No, it’s because I’m racist
Remember, that’s why I won’t vote for Barrack Obama. Not because he’s anti-freedom or anything important like that.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
December 14th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I’m trying to understand how you came away from that quote thinking that if you don’t vote for him, you are racist. It seems as though he was saying that people who wouldn’t vote for a black person, probably wouldn’t vote for a liberal Democrat period…do you disagree?
December 14th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Because from his quote, either:
racists are conservative
conservatives are racist
December 14th, 2006 at 11:41 am
From his quote, clearly he meant the former. And I don’t see what’s inaccurate about that statement. I’d bet you the beer of your choice that if you lined up America’s worst racists and polled them on their political preferences, the vast majority of them would be fairly described as “conservative.”
What really bugs me about this is that you’re twisting Obama’s statement to almost exactly the opposite of his intended meaning. He’s not making race an issue — he’s dismissing race as an issue, by saying that of those who are likely to vote against him because of his race, almost certainly wouldn’t vote for him anyway because of his stances on other issues. This doesn’t mean that people who wouldn’t vote for him are all racists; just that racists wouldn’t vote for him anyway, and therefore they are largely irrelevant (along with the whole race issue).
Sheesh. And you call us hypersensistive about race.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Conservative in the classical sense? No. Conservative in the modern sense, ie. Nationalists…yes.
Some racists may be economic socialists, but they aren’t multi-culturalists…which nearly all liberal Democrats endorse on some level. Racists could be Leftists, but not liberals. Barack Obama is a liberal.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
According to his quote, it’s both … and, not either…or. “Those are the same voters” means the two groups, racists and conservatives, are one and the same, not that one group subsumes the other (which also isn’t true).
December 14th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I’ve known plenty of liberal black racists. I grew up in NYC.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Beer,
True enough, I suppose my statement is geared more towards white liberals. However, I’d be willing to bet that many of those Black Democrats were more Leftist than Liberal.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Xrlq:
By that rationale, me saying “most Chargers fans are Californians” is the same thing as saying “most Californians are Chargers fans.” Frankly, I think most reasonable observers are going to know exactly what Obama means here, and it’s certainly not the hyperliteralist interpretation you’re positing here. Obama means what you say he means about as much as JFK really meant to tell the people of Germany that “I am a pastry!”
December 14th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
That’s a great analogy, aprt from that one minor nit about JFK never having claimed to be a pastry, while Obama did say those who won’t vote for him because of race are the same people (not a subset of, not a superset of, but the same) who wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:35 am
Xrlq:
Actually, when JFK said “Ich bin ein Berliner,” translated literally, he was saying “I am a pastry.” (Some translate it as “I am a jelly donut.”) The correct way to say it would have been simply “Ich bin Berliner,” but everybody knew exactly what he meant.
Actually, a better example would be GWB: “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” Sure, we liberals had a lot of fun at the president’s expense on that one, but I’m not aware of any of us suggesting that this is really what the president meant. And that’s a much more egregious semantic gaffe than anything Obama did.
But hey, if the best you can do is to intentionally misrepresent what the guy obviously meant based on a literalist nit, then I guess you should knock yourself out. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:37 am
(And yes, I know that the JFK thing is urban legend. But that’s sort of my point. There’s nearly as much substance to your allegation against Obama as there is in the JFK/donut allegation.)
December 15th, 2006 at 10:01 am
I’m not sure I get your point. Obama tried to make one asshole point (most/all racists are conservatives) and ended up saying something even worse (racists and conservatives are one and the same). That has what, exactly, to do with JFK’s non-gaffe, or the UL it spawned solely because few Americans know enough German to understand that under the circumstances, “ich bin ein Berliner” was exactly correct?
December 15th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
OK, set aside the JFK gag. I’ll admit it didn’t work.
Obama tried to make one asshole point (most/all racists are conservatives) and ended up saying something even worse (racists and conservatives are one and the same).
My point is that very few reasonable people would seriously take Obama to mean what you say he said. And come to think of it, I don’t even think his “one asshole point” (as you describe it) was that “most/all racists are conservative.” (Admitting that I, too, mischaracterized this initially.) Ultimately, he was describing a subset of racists, specifically, those who would choose not to vote for him because he’s black. If you changed his statement from “…those are the same voters who wouldn’t probably vote for me because of my politics to just “…those voters probably wouldn’t vote for me …” (which is what he likely meant), I frankly don’t see how that’s a controversial statement.
I submit that the reason you’re sticking to the hyper-literalist interpretation is because you have to in order to make the statement look bad.
December 15th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Nothing could be further from the truth. Go ahead, search my archives for long, angry posts about Obama’s outrageous statement. You’ll find zero entries. Trust me, you’d find PLENTY if I thought he intended the literal meaning of his statement. But that doesn’t change the fact that what he probably meant to say was pretty bad, as well – and your paraphrase doesn’t make it any better. He’s still giving conservatives a near-monopoly on anti-black racists. Nothing short of that makes sense.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:29 am
He’s still giving conservatives a near-monopoly on anti-black racists.
At the end of the day, I guess I’m agreeing with him in that regard, although I’d say “near-monopoly” would be overstating it. Then again, I’d be surprised if the conservative share of such people was less than 75%. I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that your typical “Southern Partisan” reader is exceptionally unlikely to be a liberal or a Democrat, for example. And the GOP wins with the Southern Strategy for a reason.
Of course, it would help if the GOP would send a strong message to the Trent Lotts and Hayley Barbours and Jesse Helmses of the party, telling them that “we don’t need your kind.” While we’re at it, I’d gladly throw Robert Byrd to the wolves in favor of someone without his racist baggage.
Bottom line is, I took him to mean “the people who wouldn’t vote for me because I’m black probably wouldn’t vote for me for other reasons, either,” and I just don’t think that’s a terribly outrageous statement. Maybe somebody can use their Mad Google Skillz and produce a non-politicized study that proves me wrong. (It would frankly be good news if they did.)
December 17th, 2006 at 12:38 am
Given that white racists tend to be poorly educated, working class schlocks, I’d be frankly be surprised if the conservative share of white racists were that high. I would be more surprised still – floored, even – if it could be shown that the conservative share of all anti-black racists, including Latinos, were anywhere close. Still, just for grits and shins, let’s assume arguendo that your 75% figure is correct, as it doesn’t really affect my point. For Obama’s statement to hold any water, it’s not enough to show that conservative racists outnumber liberal racists, as the two groups do not cancel each other out. To Obama, conservative racists don’t matter; they wouldn’t vote for him even if he were white, and while his race may give them a second reason not to vote for him, it’s not as though they can vote against him twice. OTOH, liberal racists do matter, as they are the ones who Democrats need to win an election. If one-fourth of all racists would vote for Hillary Clinton but would not vote for Obama, that matters. Unless, of course, Obama’s real point was that racists in America (or at least the ones who direct some of their hatred toward blacks) are so rare nowadays that one-fourth of that group constitutes the statistical equivalent of zero. That would be an interesting point, but I don’t think it’s the one he was trying to make.