed KKK members "shopped" in. Caption would be "Not a hate crime?". Not a photoshop guy. Any help? glenny
Tim*| 7.14.10 @ 7:16PM
The Black Panthers are another Has Been Hold Over Loser Race Hustlers.
The Obama Administration is now A Failed Administration attempting ,in desperation to play The Race Game.
The Tea Party Rebellion Now Escalates Further.
We Take Down Obama's " Enablers " In Congress on November 2nd.
Sheila| 7.14.10 @ 7:22PM
Sorry, Mr. Lord, but I must disagree with you on your main premise. It's not that the democrats seek to divide people by race, it's that people ARE divided by race and class and sex and religion. We're not all the same - not biologically, not intellectually, and not culturally. No, Mr. Bush, we don't all want the same things for our families. I don't want my kids to grow up to be either rabbinical scholars or suicide bombers - just independent Americans. This is just the illogical extension of the proposition nation fallacy - that we can be one nation merely based on an idea. And no, it's not just a question of a failure of assimilation. It's admitting that some races or cultures or religions just cannot be assimilated, and those that could in the past entered into a strong majority culture with an unquestioned sense of its own identity. With the loss of that majority and that culture, and most particularly that pride of identity, nature strips things down to the basics: diversity + proximity = war. Or, the corollary I prefer: tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy.
Nate| 7.14.10 @ 7:43PM
It's always good to hear from the fascist contingent of the right. Don't worry, Sheila. Plenty of folks around here silently approve of you -- even if it has been rejected by the civilized people of the world.
tonypal| 7.14.10 @ 9:30PM
Nate, why do you assume the poster is a right winger. In fact, you'll notice she chose to admonish George W. Bush, not Barack Obama. In fact, she speaks the language of the left, multiculturalism, aversion to assimilation, rejection of one nation.
Ms. Jones| 7.15.10 @ 4:28PM
Well said, tonypal. And Nate, if plenty of folks are silent around here, how do you know of what they approve or disapprove. This is more of the typical liberal tactic of putting words in other's mouths by arrogantly translating "code words". Poppycock!
Crooz8er| 7.14.10 @ 8:29PM
Sheila, preach on sister. In fact I mentioned something along these same lines to a friend of mine today. After seeing yet ANOTHER whitekid in bagginf capris, underwear showing and hat on cockeyed, I told him that a sure sign of the impending collapse of a society is when members of the dominate culture start emulating members of the inferior culture.
Call me "racist" if you want, whatever. Truth is Truth.
Sheila| 7.14.10 @ 8:05PM
You're most welcome, Nate! Glad to hear you still support thought and speech control on those you deem uncivilized; there are plenty you'd consider on the right who unfortunately agree with you; they're still desperately seeking approval. I realize it must disconcert you that neither your disapproval nor your labels frighten me. Whatever will you do when, your long struggle to destroy white Christian civilization over, you find yourself among the rubble - and have no one else to blame for your problems?
Nate| 7.14.10 @ 8:28PM
Sheila --
Tell me: What about my post suggests I "support thought and speech control"?
All I did was criticize you. I didn't attempt to "control" you. I take it civil discourse is not something to which you're accustomed. Now that you're giving it a shot, let me give you a few tips:
1. Sometimes people will sometimes disagree with your beliefs and arguments. Disagreement does NOT imply someone is seeking -- say -- to pass legislation to silence you.
2. In a free society, disagreement does not imply hatred or hostility. One should not consider one's political opponents enemies. Adults disagree all the time on politics! Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan used to get drunk and sing Irish folk tunes together.
3. You sound quite a lot like a fascist. You don't seem informed enough to have made the decision to become a fascist, so I assume some pernicious influence in your life is misleading you. I strongly urge you to reconsider beliefs about the essential biological differences between ethnic groups, and so on. There's not any truth in that stuff. But more to the point, I recommend you go to a LIBRARY and get out some BOOKS (books are bound tomes of printed pages) about the history of fascism. You'll be surprised -- and frightened, I hope -- to find yourself looking into a cracked mirror. Such learning may help you join society again -- as a conservative or liberal, I don't care, but as an American.
SoCon| 7.14.10 @ 10:03PM
Speech Police like you ALWAYS support thought and speech control, Nate. Your hero, Goebbels, was a (National) Socialist, too.
Taxpayer| 7.14.10 @ 10:27PM
Where exactly did Nate say Sheila's speech should be stifled? Please explain.
SoCon| 7.14.10 @ 10:39PM
Nate, like all Progressives, don't just criticize, they try to demonize those with whom they disagree. That's thought and speech control. Understand?
Nate called Sheila a fascist--need I explain further or have you figured out why I said he/she supports thought/speech control?
I'm sure you're a lot of things, but a taxpayer you aren't. Nice try, though.
George | 7.15.10 @ 6:57AM
Nate,
If you have the courage of your convictions, then I have a book for you to read. It's called Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg .
I don't think you have a good grasp on the word.
Nate| 7.15.10 @ 12:14PM
That book is nonsense.
It asserts an argument you personally would like to think is true, but that does not make it true.
Goldberg engages in oversimplification, distortion, and downright falsity to support his claim that liberals really are fascists. It's a stupid argument and historically unfounded.
HERE is why that book is interesting:
Like Mr. Lord's arguments above, it behaves the way reactionary discourse always behaves: it simply reverses the claims of liberalism. To be "reactionary," as the name implies, is to simply appropriate the claims of those who seek liberty in order to deny those claims.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 2:22PM
Nice try, Nate, but you and your Leftist buddies are tanking in the polls. The bad news (for you) is everywhere. Thank God!
America has rejected your hate-filled agenda and we want our country back. Now.
See you in November.
Ms. Jones| 7.15.10 @ 4:34PM
Nate, in direct opposition of your second point, the NAACP has passed a resolution condemning the Tea Party movement as inherently "racist". Their evidence, apparently, is Tea Party opposition to President Obama. Never mind the fact that the opposition is based on his progressive policies and Chicago-style strong arm tactics. I, for one, believe that we are all created in the image of God, saved by grace, and worthy of dignity and respect.
Ted R.| 7.15.10 @ 11:55AM
As long as I live, I just will never get over the Con's shameless mastery of the Big Lie. It is Liberals who are obsessed with race?? It is Liberals who have supported segregation and lynching - ?? I mean, I have no doubt that many Cons sincerely believe that - but it is simply cardinal evidence of the lengths to which conservatism is a hypocritical, self-serving ideology.
Since the election of the first black president in our history, the right has responded with a level of knee-jerk, brain-stem fury that cannot be accounted for on the basis of policy alone. It is the RIGHT that is OBVIOUSLY the party of the race-obsessed, and yes, of the Racists. Ms. Powers, calmly an collectively, zeroed in directly on this point in an exchange with a moderator who had clearly blown her cool: Just WHERE was the Cons' level of outrage - or even awareness - at the documented range of polling-place abuses that occured under the Bush administration?? Just WHY, in this case which had more to do with theater than with any kind of insidious plot to disenfrachise anyone, does Megan Kelly get so worked up and emotional?
The anwer is obvious: the race HATRED and FEAR that is the DNA of modern conservatism. Don't agree? Just think, for a moment, about what lies at the root of all the major policy positions of conservatism today: let's see if we detect a pattern:
On taxation/the budget (including healthcare): Consider the anger of conservatives over income redistribution, particularly to the poor. Not including the healthcare overhaul, the amount spent on minorities is a miniscule part of our budget; yet conservatives obsess about "the undeserving" - code for blacks and hispanics - getting any help.
Since I've brought up the Hispanics, we might as well segue to immigration: many Americans benefit from the basement-level wages paid to immigrants (legal and illegal) - many of whom are, after all doing work that white Americans wouldn't do. Cons cloak their racial anxieties at hispanics (just like they have with blacks) in sanitized "law and order" language, but just who do they think they're fooling?? I seriously doubt we'd see the current-day explosion of white ethnic identity politics, without this racial dimension to the immigration.
Even when it comes to foreign-policy, the Right's attitudes are fueled by the fear and hatred of nonwhites. Terrorism with Middle Eastern origins threatens us all, yet you don't see Liberals going around and talking about "Muzzies" and "Towel-heads." Just look at the caricatures of Muslims in Cons publications like the National Review, for God's sake - it's like something right out of Nazi anti-semitic propoganda.
No, race is the Right's obsession, not the Left. Where was all this white ethnic, Tea-Party anger, BEFORE 2008? Face the FACT: it took the election of a BLACK man to get you guys riled up, like Ms. Kelly lost it on air.
You'd better hope you come through on your boasts to retake Congress this fall: you won't get another chance.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.15.10 @ 1:32PM
Ted...
I am very pleased to hear that you are such a strong supporter of Justice Clarence Thomas.
And out of curiosity, yesterday I watched a parade of black Tea Party members condemning the NAACP. On Fox, but of course. They don't exist elsewhere. And they are explained how?
Ted R.| 7.15.10 @ 2:18PM
A supporter of the biggest hack on the Court? That's news to me.
Black Tea Party members - ? Egad! In a nation of 300 millions, there are supposed to no members of the black community who are conservative? Just like no members of the gay community should vote Republican? It's great how you take these kinds of individuals as evidence that there's "diversity" amongst the (OVERWHELMINGLY) elder-white base of the Republican/Tea Party base; this kind of simplistic argument might be convincing for people in the right wing echo-machine who do their thinking in sound-bites and sloganeering, but it sure as hell doesn't cut it for the rest of us.
Nobama| 7.15.10 @ 2:48PM
Racist!
Another Leftist "High Tech Lynching" attempt on the brilliant Justice Clarence Thomas.
We don't want your kind around here, bigot.
Ted R.| 7.15.10 @ 3:09PM
Look, all you Cons have learned the Big Lie at the knee of Jonah Goldberg well: accuse your opponents of your OWN greatest vice. You think you're being clever with this piece of rhetorical judo: but anyone with a high-school education can see right through it. And the whole time you're making yourself into the White Peoples Party.
Dinosaur.
Nobama| 7.15.10 @ 3:17PM
Look at the polls, clown. Your Leftist agenda of division and hatred is dead--extinct, just like the dinosaurs. The Conservative Comet has wrecked havoc on you. Yeeehaw!!
We are not a color--we are AMERICANS, and we will prevail.
Nobama| 7.15.10 @ 4:31PM
---wreaked havoc-- geesh!
Jeffrey Lord| 7.15.10 @ 4:56PM
Ted...
Your aversion to reading the original documents of history - party platforms, news stories of the day, memoirs, speeches etc etc - amazes.
The party that appeals to race is yours. It is now. It was so, as mentioned, in 1810, 1910, and, again, today in 2010. While you may find it uncomfortable to admit, for just one example, it is historical fact that the US government was segregated by Woodrow Wilson. He was aracist. A segregationist. He segregated the government even before he was showcasing Birth of a Nation at the White House.
That's a fact. A cold, hard fact.
I understand the truth is hard to deal with. But that doesn't make the truth - which is to say hard, cold historical fact - a lie or some sort of nutty "rhetorical judo." Respectfully.
Michael Green| 7.15.10 @ 12:49PM
I cannot improve on Ted R. I will just add, as a history professor, that if someone in my class said that the Democratic party was the party of the KKK in the 1860s and 1870s and therefore is still the party of the KKK, I would fail that student for not understanding anything about history. Well, probably not, since it would be a first-year student who hadn't learned a lot yet. But that student still would be more capable of rational thought than anyone that writes for this dishonest publication.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.15.10 @ 1:28PM
Michael....
If you failed a student for this you would apparently be failing him or her for not accepting your politics as opposed to not understanding history.
Can you explain to me the difference between a party that appealed to skin color in the 1860's and 1870's - and still does this in the 21st century?
This is now - and has been - the rationale of Democrats from the beginning to this moment. There is, in a very real sense, not the slightest difference in the thinking of President Andrew Jackson's Attorney General Roger Taney and President Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder. What they have in common is the idea of judging by race -by skin color - and using that judgment as a way to get votes.
And my professors went to Harvard and Princeton, by the way.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 2:16PM
I can smell the Left's desperation--without the Big Lie, they have nothing.
Nate| 7.15.10 @ 2:52PM
Mr. Lord,
I'm astonished by the irrationality of your argument. You would have us believe that mere reference to race is a form of racism. You would have us believe that because NAACP singles out a specific group for whom it advocates it is no different than the KKK who, your argument (to call it that) continues, also advocated for a race.
This is absurd. The idea that people could fight oppression and exploitation that was legitimated by racist ideas without even making reference to race is a reactionary's fantasy.
When the civil rights movement acted to end a century of racist oppression, they HAD to employ the discourse of race and racial politics. They didn't choose to; they did because racial anxiety and hatred was at the heart of the system that oppressed and exploited them.
What you seem to be hoping for here is not an end to racism but an end to the means by which those who suffer because of racism find redress.
It doesn't MATTER where your professors went to university, Mr. Lord. If this is how they taught you to understand U.S. history or how to make arguments, you were woefully mislead.
Ryan| 7.15.10 @ 3:06PM
The problem with your argument lies in the matter that there are elements that use racial politics to divide and conquer on the left.
Those who have suffered from racism - and any other injustice - find their answers not in remaining victims, but in moving passed their victimhood even if justice is not found.
Those in power maintain their power by convincing the left that racism still abounds when it doesn't.
The left believes that justice is needed for success. It is not.
Jeffrey Lord| 7.15.10 @ 3:59PM
Nate....
I believe in a color-blind America.
I believed this when I was a liberal...a kid whose heroes were the Kennedys and Dr. King....and I believe it now.
Nothing has changed - except that believing in a color-blind America is no longer a liberal goal. And in fact, the realization eventually dawned that it never was beyond that brief period in the early 1960's. JFK's speech on Civil Rights admitted his party had basically spent the 20th century playing the race card.
Witness the abrupt change in Ted's tone, above. He's outraged at the notion liberals would be accused of supporting segregation and lynching - which, historical fact, they did. (It was Wilson who segregated the US government, for example.) Ted is Mr. Civil Rights and is furious, accusing me of a "Big Lie." But after all this outrage, a mere mention of Clarence Thomas and his reverence for blacks goes out the window. He turns on a dime. Now the black man in question is not some sort of secular saint, he's a "hack."
And the reason? Because that particular black man - Yale Law, I might add - had the guts to think for himself. When he moved off the liberal intellectual plantation...well, to Ted that's not someone who thinks, who has a different opinion then Ted. Nope. He's suddenly a hack.
Wow.
helenpalisin| 7.15.10 @ 1:31PM
I like Kirsten Powers but she ran into a buzzsaw. She looked like a kid who came to school unprepared and floundered trying to cover up. She's better than that. I felt sorry for her. But she represented the typical liberal view (I'm recovering myself) that thinks unlawful behavior is OK for minorities who have been oppressed and not expecting more of them because they have such a terrible history of oppression. (Everyone seems to forget that the slave trade began with human trafficking by black Africans.)
I'd like to watch Greta and Megyn disagree about something.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 2:17PM
Slavery is as old as man--it's always been with us, including today.
Ted R.| 7.15.10 @ 2:28PM
Powers did not come unprepared - but she was less prepared than Kelly, who clearly has an axe to grind on this issue. Still, Powers kept her cool and gamely pushed back, as Kelly got more and more shrill. And Powers was correct to highlight the sub-text of this whole controversy - why does the Right get whipped up in a frenzy over this - isolated - incident of polling place intimidation, when all we heard was crickets from them about WORSE abuses during the Bush Admin.?
The issue here, is NOT, as Kelly claimed, a "Two-Wrongs" fallacy on the part of Powers. The issue is that Kelly was giving us yet another example of the professional hypocrisy of the Right.
Nobama| 7.15.10 @ 2:44PM
Another Leftist knee-padder.
Care to provide some proof of "WORSE abuses during the Bush Admin." or are you lying like another Liberal hack, Kirsten Powers?
St Reformed| 7.15.10 @ 5:01PM
The Left has become the master of racial politics.
Look at: 1) The NAACP's smear of the Tea Party as "racists"; 2) The distortion of SB1070 to secure the Latino vote; 3) the DOJ's mandate to selectively prosecute voter rights violations by race.
After all, the national Democrat Party plays the race game by assuming that all minorities think (& vote) alike! They are malignant.
Missy| 7.15.10 @ 5:13PM
I hope we excise the Democrat tumor in November; they are a fatal cancer to our Republic.
Nick| 7.15.10 @ 3:21PM
Nate,
List one "downright falsity" in Mr. Goldberg's book. Just one.
You can't. Because this is just another one of your false assertions, not a fact. A dazi repeats the lie often enough, until it becomes "the truth."
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 3:26PM
Yup, it's the Leftists' Big Lie--they've got nothing without it.
They don't control the airwaves any more, and we're not going to let them get away with it.
Nick| 7.15.10 @ 7:11PM
SoCon,
And that's what really irks them.
They lost their monopoly and they want it back, no matter what it takes.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 9:04PM
Nope! It's too late, the genie's out of the bottle.
Ted R. | 7.15.10 @ 3:45PM
It's all in the GAO report that Powers cited, and the conclusions of which Kelly didn't even try to challenge. Look it up for yourself; I'm not going to do your research for you.
SoCon| 7.15.10 @ 4:28PM
Typical Leftist; lie, lie and lie some more. Just like you lied about phony racist epithets Tea Partiers supposedly hurled at Black Congressmen.
Never any proof ever. Never.
You're toast, and you know it. See you in November.
aDangerousFreeThinker| 7.15.10 @ 6:57PM
Give me the title of the report, the page numbers, and the line numbers, Ted... PROOF. Your response will be "look it up yourself" because you have no proof, and like any good national socialist, you'll either call names or take your ball and go home.
Larry| 7.16.10 @ 10:15AM
People like Nate and Ted R. (and Michael Green, for that matter) don't read books like Liberal Fascism because they tend to disturb their world view and the liberal historical propaganda that whitewashes the past. Anybody who reads more than just the standard texts of history prepared by the leftist academics in this country will see there are two sides to every story. I pity them; it is the reason why their viewpoint must be crushed in the next election. They have no clear view of reality in this country.
CJChambers| 8.2.10 @ 10:27PM
After watching Megyn and the dumb blonde I am sorry that Alan Colmes didn't marry Kirsten. That would surely be called a marriage made in heaven.