Some people can’t hack it in a free society.
They want the government to manage every part of their lives, from the time they realize they have to work for a living until they’re ready for the grave. Such people are afraid of “cold” capitalism and the “rugged individualism” upon which the country was built–two of many reasons why the U.S. still is the greatest country on the planet.
As I’ve listened to and read about liberals’ (including elected officials) disdainful reactions to Americans exercising their constitutional rights by protesting government action, I was sort of sad. People who voted for Obama casually and carelessly accuse dissenters of racism for having the audacity to express discontent over government intrusion, control, and wastefulness.
Even lovers of socialism dreaming of a world in which the government pays their bills and manages their lives (and erodes their freedom in the process, a natural consequence) should see the irony of calling opponents of the “health care reform” bill racists and Nazis. Nazis were national socialists. Obama’s so-called reform bill is national socialism. Then again, it’s fashionable to call people racists and Nazis, especially if the protesters are white.
By the way, I don’t think it’s useful or effective for conservatives to call the other side Nazis, either. Let’s strive to be more original and cleverer than that.
Here’s a mini-lesson so simple, my six-year-old nephew could understand it. Fundamentally, “we the people” are the government, but in a constitutional republic such as ours, elected leaders represent us. Elected leaders of all stripes are prone to forget we have a Constitution and conveniently remember it when it comes to something they want. That’s human nature. I’ve got it. You’ve got it. We all have it. The character-building struggle is to rise above it.
A digression: I wanted to make sure you read Eboo Patel’s blog post. A blogger for the Washington Post, Patel had the straight face to call a Marxist an American patriot and lament the “vicious smear campaign” that led to his resignation from the Obama administration. That Van Jones, who fell on his own sword, was hired to work for the President of the United States is appalling enough. Similarly distressing is Patel himself, blogging regularly for a mainstream newspaper, works for the administration. (Well, he works for us, but you know what I mean.) Obama appointed him to the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Initiatives.
Here we have a current political appointee spreading unmitigated propaganda in support of an anti-America Marxist (redundant, I know). Not an occasional op-ed. A daily blog. (Our hourly or minute-by-minute, his choice.)
Having said that, this is what makes America great. Everyone is free to spout his opinions, from harshly castigating the government and our elected officials to effusively proclaiming our love for them. It doesn’t sit well for me that an Obama appointee has a regular “free press” platform from which to push his man’s policies and sing his praises, and I don’t know how the Washington Post gets away with it. Someone who voted for the president? Okay. But someone appointed by the president? Come on.
(I don’t recall hearing or reading about the Post allowing a Bush appointee to blog. If you have examples, please send them my way, and pardon my ignorance.)
At least the paper allows comments, so real patriots can castigate Patel’s stunningly uninformed and incredible ideas.
You know, some free people tend to forget that freedom costs. They think it rained down from heaven. They think America is the rule instead of the exception. Reasonable and informed people know that American is a successful experiment, one that men and women fought and died to protect. They gave their lives so that I can express my disgust for misguided socialist policies. They sacrificed themselves so that we’d keep our rights to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress and criticize the government without fear of arrest, and all the rest you learned in school.
The majority of Americans elected a man who, despite having taught constitutional law, doesn’t seem to get the Constitution’s elegant simplicity and clarity and what it takes to protect our rights (unless it concerns racial grievances, also known as pseudo-rights) and the absolute necessity of ensuring the freedom of the individual.
Keep protesting and criticizing and calling the administration out. And let’s hope Obama will gain the title of “first biracial president to serve one term.” There’s no guarantee that a Republican will protect the freedom of the American people and the integrity of our system of government…
…but I’ll take my chances. 
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Even when I was still voting for Democrats, I noticed how condescending they and other white liberals tended to be. Trying to appear comfortable around black people, they usually ended up saying something dumb. Being yourself must be difficult when you’re trying to pretend you care about or even know any black people.
White liberals do have this going for them: as long as they’re self-deprecating around blacks, they can get away with saying just about anything, no matter how offensive.
Five years ago, when I first started calling myself a conservative, I wrote an op-ed about the lack of outrage among blacks over a white Maryland state senator calling then Lt. Governor Michael Steele an Uncle Tom during some redistricting controversy. In subsequent years, I noticed that no high profile black political bigmouth or journalist came to the defense of people like Condoleezza Rice when white liberals made offensive race-based comments to or about them.
That’s white Democrats’ privilege. As honorary blacks, they can shuck and jive with the best of them. And as long as they promise to feed more tax dollars into yet more social programs, they’re golden.
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Last week the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that schools in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and Seattle, Washington, could not use race as a tiebreaker when assigning students.
Although Justice Clarence Thomas is vilified by black liberals, he has a keener understanding of “black pride” than they have. Unlike white liberals, Justice Thomas believes black children can excel in predominantly black schools and don’t need to mix with whites in order to learn. So-called progressive blacks have bought into the white supremacist notion that black children must share classrooms with white children to be educated. They completely miss the irony of their own self-loathing, practically begging whites to allow their children to sit alongside theirs.
The true meaning of “black pride” has been lost.
I’m always — always — embarrassed whenever I hear a black person convinced of his own “high” intelligence arguing that the government should force whites to live around blacks, send their kids to school with blacks, and hire underqualified blacks. It’s as though the civil rights, “black pride” movement never happened. People fought and died, bled and cried to dismantle a government system that forced racial segregation. Decades later, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are fighting and crying to keep in place a government system that forces racial integration because we poor black folks can’t do a thing for ourselves without white folks around.
If blacks like Clarence Thomas and myself were pushing that line of crap, the slurs “Uncle Tom” and “Aunt Jemima” would be apt. But we’re saying the opposite. Black liberals are the ones begging white people to “accept” them. At the same time, black liberals are the ones raising their kids to believe this country, the greatest on the planet, is a cesspool of white racism and that white people are bound and determined to keep them down. Why the heck would you want to be around people you think are trying to keep you down?
Contrary to what some of you have been taught, Americans have a right to live wherever they want and avoid whomever they want for whatever reason. Private businesses have a right to hire whomever they want and avoid hiring whomever they want for whatever reason. It’s shocking to some people and might hurt black people’s feelings, but it is not illegal to want to be with certain people based on race or to avoid certain people based on race. We have the freedom to self-segregate, and the government does not have the authority, constitutionally or otherwise, to order people around to achieve some arbitrary racial balance (or imbalance, as was the case with Jim Crow). It didn’t have that authority in the days of Plessy v. Ferguson, and it doesn’t have that authority now.
For a lesson in true — as opposed to phony — black pride, read Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District et al (PDF).
For a standard recitation of white liberal paternalism, read Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent. “The White Man’s Burden,” indeed.
Update: In case anyone has trouble spotting the issue in this post, allow me to be explicit: I’m not demeaning the idea of “black pride” in itself; I’m demeaning black liberals’ idea of black pride. Those are two very different things.
Monday, July 2 @ 9:00 a.m.: Check out my latest Townhall column, Black Pride, White Paternalism.
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Update III (5/23): I am SHOCKED that this piece made it into a newspaper. It’s the ugly, barely-reported truth.
Update II: I forgot to mention a study that showed black students from intact “religious” families perform better in school than their counterparts.
Also, choice is key. Libertarian Andrew Coulson notes that “the school system itself affects parents’ and students’ attitudes towards education. The current system gives parents no power, no control, no responsibilities. When parents can choose their kids’ schools – better yet, when they HAVE to choose their kids’ schools – they become more savvy and more involved.”
See his post at Cato-at-liberty on poor and marginally educated parents choosing schools for their kids. I reviewed a book of essays about the late libertarian Milton Friedman. One essay discussed private schools in Third World countries. I wrote:
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Monday, May 7: Attention, Maryland readers. An organization that receives taxpayer funds is encouraging illegal aliens not to cooperate with federal authorities during illegal alien raids. Some of these illegals have stolen – stolen – other people’s identities.
Michelle Malkin cites federal law, which clearly states that encouraging and inducing illegal aliens to break the law is itself a crime:
“Any person who . . . encourages or induces an alien to . . . reside . . . knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such . . . residence is . . . in violation of law, shall be punished as provided . . . for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs . . . fined under title 18 . . . imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
Just FYI…Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:
* assists an alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment, or
* encourages that alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or
* knowingly assists illegal aliens due to personal convictions.
In that regard, churches that harbor and assist illegal aliens (felonies, by the way) also are violating the law. Just a heads-up.
Could it be possible that some people who assist illegal aliens really don’t know the law? Since proper civic education is a thing of the past, it’s quite possible…
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Update: This post will no doubt bring out the La Shawn-haters. Here’s a reminder: You have no “first amendment” rights on someone’s blog. Mind your manners and accurately represent what I wrote, and I’ll allow you to join the discussion.
Otherwise, it’s into the troll ether you’ll go…
…and depending on my mood, I may send a copy of a particularly nasty comment (time- and date-stamped) to your boss.
I forgot to mention Lou Dobbs’s recent remarks. Check it out.
Long rant alert! Read at your own risk.
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Update: Commenter Renee dropped a link to this story, one I’d planned to look into:
“The Cherokee Nation’s vote this weekend to revoke the citizenship of the descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves was a blow to people who have relied on tribal benefits…In Saturday’s special election, more than 76 percent of voters decided to amend the Cherokee Nation’s constitution to remove the estimated 2,800 freedmen descendants from the tribal rolls, according to results posted Sunday on the tribe’s Web site. Now the tribe is defending itself against accusations of racism.”
I haven’t followed this incident, so I don’t quite know what’s going on. If you do, feel free to discuss it in this thread.
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In another “You’ve got to be kidding” moment,†I received an e-mail from Senator Sam Brownback’s “people†about a resolution apologizing to American Indians “on behalf of the people of the United States to all native peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect inflicted on native peoples by citizens of the United States.†(See The Politico story)
First, Brownback is probably a nice enough man, but I’m disappointed that a conservative would come up with this tripe. And this isn’t the first time he’s drafted such a resolution; I’m just now finding out he’s been “pushing” this nonsense for some time.
Second, Brownback uses the term “Native American” (on his blog) I have just as much claim to that label, since I was born right here in America. I am a native American. Anybody born in America is a native of America (children of illegal aliens, too? not if I ran things). If by that term one is referring to the people here long before white Europeans arrived, then find a more accurate term to describe them. “American Indian†may not be accurate, either, but it seems to work just fine. It offends no one but bored white liberals with nothing better to do than bit** and moan about…I’ll let it go for now.
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Since November 2003, I’ve documented on this blog all the reasons why race preferences have got to go. Here is one more. Instead of simply hiring the most qualified job candidates, a private prison firm doing business with the government rejected candidates based on race and hired others based on race. Qualified blacks, Asians, whites, and American Indians (Thank you for not calling them Native Americans!) were passed over for hispanics.
According to the Department of Labor, the issue is not that “affirmative action” is inherently unfair to all candidates, but that it wasn’t properly applied in this situation.
What is going on? The Civil Rights of 1964 was supposed to end the government skin game. But 43 years after people were killed and injured in the name of justice, and paid with blood, sweat, and tears for the right to be judged without regard to their skin color, our government is still judging citizens as members of racial groups instead of as individuals with equality before the law.
I can’t tell you how frustrating this crap is. I am tired of hearing and reading stories about people suing because the government didn’t discriminate in favor of them and listening to pea-brains defend the government’s use of race. What was the Civil Rights movement all about, for crying out loud? Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents killed Jim Crow so their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren could breathe life back into him? Why would any citizen want to give government the authority to judge us based on race? Well, as long as “our” race is the one receiving the benefits of the skin game, what does it matter?
Absolutely disgusting. If I wanted to stoop as low as my detractors, I’d call them self-haters for not having the decency even to be a little embarrassed for defending lowered standards for blacks. I mean, what’s more self-hating than that???
But I don’t, so I won’t. The things I’d say to such people if I weren’t a Christian…
I blog about this topic so much because race preferences are foul and demeaning, and liberals need to know that not all blacks want or need such patronizing policies. No amount of historical wrongs or present-day grievances — zero — will ever justify the odious practice.
At a time like this, I have to remember a line (with the smilie next to it) from a similar post. [Double secret coded message] Indeed! Have a restful weekend, readers.
(Hat tip: Discriminations)
by La Shawn on February 5, 2007
in Rants
Lend Me Your Ears…
This post isn’t addressing anyone in specific. It’s just a collection of thoughts that have accumulated in my head during this extremely busy day. Don’t take it personally.
Some bloggers focus on Supreme Court hearings or Treo smartphones or cars or politics in Washington or knitting or homeschooling. Some bloggers tighten their focus and blog about Supreme Court hearings related to a specific legal topic or Treo smartphone hacks or the Mercedes AMG or pork barrel politics in Washington or knitting without needles or homeschooling as a single parent.
I blog about the politics of race, which includes liberals’ obsession with skin deep-diversity and America’s overall dishonesty in dealing with and discussing race. That bothers the heck out of some people. They just can’t understand why a black person would want say “bad” things (i.e., anything that considers factors other than white racism) about other black people.
The way I see it, somebody has to say it, and since very few do, I volunteered.
I started writing about race and politics because I couldn’t stand the milquetoast, soft-pedaling prose I was reading. I figured there was somebody out there who wanted to read the truth, needed to hear the truth. I volunteered.
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Wednesday, January 24: Hello fellow, Duke case followers. This post is closed to commenting. Resume the discussion at the latest post, Unnatural Selection on Both Sides?
Thursday, January 18: I’m not a big fan of John Podhoretz, but I recommend “Orwell University Duke Profs’ P.C. Travesty.”
Update (1/17 @ 6:12 p.m.): I’ll respond to provost Peter Lange’s statement about the Group of 88 later.
My surface-level reaction: Mr. Lange, vent some of your “free speech” concerns on Mike Nifong, who race-baited his way into a weak case and, hopefully, out of a job.
People are fired up, angry (for the record, I certainly don’t endorse sending people ad hominem-laced e-mail; it’s a shame that some professors are being personally attacked, but that, as I’ve been told, is life), and it’s on Nifong’s head. But bloggers are the ideal scapegoat for Duke’s “African American” professors who endorsed that idiotic and embarrassingly ignorant ad.
That act has consequences. Get it? Deal with it.
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Update: Good news about black folks! The man’s a hero. That was a totally selfless act.
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Warning: Rant below.
This post is categorized under “Comedy” not because violence is a laughing matter. I just find it humorous that so-called civil rights groups and various race hustling camera-hogs are transparently absent and deafeningly silent about hispanic-on-black crime in California.
Reading yet another story about hispanic-on-black gang violence (free reg. req.), I thought about the stunning lack of blanket news coverage on network or cable TV or a “national debate.” An excerpt:
Two weeks ago, Lovett’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Green, was standing with a group of friends on Harvard Boulevard, just south of 206th Street, when two men approached them in broad daylight. Without saying a word, one suspect pulled a gun and opened fire, killing Green and wounding three others, witnesses and police said.
Ernesto Alcarez, 20, was later arrested and charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime because the Dec. 15 shooting is believed to have been racially motivated. The other suspect, Jonathan Fajardo, 18, is still at large. Both are members of the 204th Street gang, authorities say.
Such a brazen act of violence has highlighted the racial tensions that have held this working-class neighborhood in a state of fear for years, residents and city officials said.
Where are the “African American” summits and protests and loud calls for an end to the violence? As I wrote yesterday in “Selective Outrage Over Black Crime Victims,” such protesting and shouting is not profitable or satisfying. Rage against perceived slights by whites commands a lot more time and energy in the black community.
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Update II (8/11): Flashback Friday — Police department lowers safety standards for black officers. Celebrate diversity!
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Celebrate diversity!
New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has succumbed to the pressure. One of the finest fire departments in the country will lower its hiring standards to attract more black recruits.
This Newsday article begins with an effusive lead about the new “pro-diversity” campaign to attract “minorities,” but the important part is how the fire department intends to do that. As originally conceived, affirmative action would require FDNY to look farther and wider for qualified black candidates. Affirmative action as practiced today means lowering qualifications.
How low will they go? FDNY is dropping the college requirement altogether if applicants have held a full-time job for six months, but this New York Daily News story reveals more of the truth. The department is “considering a change in the way the test is scored.” That story also notes the “surge” in Latino fire fighters. I’d be interested to know how they scored on the employment test as a group.
(I’d guess that criminal records are disqualifying “minorities,” too. By the way, whenever you see that m-word, it means black.)
Although the article mentions only a change in the way the test is scored (residents are given extra points, for instance), test changes usually mean that reading comprehension and mathematical portions are either de-emphasized, removed or “dumbed down.” I’ll bet $1 that’s what the FDNY plans to do if it hasn’t already.
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Monday, July 17: John at Discriminations blogs about a law school dean’s idea of diversity, which he doubts goes deeper than melanin. I concur.
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No matter how much hate e-mail I get or how many nasty blog posts my opinions generate, I will keep talking and writing about the hypocrisy of racialist double standards, the immorality of race preferences, and the unvarnished truth about skin color and cultural “diversity.” I expect naysayers to misrepresent this post as they do others, but that can’t be helped. I have no control over it.
There is a growing movement in the United States to mainstream mediocrity and define deviancy down. All cultures, ways of life, or however you want to define the ideals under which we live, are not equal, nor were they meant to be. American culture, for lack of a better term, is far better than any other on earth, including its diverse subcultures.
Among the native-born population, subcultures develop under the influence of American culture. They are dependent on and part of the main culture.
Some groups of foreigners retain part of their culture while assimilating into American culture. Other foreigners retain all of their culture and have no desire to assimilate into American culture. The latter group is a threat to how we live.
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by La Shawn on January 20, 2006
in Rants
I fly at least three times a year, sometimes more. I consider myself a “frequent flyer.” The bored-looking Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents don’t know that. So every time I fly, I’m subjected to a monotoned, “Ma’am, please remove the laptop from the case,” even though it’s halfway out of the case already. As if I or anyone else doesn’t know by now to remove laptops.
And this taking off your shoes thing…hate it. Only last year taking off shoes was optional. If you beeped, then you’d take them off and go through the metal detector again. Now it’s mandatory. At least at Reagan National Airport.
I shouldn’t complain, really. I’m fortunate I can afford to fly (barely), but the “security” stuff gets old, you know? I’m resentful that I, probably the most unlikely kind of person on the planet to blow up an airplane, got picked for a “random search” at the gate once, if you can believe that. The whole thing was absolutely stupid. Some gloved “security” person going through my personal things, as if I were any sort of threat! It was an empty, politically correct display of how dumb the government can be. A random search?
I shouldn’t get upset about this stuff. But you see, knowing that undocumented illegal aliens are underneath the terminals working on airplanes while I, an American citizen, am being searched for sharp objects or a bomb raises my blood pressure.
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by La Shawn on December 18, 2005
in Rants
I try to keep posts like this to a minimum so as not to fool haters into believing I’m following their antics or will change anything I do or say. Just a few of observations:
1) Blogging for over two years, I’ve learned a lot about obsessive human behavior: jealousy, envy, cyber-stalking, bad parody, the lure of online anonymity, just to name a few. I’ve been accused of self-hate, black-hate, woman-hate, Clinton-hate — the list is as long as it is ridiculous.
But the most ridiculous accusation is “excessive” self-promotion. Writers, performers, business people, companies — you name it — use web sites to promote themselves. That’s what a web site is for, and a blog is no different. After all, most people who blog aren’t being paid to blog. They do it for free, and readers have access to free content.
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by La Shawn on December 15, 2005
in Rants
It’s a little early for Black History Month, but I thought I’d share. I don’t really like actor Morgan Freeman, but I wouldn’t mind having a cup of coffee with him as long as he’s saying things like this:
“I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history…”
The notion of a special month for black history may be hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, Freeman believes. When Wallace wonders whether racist attitudes may be harder to eradicate without the education that Black History Month provides, Freeman retorts: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!†(SOURCE)
Yeah, right. I wish it were so, Mr. Freeman. But the “civil rights” hustle industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Its race-baiters workers aren’t about to give it up and get real jobs. They’ll make sure we all keep talking about it. An honest day’s work (for a change) would do their souls good, but hey, race baiters have to pay the bills, too, don’t they?
Also see What Black History Month means to me.
Note: I forgot to link to the source earlier.
Addendum: I take it back! I liked Freeman in Glory and on The Electric Company kids’ show.
