Thursday, April 24, 2014

Ranch undressing

RtO is completely unsurprised to learn that this month's darling of the Tea Party is a full-blown antiblack racist.



Lest we forget last quarter's Tea Party antiblack racist, Phil Robertson.

And all the others before them.

 The New York Times report linked above is restrained. And misleading, as it seems to show that Republican opinion is uniformly disapproving of Cliven Bundy's racism.  Snark site Wonkette has a more complete picture, with links to rightwing talking heads who think Bundy is right on.

Actually, this is one of those situations that call for nuance. After the knee-jerk rightwingers (I'm looking at you, Dana Loesch) leapt to Bundy's defense, at least one (Loesch again) then bethought herself to listen to what the man had said.

She finds herself appalled. Imagine that.

Really, I cannot imagine that, because what Bundy said was exactly what Robertson  said, and Robertson's defenders are still with him (they show up on my Facebook feed from time to time).

And here I had thought that the Jon Stewart-Sean Hannity angle was the funniest political skit of the year.

UPDATE: Ya know, I gotta work on breaking myself of the habit of thinking that just because rightwingers have gone lower than a mole in the subway, they won't go even lower.

It turns out that Hannity (who has been Bundy's biggest cheerleader) says that Bundy's racism is "totally repugnant."

Well, not totally repugnant. Not so repugnant that he cannot just say it's totally repugnant and leave it there. No, he has to get in a swipe at "Democrats for racially insensitive remarks made on the left that were never condemned or rebuked."

And he couldn't even stop then:

 He said that plenty of conservatives have been supporting Bundy’s case because of sincere beliefs about eminent domain abuse but now they’ll all be “branded because of the ignorant, racist, repugnant, despicable comments by Cliven Bundy.”
Well, no, they've already been branded for violence, ignorance and all-round craziness.

It is sometimes said (by wistful liberals) that even Ronald Reagan would not be welcome at today's Republican party. Remember James Watt, "wise use" and the Sagebrusb Rebellion? Reagan would be right at home chez Bundy.


21 comments:

  1. Really, I cannot imagine that, because what Bundy said was exactly what Robertson said, and Robertson's defenders are still with him ...

    Please, using the dictionary definition of the term explain exactly what Robertson said that was racist. And while you are at it, do the same for what Bundy said.

    (While I happen to agree that Bundy stated an opinion about the consequences of dependency in about the most offensive way possible, that isn't the same thing as racism.)

    BTW, in case your dictionary is broken, here is the definition:

    racist |ˈrāsist|
    noun
    a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.

    adjective
    having or showing the belief that a particular race is superior to another: we are investigating complaints about racist abuse at the club.

    If you can't, as you have already clearly demonstrated, then you, like all good progressives, are engaging in hair-trigger malice.

    Which is very, very, nasty.

    And, in so doing, completely sidestep the real question at hand: why is it that the federal government owns 87% of Nevada?

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  2. Why is ownership of land in Nevada an issue? It isn't to me.

    Bundy and Robertson are racists because when they decided to finger government dependency, they pointed in a particular direction. If you don't get why that is racist, you haven't been paying attention.

    Crudeness is not an issue. I am opposed to slick racism, too.

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  3. For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_CSaEtKtw0

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  4. [Harry:] Bundy and Robertson are racists because when they decided to finger government dependency, they pointed in a particular direction. If you don't get why that is racist, you haven't been paying attention.

    So when Congressman Paul Ryan said this:

    I know black contractors who have gone out of business because their black workers were not prompt, or had negative attitudes. I know black workers who take pride about going to work any hour they feel like it, taking the day off when they feel like it … Many leaders who are black and many white liberals will object to my discussing these things in public. But the decadence in the black community … is already in the headlines; the only question is what we should do about that.

    that is the reason progressives called him a racist?

    [Harry:] For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    Did you actually watch it? If so, I'm really at a loss to determine who is the most conceptually impaired, the loudmouthed morons on MSNBC, or you.

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  5. One of many. No one believes Ryan really knows such people. He is famous for manufacturing experiences and lying.

    Then there is this excellent Maddow piece on Bundy and the posse comitatus. I don't know whether Robertson has any direct links to thn posse but he spouts the same line. Probably picked it up in church.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2VK4k-bBag

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  6. One of many. No one believes Ryan really knows such people. He is famous for manufacturing experiences and lying.

    Ooops. I screwed up that link. It wasn't Ryan who said it, but rather Jesse Jackson.

    I had no idea he was such a racist.

    Or that when Ryan says something, he is a racist, but when Pres. Obama or Bill Cosby say the same thing, they aren't.

    Since you can't square that circle, I suspect either you haven't been paying very much attention, or are showing the same respect for language and intellectual rigor as is required to be a progressive.

    None.

    [Harry:] For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    Really? Or does that come from the same slime bucket as the crowd chanting "Let him die!".



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  7. I will believe Jesse Jackson might know people like that. Know what? I know white guys like that.

    Since the concept of racism seems hard for some people, allow RtO to spell it out:

    If you want to claim that government handouts are demoralizing, have at it. (It will be pretty difficult to sustain once we bring in, eg, science research grants, but feel free to try.)

    But if you are making a general case, it is racist to present it in the guise of shiftless darkies. Yes, even if you are a black dude, although it does not seem that Jackson was trying to make a general case.

    It is especially a no-no if you also say that Mexicans work hard but black people don't. Triply a no-no if you have been receiving a thousand dollars a week for most of your adult life from the government.

    There is a large literature about how black layabouts are shiftless but white layabouts are really managing their wealth in livestock from their front porch:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_Folk_of_the_Old_South

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  8. Further nuances about racism: If you want to explain why Cliven Bundy is a racist, do not blame the black guy:

    http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/obama-and-friends-racial-divide/

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  9. some programs in the past, like welfare before it was reformed, were sometimes poorly designed, created disincentives to work.

    Who said that?

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  10. Who cares? You know what created a disincentive to work? White privilege. Slavery. Belief Jesus is coming real soon. Stuff like that.

    You know what created an impossibility to work for people living in our great industrial cities? Shipping their jobs to South Korea.

    Who did that? Not the workers.

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  11. If you want to claim that government handouts are demoralizing, have at it. (It will be pretty difficult to sustain once we bring in, eg, science research grants, but feel free to try.)

    But if you are making a general case, it is racist to present it in the guise of shiftless darkies. Yes, even if you are a black dude, although it does not seem that Jackson was trying to make a general case.

    It is especially a no-no if you also say that Mexicans work hard but black people don't. Triply a no-no if you have been receiving a thousand dollars a week for most of your adult life from the government.


    This is such poisonous nonsense that it is hard to know where to start (much like all the other poisonous nonsense you put out).

    It is a conclusion without an argument, a denial of reality, a festival of non sequiturs, and an offense against language.

    Generational unemployment, out-of-wedlock births, abortions, crime, awful schools, pervasively corrupt governments typify nearly all black urban areas to a far greater degree than anywhere else. And all of those things have gotten worse faster since Great Society legislation created a host of perverse incentives.

    The non-racist explanation is that there is a cause and effect relationship between the decay of black communities and the lifetime entitlement to welfare and AFDC. Of course, the problem with that explanation is that it unmasks the fraud underlying progressivism: that progressive ideas are correct merely by virtue of the fact that progressives hold them.

    So, of course you are going to label as racist all disagreement with progressive policies, no matter how expensively damaging they have turned out to be. Which puts the lie to … it is racist to present it in the guise of shiftless darkies. (Admittedly, it is difficult to draw the line between a strawman and a lie. Since this is so obviously wrong, I'll go with lie.)

    The progressive hair-trigger malice reflex is appalling, and shows why tumbrels start to roll whenever collectivists, which is really what progressives are, get their hands on power.

    But never mind that …

    [Harry:] For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    Really? Or does that come from the same slime bucket as the crowd chanting "Let him die!".

    I'm betting your response will be exactly the same as when you floated that "Let him die" lie.

    [crickets]

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  12. Skipper, I want to you read 'The Negro Question,' by George Washington Cable, the esteemed New Orleans Creole novelist and man of letters. You can get it free from Google books, since it was published in -- wait for it -- 1890.

    He answered all your allegations, which are not new. Same old same old.

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  13. [Harry:] For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    [Hey Skipper:] Really? Or does that come from the same slime bucket as the crowd chanting "Let him die!".


    I'm betting your response will be exactly the same as when you floated that "Let him die" lie.

    [crickets]

    Replace those crickets with something substantive, then we can talk.

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  14. It doesn't matter whether you and I talk, although it would do you a heap o' good to research the condition of American blacks before the antipoverty programs, so that you would perhaps learn to stop making antihistorical statements about how much worse things are now.

    You are too young to have visited a tarpaper shack without running water, but I have done that. Urban housing wasn't better. I used to drive past a 5-story tenement every day that had cracked open so wide that you could have put a softball through the split. Yet people, black people, were living there because they had no better place to go.

    If it will make you happy, it wasn't a chant but a shoutout from one guy.

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  15. If it will make you happy, it wasn't a chant but a shoutout from one guy.

    No, it wasn't. Think Progress billed it as Tea Party supporters chanting "Let him die".

    What actually happened was that it was the CNN debate moderator who said it.

    So, there are several questions: Was Think Progress lying, or just impenetrably stupid when they accused TP supporters? When Think Progress cutoff Paul's reply, was that merely incompetence, or a desire to practice Dowdification?

    And when you pushed that nonsense, had you actually watched the clip, or were you just uncritically accepting whatever Think Progress said that flattered your preconceptions?

    Which still leaves this slime bucket full: For people who do not understand how racism works, this primer is pretty good:

    Having watched the clip, I already know that the MSNBC hosts conceptually challenged bloviators whose sole function is to flatter their fellow believers.

    So I take it you never actually watched the clip, but rather fell, once again, prey to anything that fluffed your unexamined ideas.

    Well?

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  16. I watched it.

    Let's cut to the chase. You obviously listened to Bundy. You found his presentation crude. But you do not contest its substance, do you?

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  17. I watched it.

    So you have no idea what racism is, then.

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  18. I'm gonna lay you a wager: you cannot find a TP video making the same arguments that Robertson and Bundy made, but aimed at shiftless honkies.

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  19. No wagers, no cutting to the chase.

    Why did Think Progress and MSBNBC insist on things that were patently untrue? (Gob smackingly, progressives recite "faux news" without a hint of irony.)

    There was no Tea Party crowd chanting "Let him die", and your primer on "how racism works" had nothing at all to do with racism.

    Yet you knowingly used both.

    Why?

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