Tarpeian Rock
There’s a debate raging at Instapundit over whether to cross the racial Rubicon. This was the subject of an earlier post that anticipated this very debate.
QUOTING OBAMA IS RACIST: “It’s funny how quickly liberals and the media (PTR) can do a heel-turn,” Jim Treacher writes:
OUT: “You selectively edited that!”
IN: “You put back in all the parts we selectively edited out!”You know, I followed the ’08 presidential race pretty damn closely, and this is the first I’m hearing about that speech. I’m willing to bet that all the people insisting it isn’t news hadn’t heard of it either, or hadn’t seen the whole thing. But they’ve decided you don’t need to know about it. Romney’s dog 30 years ago is important, but Obama’s racebaiting speech 5 years ago isn’t.
Quoting his supporters is also racist, even though in 2009 and 2010, we were supposed to assume the worst about the Tea Party from its most extreme members, whom the networks invariably chose to feature on their broadcasts.
GLENN, I’M SYMPATHETIC TO MANY OF YOUR ARGUMENTS, and I agree that there’s been an effort to make people feel that we’re not allowed to criticize Obama and many people — in the media and in normal life — have an instinct to protect him from criticism. Politics, like any other human endeavor, entails human emotion, and unless you want to turn away from politics altogether, you have to play within reality that exists. The emotions around race are deep and complex. I recommend not toying with them. Move to something more optimistic and positive. That’s what Romney and Ryan seem to want to do with their campaign. They can’t control what their supporters choose to talk about, but this racial material is dragging them down.
SO, ANN, criticizing Obama’s racial hypocrisy looks ugly? I see your point, actually, but I think that’s largely in response to a media environment in which any pointed criticism of Obama has been defined as ugly. And that’s a common lefty-media trick, setting things up so that any effective argument is somehow pre-defined as somehow impolite. There’s an instrumental argument that folks on the right need to take this into account, but beyond that, I confess I don’t much care. Obama’s politics are, and have been, ugly in the extreme: Dishonest, personal, vicious. Compared to that, noting that the whole post-racial feelgood vibe of 2008 was, to put it in ugly-but-true fashion, a complete and total lie, seems minor. Perhaps it will nonetheless alienate swing voters, but if swing voters are that easily alienated, and that immune to facts, then maybe it doesn’t matter anyway.
UPDATE: From the comments over at Ann’s blog:
Obama speaks racism in 2007 and I look ugly.
A black woman admits she sold her vote for a free cell phone, and I look ugly.
Obama takes over the UW Madison campus for a campaign event and I look ugly.
Christ almighty.
If you find this stuff ugly — in a way that reflects on Romney and his supporters — then I suggest that your reaction, however sincere, is actually evidence that you’re being played.
The Deliver Us From Evil post that anticipated this very dilemma. It used the metaphor of the Rubicon as a symbol for crossing the racial Red Line. The implicit bargain between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the race card belongs to the Democratic party. This bargain evolved over time until it became hallowed. Today it’s OK for them to play the race card, but not OK for the Republicans to do so.
Whatever you might think of this arrangement, that is the arrangement. It is the Rubicon. The problem is this. There is no apparent way to conquer Rome unless you cross the Rubicon. Once you cross that river then there’s no telling what will happen. In all probability hell will break loose. Beyond the Rubicon it is conquer or die. “Here peace, here broken laws be left; Farewell to treaties. Fortune, lead me on; War is our judge, and in the fates our trust.”
You can only go symmetrical on the Democrats by crossing the Red Line in both directions. But if you do that, then civility is gravely risked and all may be lost. That’s not a threat. That is probably what is going to happen. Because of this it has long been incumbent on conservatives to preserve the Republic by making allowances. Conservatives must retreat to preserve national unity; they must draw back to avoid racial tension. That’s the expectation. But no corresponding obligation exists on the Left.
Now you can conquer the house if you are willing to burn it down. The Left is certainly willing to burn it down. But to their credit — and perhaps to their folly — the conservatives have not been willing to torch it. After all you don’t want to “destroy the village in order to save it”. For them the United States is something worth preserving. To the Left it is something worth destroying. The dilemma is the consequence of this asymmetry.
What to do?
The way out that some have put forward is to wage counterinsurgency on the Left. To raise up conservative blacks and minorities to rebel against the plantation hegemony; to bring the issue down to the State level — the money level. To turn their own masses against them. You don’t play the race card. You play Lawrence of Arabia. De oppresso liber.
But if this is adjudged impossible then the Democrats will continue a very dangerous game. Last election it was New Black Panthers at the polling booth. Mid-term it was Occupy Wall Street shitting on police cars; anarchists plotting to blow up bridges. Always more and more provocation Object to this and you are ‘racist’. And yet you cannot cross the Rubicon.
My own view is that the counterinsurgency approach is far the better. Otherwise you say “f**k it” and once you do that there’s no way back. So my prediction is this: soon the papers will say “we call upon Governor Romney to repudiate this disgusting video. He knows that President Obama has never played the race card and should denounce this crude attempt to smear an honorable opponent. If Governor Romney does not, then his campaign will be in trouble.”
And you know what? Romney will apologize. He’ll grovel. He’ll crawl as low as dignity allows. He’ll do it because there’s enough decency in him to keep him from burning the house down. If it comes to a choice between losing the race and wrecking the country he’ll lose the race. And Obama is counting on him to do it.
C’mon Willard. Be a man. Do the right thing and grovel. You know you’re going to do it.
So if one is unwilling to cross the river, then raise up the revolt in the plantation. Otherwise you’ll finish up at the bottom of the Tarpeian Rock. When winning the obvious way is unacceptable, find another way.
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You’re right and you’re wrong.
You’re right that the other side wants to bring America down and we want to preserve it. That is the cold civil war. That is the dividing line.
You’re wrong about crossing the Rubicon. Our hand has been forced. The other side has the controls. Over September eleven and since and more and more every day they’ve proven if they keep the controls, they WILL burn down the house.
So, now you have abusive family head, with gasoline can running around. Are you going to get up and wrestle it from his hands or not? Sure, he might throw it at the ornamental candles and set the house on fire. Or he might not.
In other words, if we don’t confront the problem, we’re going to leave Obama in power, and we’re going to go down (and most of the people voting for him will do it in ignorance of WHAT he is. By which I mean a race baiter.) If we confront the problem, we might also go down, but there is a chance. I’m on the side of the chance.
There is no time to infiltrate, and anyway respecting the Dem narrative means we can’t infiltrate THOSE communities, because anyone who rejects the narrative is automatically a “sell out.”
Look, I respect black people. I trust most of them would be JUST as repelled by Obama’s fake accent, his condescension and his BLATANT racism. To assume otherwise is to consider them less American than we are. That I won’t do. Some of them? Sure. Some of the other-colored Americans, too. Most of the OWSers in my neck of the woods were white and white-bread kids. BUT not all of them. Most of them are American and capable of seeing how that speech is disgusting — if we stop telling them it’s just fine and dandy and that some Americans get a free pass to be racists.
You are getting, as is your wont, far too cerebral about all this. The real nub of the matter is simply that Althouse is a very accomplished attention monger and loves to come flouncing about with her Obama-this and Obama-that blather. I’m a bit surprised she commandeered Glenn’s space to do so but she has long had severe boundary issues.
She hasn’t forgotten how much attention she focused on herself during her perimenopausal Obamavote in 08. She’d like to, at the same time, forget her sighting of the word fragment “Nig” during the same period since it reveals her shadow sociopathic tendencies too clearly.
This isn’t really about race or Obama. It’s about Althouse confounding and confirming blonde jokes for her own strange attention needs.
There’s GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) and then there’s BIBO ( Blonde In Blonde Out)
Thanks for the very insightful and poignant article and analogy. Crossing the Rubicon. I understand it better now.
“If it comes to a choice between losing the race and wrecking the country he’ll lose the race. And Obama is counting on him to do it.”
What if losing the race is also losing the country? Then one loses the country in either case.
Your way is the best – revolution on the liberal Plantation. But maybe it is too late for that. Isn’t it really time to cross the Rubicon then?
Think of it if he doesn’t. Then it’s the Alamo for the rest of us, for America. Defeat inevitable, just hanging on until the inevitable, and then it’s over. Can America really go down that way? Maybe the fates have decreed it. I can’t stomach it though.
I think it *is* possible to criticize Obambus’ racial talk without crossing any rivers but it requires a level of sophistication we just don’t see in public discourse anymore.
If done with understanding, and humor, and a firm hand, it would be respected by all, maybe the moreso because of its dangers. No worse than Ryan talking substantively about the budget.
Well almost all, nothing in public is ever respected by *all*. Nothing down the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and flat cats.
I never see the Blond thing coming until it’s too late. But even at this late age, I’m learning.
The Alamo was part of a winning campaign. This election is one of tremendous hope. The Cavalry, otherwise known as reality, is riding to the rescue of the defenders of the old Spanish mission.
Romney will ideally play two roles. One is to stop Obama. The second is to keep the United States together, and gird it for coming world crisis. He’ll play them just by being who he is.
Can he do it? This race can be won largely on the economy. What about the race card? He should fight back, and maybe he can dip his toe in the Rubicon, or run right across and then double back. But he shouldn’t march on Rome because he’s no Caesar to start with.
Never mind. It should be a strategic goal to hold the country together. And Romney in his own stuffy way might actually do that.
In the long term, there has to be a revolt on the plantation. Neither Romney nor the GOP is likely to do much in this respect. That’s the role of primary elections, local politics and the like. The grassroots revolt has to do this. The RINOs will not.
The RINO role is a limited one. What they can do best is holding things approximately together while the economic crisis wakes people up; it is to buy time until the paradigm shift can occur.
Even if Romney wins the process is largely unfinished. All that Romney can do is keep do what Spruance did at Midway. Stem the tide. The road back is another matter.
I smell smoke! I hear the alarms! 0bama and Progressive/Liberal Demoncrats have started the Fire, They are the arsonist! Is Romney going to be a Fireman or Policeman? (7 is a good number)
Ann Althouse is undecided AGAIN?
Jesus, Joseph and MARY! What the Hell is it with that woman? She was right in the middle of the whole Madison Wisconsin debacle, expressed vigorous disapproval of it all, has had mountains of evidence to show that she made an utterly stupid, cowardly, bone-headed decision to vote for a malicious scoundrel just because of her inner snobbery back in 2008, was personally threatened by Obama-loving goons, and now she’s UNDECIDED?
Un-freakin’-believable.
I’m zeroing in on her more because she is a symbol of the new “Eloi,” rather than any personal animosity, since I have none towards her. She has said many cogent and forceful things regarding the left and Obama, which leaves me utterly baffled when I read that she may still vote for Obama. I have many good friends who lead meaningful effective lives, are personally disciplined, have loads of common sense, and yet they wander off into a surreal place when it comes to politics and worldview. What would it take to make such people defend themselves against the “Morelocks?” Nothing, apparently. I would like to just brush off such stupid behavior, except that what they help decide happens will affect me negatively.
If the republic is going to collapse because a couple of unflattering videos of the President are shown without Romney issuing a groveling apology, then we’re already beyond hope.
Conversely, if 8 years of Obama is going to bring about collapse, the fragility of the republic is so great that it’s also beyond hope.
Lastly, the next 4 years and maybe many more are likely, in my opinion, to be pretty rough. Do you really want that associated with a Republican administration?
I say relax, we’ll all survive just fine.
And you Ms Hoyt, shouldn’t you be spending your time doing something more useful like writing a sequel to “Gentleman Takes a Chance” so we can find out why the Great Sky Dragon decided to protect Tom? That seems more useful to me instead of getting all wound up about these silly political issues? At least that way we’ll be entertained why the world supposedly collapses.
Wretchard, I ‘m kinda surprised.
This whole discussion mirrors a persistent problem in our society. Have we now have acquired all these politically correct ‘arrangement” sacred cows that the RINO’s have acquiesced to, to the extent where we must honor them as somehow sacred ground?
I say cross that Rubicon every which way you can as often as you can. Damn the consequences. Start telling the Truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Our society has become so hogtied by these politically correct sacred cows that we don’t know which end is up. That is the root of almost all our problems.
The only reason the consequences of bad media press for telling the truth would matter is that we haven’t shown a sufficiently steely resolve to tell the truth no matter what. The Left have successfully cowered Conservatives into questioning whether the Truth is the correct course or not. If we show them a hard nosed determined resolve that we won’t back down from the truth under any circumstances, pretty soon the Left will get the message and crawl back into that slimy hole they came from.
Just like the Jihadis, if you show weakness to the Left, they will sense fear and attack relentlessly. But if you show courage and resolve, they will back down and run away for they know the truth is on our side.
Althouse says: “… I am genuinely undecided this year.”
After 44+/- months of 8%+ unemployment. After the death of our Ambassador in Libya and the ongoing cover-up. After insults to Netanyahu and snuggles with Erdrogan and Chavez. After calling to depose an ally and instate the Muslim Brotherhood. After the oil spill and green boondoggles. After … well, we all know the list.
If in the face of the evidence (lawyers like evidence, right?), Althouse is still undecided, that says it all. She’s a poseur.
Confucius: “[I]f names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” (Analects of Confucius, Book 13, Verse 3)
Barack Obama occasionally slips up and speaks his truth. Yet calling it by its rightful name is ugly? Lawyer logic.
“If it comes to a choice between losing the race and wrecking the country he’ll lose the race. And Obama is counting on him to do it.”
But a policy of eternal retreat is intrinsically flawed. At some point there will be nowhere to retreat to. If all you care for is your own peace and security for the time, and care nothing for those born and unborn who will inherit the future, then by all means avoid the conflict and signal to the other side that their tactics are unbeatable. Their power grows, and yours shrinks. But hey, it won’t affect your status and lifestyle in your lifetime so what the hell? Shallow is as shallow does.
It is better to fight the crocodile now rather than after it has fattened and grown with a thousand sacrificial victims.
Its time to cross the Rubicon. Any wreck that the country endures now will be less devastating than that which will occur after the cancer continues to grow. If done now perhaps we can recover. If we continue on our present course we are headed for certain doom.
I am all for the counter-insurgency – but how many Clarence Thomases and Herman Cains are willing to stick their necks out?
Let’s face it, by letting the Democrats have the race card, they are slowly clubbing us to death with it. This way, we’re surely gonna lose. And to my view, civility is already lost. One of their loonies shoots one of their congress people and it’s Sarah Palin’s fault. This pattern is repeated over and over… everything bad that happens it’s our side’s fault. The only thing we can do to that they approve of is apparently to shut up and die. Oh, but leave our money for them to re-distribute, of course.
Screw that. If it’s time to divide up the country, let’s divide it.
Althouse, at considerable personal risk, brought necessary attention to the criminal, disgusting behavior in Madison which was covered up by the media. Public boldness provides political space for individuals to speak out against the groupthink imposed by the media. Ideas need to be disseminated and discussed before they can be understood and adopted by those (of all of us) on the plantation.
It is not crossing the Rubicon, it is reclaiming the commons. If itruthful objection or criticism leads to the Detroit and LA riots (when crazies permanently burn down their own houses and businesses/jobs), it is better to have it sooner rather than later, when we as a country are further weakened by the calculated internal destruction of (western) civilization.
Appeasement is not a useful or effective behavior.
The Roman Republic was already dead when Caesar crossed the Rubicon River. Some historians like to argue that the Republic died when Sulla launched his attack on the Colline Gate (my favorite definition). Other historians argue that the Republic died when Tiberius Gracchus was elected tribune of the people. Obviously, the death of the Roman Republic was a long, drawn out process.
It is my opinion that we are witnessing another long, drawn out process, i.e. the death of modern democracy. After democracy has died (like the Roman Republic) we’ll still have all of the symbols of democracy, e.g. Consul/President, Congress/Senate, etc. However real political power will be exercised by some tyrant/oligarchy working behind the curtains like some sort of Wizard of Oz. It’s possible that we have already reached that situation with whoever is behind Bernanke-Fed/ECB/IMF/MSM exercising real power while Obama serves as a figure head.
It worries me that democracy maybe intrinsically unstable. The Founding Fathers argued that a political system lacks legitimacy unless it has the “consent of the governed”. The traitor/communist Noam Chomsky would counter-argue that the governed’s consent can be “manufactured” and is merely an illusion. One of the lessons of the 20th century was that all forms of socialism are unstable. However an apparent lesson of the 21th century seems to be that democracy always leads to socialism (the voter can always be seduced with free government cheese).
This gets us back to the Rubicon River. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon he effectively launched the Roman Empire. Arguably the Roman Empire was a fascist political system impersonating a representative democracy. How long did the Roman Empire last? Some historians argue that the empire died when Odoacer was crowned emperor on 4 September 476. Caesar crossed the Rubicon on 10 January 49BC (the Roman Empire lasted 525 years). However other historians would argue that the Roman Empire lived on as the Byzantine Empire which didn’t die until the fall of Constaninople on 29 May 1453 (the Roman-Byzantine Empire would have lasted 1502 years).
Are we left to conclude that only a fascist system cleverly disguised as a democracy is capable of stability? Given the example of the Roman-Byzantine Empire, is having that sort of stability actually a good thing?
Interesting concepts to reflect upon as we cross the modern version of the Rubicon River.
The racial Rubicon is essentially just the race aspect of the political ratchet. Either the left wins and liberty loses, or the left loses and it remains status quo. Playing by those rules, there is no way for liberty to win. So we have to accept defeat, or change the rules.
Another military analogy would be Viet Nam, and whether or not to attack the North. If ‘they’ have a safe and secure base from which to renew the next attack, there is no way to ever win. You can win every battle, but there will always be another one. You can never have the decisive victory that ends the war. Change the rules, or lose.
It could also be thought as akin to a generic war. You may not be interested in fighting, but at some point Czechoslovakia has to either cave to Nazi Germany or fight. The ‘I don’t want to fight’ is not an option when the other guy does. It may take two to tango, but someone can punch you in the nose without you agreeing.
In a game where one player scrupulously honors the rules and is severely punished for the most minor transgression, and the other openly flouts the rules with impunity, in the long run, the outcome is certain.
Liberty cannot prevail in the current rule book. In the phrase commonly quoted by Instapundit, “If something cannot continue forever, it will stop.” We have a decision as to whether it is the rule book or our liberty which stops. Not a specific call to say now is the moment to cross the Rubicon, this is the team, this the situation, but it is ultimately inevitable, we either have to fight or lose.
On a canoe in the Rubicon:
It’s really not a division between those “Americans of color” and those outside the spectrum of color. It’s a division between those who use, accept, and act upon faddish political terms and invasive (and bullying!) concept-framings like “Americans of color”, and those outside of that tyrannically narrowed and constrained spectrum of seeing the world.
Those free-thinkers who, for instance, use the word negro with no malice or emotive weighing.
Godwin’s law Warning -
I asked my mother, OB’M, who was a Auschwitz survivor,
why, with all the warnings the nazi’s Y”M, issued during the’30′s,
didn’t Jews run away?
She replied that there had been pogroms in the past – but who would believe that
this total war on the Jews could happen in modern times.
My comment is that if you won’t accept truth, you will only live lies -
If you permit the Liar in Chief to remain an untouchable,
what happens 4 years from now and he says
my job is not done (I haven’t COMPLETELY destroyed America)- I need 4 more years?
I don’t think we can survive that.
The tiny shred of respect I had for Althouse went up in a puff of smoke when I read that drivel that she posted on Insty’s site. Either way, she’s disingenuous garbage. Plenty of pearl-clutching posts in the last few years of the ways in which Buraq has constantly flouted the law. But she’s still supposedly undecided. Either she’s link trolling or she is voting with her “lady parts”. Either way, I no longer care. How can you take one word of hers seriously in the future?
However, I guess I can’t say that I’m too shocked that a guilt-ridden, Boomer, law prof from Madison is all of the sudden getting those old feelings for the abusive boyfriend again, just as Wretchard accurately described not long ago. Whomever it was that said (Ace?) that self-styled “swing voters” were the most narcissistic, smug, self-important jackasses on the planet was right.
This is an XX chomosome thing, nothing more.
Althouse is merely saying, “I’ll vote for Romney this time around, but ONLY if you meanies don’t force me to admit that I actually made a mistake in my life, even once (by voting for Obama in ’08). If you keep reminding me what I did, I’ll vote for Obama again and wreck your stupid poopyhead America!”
The “Don’t ever tell me I’m wrong, or you don’t get any from me” trope is female boilerplate. Adding a law degree to the female doesn’t change things.
The Democrats have the ethics of kidnappers or child molesters. They double dog dare us to stop them if doing so shuts down a sacred institution.
Sorry Joe Paterno but football season is canceled.
Call the bluff.
First, Althouse is not so bad, given that she lives in Madison and is inundated by the Left every day. Appreciate the good side and ignore the bad side of her writing.
Second, I have a residual hope that the Latino/Hispanic will make the right decision in the key question that may determine America’s future: “Are they going to think of themselves as more Italian or as more Black?” If the former, they will integrate into American culture after one or two generations of getting special attention. If the latter, they will be competing with Black America for goodies forever.
Third, while the plan for counterinsurgency on the plantation is excellent, I wonder if we still have the time. If the malignancy of the past four years continues to metastasize, even at its current rate (and I fear it will at least double in speed) then it may be too late to reverse its destruction and ultimate demise.
e @ 15: Are we left to conclude that only a fascist system cleverly disguised as a democracy is capable of stability?
Well our communications are better now.
On the other hand, our problems are more complex now.
So the answer seems a firm maybe.
Given the example of the Roman-Byzantine Empire, is having that sort of stability actually a good thing?
Better than dar al-Islam.
The British Empire and the American Empire have been, overall, better than chaos.
Well it seems most BCer’s want Romney to be the Policeman! I am there too… Time to have the High noon shootout, Romney will have to do (going with Mr. Rumsfeld’s explanation) God Bless the USA!
Except in a real republic, a real democracy there is no need of a ‘man on the white horse’. It is the people who rise up and do the work, and dying, that is the ultimate force within the system. It comes down to Lincoln’s acknowledged willingness to give “the last full measure of devotion”. Lead, follow, but get the heck out of the way.
The election has no consequences for Althouse. This is true for a lot of public union members, teachers, professors and government workers. They will get their pay checks and benefits just as they have throughout this economic depression. This is why she can be undecided in the face of hard realities. She has no skin in the game. I’ve left the Althouse blog, I hope others do too. She doesn’t need me and could care less who is elected. She will vote her whim on election day because that’s all it matters to her.
” She will vote her whim on election day because that’s all it matters to her.”
Nice try but you forgot the impervious state of American pseudo-intellectuals in this day and age: “You can’t insult a whore.”
” She will vote her whim on election day because that’s all it matters to her.”
Nice try but you forgot the impervious state of American pseudo-intellectuals in this day and age: “You can’t insult a wh ore.”
It would be my guess that —IF—- Obama and the MSM comes to Romney and demands an apology or else, they would be bluffing. Romney could say: “Its Obama talking – ask him for the apology”. Then…… nothing will happen. The left is built on deception. You can’t deceive people enough to believe Romney is responsible for Obama’s words.
Of course, none of this means that Romney should actively talk about it – he can leave that to others.
There is a better way to restore good sense. Appeal to “the better angels of our nature” to draw wavering women off the sidelines and onto the team to fight anarchy and preserve civilization. They constitute the vast majority of “the undecided”. Get them to choose what’s best for their own self-interest. http://tinyurl.com/9jju6yh
Sarah @1: It was George Bush (I believe) who coined the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” It is the Democrats who practice it. As MLK and others fought for, black folks now have the opportunity to practice the rough and tumble of politics, but as long as they are Democrats, they are protected from taking any blows. Primo Carnera.
One of my favorite quotes, I read just after getting to DC in 1988:
“Our problem is that if the Democrats proposed in a bill to burn down the US Capitol the Republicans would offer an amendment that did the act in a series of small fires instead of one major conflagration.”
I do not know who said it, but it sums things up very well. The spirit of “compromise” has got us to where we are today – radical subversive Marxists in control of much of our government, a huge national debt with the only issue seemingly being how much larger to make it and how fast to do so, an ever expanding Feral Government, and a Media that is 90% plus utterly corrupt.
If we cross the Rubican we better do it with plenty of artillery bombardment, extensive air cover, and lots of armor. Doing it halfway is as bad an idea as sending in the Girls Scouts frist to Normandy on 6 Jun 44.
Ha, the Puppy Blender gets in a nice shot at Althouse in this post.
“I am all for the counter-insurgency – but how many Clarence Thomases and Herman Cains are willing to stick their necks out?”
It’s not them that needs to stick their necks out. It’s regular, unknown folks living with and speaking to their fellow black Americans each day. Few have ever heard conservative ideas articulated by other blacks, ones whose opinions and judgment they may respect in other areas of life. There is an increasing number of black conservatives on Twitter who are trying to do this. I count myself among them though my efforts are meager in comparison to others. The verbal abuse received from our brothers and sisters is disheartening though not unexpected. And there are ways to deal with that. What’s more interesting and quite repugnant is the attacks coming from non-black progressives. Maybe I’ll comment on that another day.
“…a choice between losing the race and wrecking …What if losing the race is also losing the country?”
Political Correctness is at the core of the inch by inch Progressive takeover and destruction of our culture, economy, politics, Constitution and country, a boil on the body politic. Obama & Co. are now the head of the boil. It’s time to lance the boil by speaking the plain truth in plain words. The Progs have become masters of “Mother may I? – three steps forward, two steps back”, never losing net ground. We have tiptoed around the hard facts, backed down, and remained silent for more than forty years, waiting for our good will to bear fruit and be reciprocated. I say we don’t retreat, we no longer even lean back, but we needn’t lean in either. Simply stand tall, name the enemy, and drown him with unvarnished facts.
Seems to me that persuading the Althouse ‘moderate’ types -who have basically been the deciding margin- comes down to restoring our cultural ability to wake them the frack up enough to
askanswer the question: What sort of world do I want to leave for my children and grandchildren?Life and Liberty or servitude and suicide?
In any event we can pretty much count on the fact that a healthy dropkick by reality will do the trick, but it would be much better if we could build/restore a culture/nation wherein the Humpty Dumb-ty Class is capable of acknowledging reality before the default state of de-moralized man shatters us all…Therein lies the rub. The fate of mortal man is that we either take a hand in getting the job done, or we’ll “unexpectedly” rediscover that the job will be completed without our input.
Unfortunately, our Rubicon (AKA: Peace and Love Canal) is thoroughly poisoned by sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociopathic hallucinogens. Our thirsts will never be slaked by its waters.
Funny thing is, these morally poisoned waters are widely billed as ‘good’ social-isms by all the [naked] kings men.
Althouse posted a list of her rationalizations for voting for Obama the last time around that were just flat out embarrassing and were obvious rationalizations after the fact. There were three reasons in total. She thought voting for Democrats who had behaved so irresponsibly in regards to defense and the wars (her description of their behavior) would make them behave more responsibly once they were in control and we would have a bipartisan effort. The second reason was she thought that electing a man who sat in a racist church for decades without the decency or balls to get up and walk out (my description) would help race relations… apparently because he was black. I can’t even remember the third reason but it was equally absurd.
Everything about her is style over substance so I knew she would hate the tapes because they portray Obama in a bad light. The alternative would be for her to admit she is an unsophisticated rube and bought the lie of the post-racial Obama which would be the antithesis of the image she holds of herself in her head. Her commenters are actually pretty good but she never listens to them. Or if she does agree she does not change or act upon it.
She likes to do the dance of the seven veils as to whether she will vote this way or that as if there is something enticing or substantial under the rhetorical fabric (there isn’t) or as if something valuable is at stake (there’s not).
I had decided to leave her blog for good after she posted the list I described above but stuck around out of morbid curiosity as to what bright shiny object would garner her attention this time around. I know there are a lot of mushy headed people in the middle by definition — people who had never thought things through or thought deeply about politics or economics. I thought maybe she was indicative of them but I think she is her own odd bird. After the Obamaphone thingy I left quietly since it had grown stale even as farce — but damned if she didn’t follow me all the way over to Instapundit and pollute that place as well.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into. Worst of all she admits she votes based on her emotions but declares everyone else does as well. There is no pretense to rationality. She can have her emotionalism but she will not allow you your own rationality. I am not exaggerating any of this. Obviously, there is no way to engage with such a person and you have to write them off as random noise in the voting booth that can go one way or the other based on nothing at all.
Anyway, I don’t think pointing out Obama’s racism is the equivalent of crossing the Rubicon. I think it is the equivalent of Reagan pointing out that the Soviet Union was an evil empire. Everyone knew it but they were afraid to say it for fear of the repercussions. But once it was said everyone was relieved that they no longer had to pretend and things changed rapidly. I think this is one of the many reasons even Obama’s supporters will be glad to see the back of him when all is said and done… it has to be tiring to always pretend the emperor is wearing clothes as he sits upon his empty throne.
Well, the Rubicon example only goes so far. We are, after all, NOT ROME. Although there are towns called Rome in the US. (There are towns called just about every name in the US.)
As a college professional Ann Althouse lives and has grown any wealth she has within the nigh-absolutely intellectually corrupting Academic Establishment of this era. I think a more apt example might be Cortez and crew — they be we — and she be an Aztec Priestess with a curious interest in us. In the end she is far more likely to fall into oblivion with the perverted heart-wrenching (literally) high culture she is among the high of. We have our moments of tears under a tree in the desert, but the high cultists of that establishment end up with molten gold poured down their throats alive.
27. vanderleun
”She will vote her whim on election day because that’s all it matters to her.”
Nice try but you forgot the impervious state of American pseudo-intellectuals
in this day and age: “You can’t insult a whore.”
Actually, you can, at least real whores who give honest value for services rendered. Once upon a time a buddy(not larsen… /g) of mine overheard a conversation between two working girls at the bar at the old Sands at Vegas. Seems that one girl had slapped a john who propositioned her. When her friend inquired why she replied that he’d insulted her.
Of course her friend wanted to know just what he could have possibly said that insulted her enough to merit a slap. “He wanted me to perform an unnatural act” was the reply. “Well, what was it? I know you’re pretty wild so it had to be something really sick.” “It was,” she answered, “he wanted me to do him for free.”
Of course, how this relates to the modern generation of American pseudo-intellectual media whores is a mystery. Offhand, I can’t imagine anything they’d consider unnatural or off-limits, but then I’ve led a somewhat sheltered life.
Whiskey’s explanation also covers Ann Althouse:
Why The Sailer Strategy Doesn’t Work
Obama has already won anyway and Romney would never my vote after the way he and the rest of the rhino’s shafted Ron PAul.
Eggplant
I would vote for the tribune,Tiberius Gracchus, if I had to assign the blame to one individual for the destruction of the Roman Republic. But the truth is that the Roman city state had become an empire before he became a Tribune [This after putting down the other city states in Italy, after crushing Carthage after conquering Greece, and after digesting the kingdom of Attalus 111, who left his realm to Rome -- it was this inheritance and what to do with it that motivated Tiberius Gracchus -- and his less sensible and much less stable brother, Gaius Gracchus], almost unwittingly by 135 b,c. Thus between roughly 135 b.c. to 45 b.c. — and even after that, Rome made a number of experiments on how to convert a city state into an Empire, with predictable — and very bloody, results.
parchellan
Erratum: By 135 b.c. Rome had not conquered all the city states in Italy, in what were called the “Social Wars”,-=- by the time of Msrius they had).
parchellan
The situation I’m seeing has nothing to do with civility or unwritten rules. It’s a very simple choice: do we fight the wannabe-Marxist-dictators and maybe lose everything, or do we not fight them and definitely lose everything?
In that context, the choice is very simple indeed.
We fought a bloody civil war in which 600,000 died to rid ourselves of a great race based evil. We turned around and fought a hundred year civil cold war which resulting in us overhauling our society and restating all of our laws and foundational documents to make sure that there was no possibility that anyone would be held back by prejudice. We opened every door, from Chairman of the Joint Staff to President to captains of industry. We relegated the kind of white people who still called people the n-word to the very margins of society and made sure they had no power or influence. We catered to the interests of every black student to make sure they were included, that they had a voice and a choice and they could succeed. We either forgave or ignored the worst social pathologies in the interest of fairness and good will. We transferred trillions in wealth. We made sure that every commemoration, vetrans, academics, entertainment, politics, industry, etc had its own black set aside, to ensure that black contributions were not forgotten. And it still is not enough. Not enough for a simple “thanks”, not enough to keep from being called “racist” or cracker and not enough to prevent overwhelimg racial mistrust, as purveyed by the very beneficiaries of all of those unprecedented efforts. As a small town Pennsylvania “bitter clinger” (whose ancestors fought in Mr Lincoln’s Army when they could barely speak English), I guess I am ready to conclude that if blacks still can’t make it here in America with all of those things going for them, they might want to try somewhere else (or voting for someone else besides who they have voted for in lockstep for 50 years). The Rubicon crossing party is on the other side of the river.
Playing this analogy out, though, Caesar won decisively and, indeed, took Rome almost bloodlessly when the faction that had designated him an enemy of the state simply fled after the people flocked to him. The bloodier wars that followed may not have been a necessary consequence of this – Shakespeare notwithstanding, Ceasar indeed proved to be quite ambitious and he moved quickly to solidify his gains. And Ceasar and his followers almost certainly would have been executed if they simply laid down their arms at the Rubicon.
Simply leaving the people who don’t care if the country burns in charge of it by default isn’t a viable option. The insurrection proposal would be, but not one month before a crucial election.
The traitor Ceasar defied the will of the Senate and People of Rome. Justice found him at his end.
Justice had nothing to do with it. Assassination from a rival power bloc found him in the end.