September 16, 2009

52 Race Cards in Every Deck Plus the Jokers

sullivanracecardweb.jpg
Andrew Sullivan reacts to the unseemly demands of 67% of the American public

I say again, "A raaaaacist is anyone who's winning an argument with a liberal."

It pains me to have to take (mild) issue with other members of the Founding Bloggers, but it does seem to me that today's hope that the Race Card will be tossed out onto the waters of oblivion along with slavery, the Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Affirmative Action. Simply put: It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Why? Because when it comes to the defending the Obama administration's current dog's dinner of legislation, the race card is not just the strongest card in the left/liberal/progressive deck, it is the only card in that deck.

When all you have in the deck is the Race Card, the name of the game is "52-Pickup." The technique then is similar to a spastic Ricky Jay trying to decapitate a duck or penetrate a water melon. For example:


[American Digest makes no claim that Mr. Jay is involved in throwing the Race Card. Mr. Jay is not a charlatan.]

Against such dedicated and penetrating Race Card throwing skills, my co-bloggers offer only chiding, soft words, and hope for better race-relation skills from the President than we have seen to date.

For instance, William Jacobson @ Legal Insurrection thinks there's "An Allergic Reaction To The Race Card" coming right up:

The increasingly hysterical use of the the race card by liberal columnists, bloggers and politicians reflects the last gasps of people who, being unable to win an argument on the merits, seek to end the argument.
Perhaps, but the allergic reaction is taking place among Americans watching the Race Card being tossed, not among the tossers. Until the suppurating buboes of their spiritual plague break out in their armpits, the Race Card players will keep on flinging.

The speak-softly-but-carry-a-sharp-stilletto neo-neocon in The racers may not win this race is pinning some hope on the people and the polls. Alas, you know what they say about holding hope in your hand:

So far, the American people don't seem to be buying the racers' arguments. Both writers cite this Rasmussen poll indicating that only 12% of Americans think opponents of Obamacare are racist, 67% say they're not, and 21% don't know.
[Does that 12% represent the hardcore of Obama support? And if so, can we have a demographic breakdown?]
Update: Answered Prayers: Powerline to the rescue! Americans Repudiate Democrats' Hateful Strategy
In that 12 percent, we have identified the hard core of President Obama's support--those who, if the Obama administration said the moon is made of green cheese, would believe it. Or pretend to, anyway. We can call these people the Andrew Sullivan wing of the Democratic Party. Fortunately, that group is very small. Watch for it to dwindle further as the months go by.

Finally, we have the tough-minded Jules Crittenden on the Race Card lapsing into an unusual bit of "Advise the President" mode:

That's why it is time for the president to rise above his own shortcomings and political agenda, and do something for the nation. At some point in the not-too-distant future, whether his health-care plan continues to crash and burn or is resurrected in a new figleaf evolution, the president needs tell the nation that it is OK to disagree with him, that political dissent and even anger do not equal racism...
Sigh. I can only think that Jules is writing here "more in sarcasm than in anger," or has forgotten the history and nature of the man he is addressing.

The only real question to ask in the post-racial America when it comes to flinging the race card around is Cui Bono? -- "Who benefits?" The answer, so far, seems to be "Obama benefits." Some kinder and gentler souls than I might believe that surely Obama must see that allowing the Race Card to be played on and on and on Ad infinitum, Ad nauseam is not in his best interest. I don't.

Somewhere in the vast unknown and unexplored and unrevealed continent of Obama's mind he's got to be thinking that when it comes to the Race Card: "I don't feel no ways tired, I've come too far from where I started from." After all, Hillary Clinton taught him the tune.

Posted by Vanderleun at September 16, 2009 5:29 PM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

The race card isn't used to change OUR ways, it's used to keep the party faithful in-line and prevent them from entertaining any idea that their beliefs are wrong, so when you hear "racist", think "Trotskyite".

It's like a street-preacher yelling out to passers-by that they're "whores" (although that may be true if said preacher is near an ACORN office. I digress...), drunkards and sinners: He's not doing it to save THEIR souls, he's doing it to make sure he knows he's better than them.

Posted by: ExurbanKevin at September 16, 2009 9:21 PM

Yes, it is racism to criticize the President. Any President.

The blacks who dissed "W" were reverse racists, and the whites (including Code Pink) were self-hating anti-white racists. Don't you see? It's all racism!

Posted by: Fred at September 17, 2009 12:31 AM

Dear Mr. Vanderleun: What bothers me is that even if The One blows up into wretched failure, the race card gang just goes back to the faculty lounge. Not journalism; that's much too unsteady these days. No, it's ho for the faculty lounge, where they can snuggle up to the warm cocoon of Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Womyn's Studies and the other farrago of crackpot notions by Blackmail out of Guilt that earn them a handsome lving and give them power and influence their own efforts could never give them. Try to imagine that zany Cornel West earning his living as a rapper! Just as tuberculosis can hide in a cyst inside the body for years with precious little external activities, so too the Academy is a cyst for this pernicious stuff. They've even conned the portions of the faculty that are relatively immune. Who would want to teach chemistry at Duke, for example? It's hard to make covlent bonds a social construct that The Man has invented to hold down the Officially Approved Persecuted Minorities. But when the quacks go too far, as they did at Duke to the lacrosse team, they run to the chemistry faculty and demand protectionin the name of the academic freedom they will never willingly grant to others. It's a pickle for the science faculty. If they do battle with the quacks, the bloated administration gangs up on them, and it's out the door.

No, just as the bigoted states of the 60s had to sit still for a lot of kicks from the Feds to have their bigotries baten out of them, so too the Academy is incapable of self reform. But what outside force is going to reform, say, the University of California system? There's a civil war worth fighting. The casualties and price would be about as high, too.

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

Posted by: Gregory Koster at September 17, 2009 12:43 AM

This country and culture has not arrived at its current sorry state because the liberals can or will recognize their position on anything is a losing one. The best you can hope for is that our points are so well made, the evidence so persuasive, that years from now the same liberal calling you a racist now will claim to have agreed with you back in the past (today). Remember Reagan? They savaged that man day and night in the most cruel ways. Only after he died and we all had time to recognize his leadership on a few key issues did the Dems pretend they once had much respect for him and had just been arguing about the details of policy.

The liberals will call everyone and everything a racist 24/7 and someday may pretend raising taxes in a recession was obviously a bad idea or expecting the feds to provide anything to everyone at low cost and high quality is a silly expectation. They'll never admit they've changed their mind.

Liberals will continue to consume more and more of everything until conservatives overcome their burning desire to retreat from confrontation and to be left alone. When we leave the playing field due to the overwhelming numbers or ferocity of liberals we surrender another venue to liberals. That's how colleges and media became exclusive liberal playgrounds. Equip yourself to fight all of them all the time, by yourself, and then take the fight to them. They aren't as well-informed as many conservatives and reason and evidence is on our side.

Posted by: Scott M at September 17, 2009 2:42 AM

The thing to recognize about people who play the race card is that it is part of a narrative that stretches back 400 years. The cycle of accusation and denial is self-perpetuating and only strenghtens the convictions of the accusers who are convinced there is an impenetrable 'white wall' of racists and that American thought itself is its foundation.

The only way to combat this strategy is through judo - by using its own energy against it. Reason and evidence may be on the side of the Sheriff, that doesn't take bullets out of the bad guy's guns.

Posted by: Cobb at September 17, 2009 7:52 AM

This is not an issue. Without the race card to play, what would all the race hustlers, Activists, Advocates and perpetual victims do for a living? Think of the race card as an adjunct to the EEOC commission. Liberals are devoid of critical thought. They only wish to assuage their guilt or go with the flow by denigrating others.

Posted by: wildman at September 17, 2009 9:13 AM

Is it possible for any criticism of President Obama NOT to be racist? I mean, as a hybrid, isn't half of him going to be oppressed by whatever you say?

Posted by: m at September 17, 2009 10:22 AM

Koster,
I agree that it's a long march to rescue the universities, especially given tenure and the long, if not functional, careers of profs-in-place. This sort of thing got started at the end of the 60s beginning of the 70s and has grown like a tumor inside the University since then. You can't effect changes on this scale without "purges" and America is not a "purging" place even if it is popular within the university itself. It's the old ultimate problem of democracy: How do you defend democracy in a democratic fashion against those members of the democracy who want to destroy it. Plato had an answer and it wasn't pretty.

Coob,
I agree with the judo argument and with your expansion of it which I've linked in my sidebar. I also agree about the Sheriff and the bad guys' guns. I think of the Jeffers poem, Reason Shall Not Decide At Last, the Sword Shall Decide.

Wildman,
A correct observation on Racers. I'd add that most of the constituency of the Racers has been employed in government local state and federal for some time now. Lower barriers to entry and advancement and all that....

m,
Stop with the straight lines already.

Posted by: vanderleun at September 17, 2009 1:14 PM

I say again, "A raaaaacist is anyone who's winning an argument with a liberal."

Brilliant! I love it.

Posted by: drjohn at September 17, 2009 6:39 PM