Angie Harmon, the model and former Law and Order star and “out” Republican in Hollywood, said something the other day that started me thinking.
She was decrying the impulse among Obama’s supporters in Hollywood to brand criticizing the President as “racist”. Of course we’ve seen this before; during the campaign, countless Democrat activists tried to position “not voting for Obama” as “racism”.
But he won!
But the dynamic continues:
Here’s my problem with this, I’m just going to come out and say it. If I have anything to say against Obama it’s not because I’m a racist, it’s because I don’t like what he’s doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you’re called a racist,” Harmon told Tarts at Thursday’s Los Angeles launch of the new eyelash-growing formula, Latisse. “But it has nothing to do with it, I don’t care what color he is. I’m just not crazy about what he’s doing and I heard all about this, and he’s gonna do that and change and change, so okay … I’m still dressing for a recession over here buddy and we’ve got unemployment at an all-time high and that was his number one thing and that’s the thing I really don’t appreciate. If I’m going to disagree with my President, that doesn’t make me a racist. If I was to disagree with W, that doesn’t make me racist. It has nothing to do with it, it is ridiculous.”
These are many of the same people who whinged that their “patriotism” was being impugned over the past years (although none of them can ever show an example of this when asked. Never).
Harmon’s remarks brought to mind an appearance I had with Rep. Phyllis Kahn of Minneapolis on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation” a few weeks ago. The topic was gay marriage.
Now, gay marriage isn’t exactly my hottest-button issue; if we don’t win the War on Terror and save the economy from the ravages of a decade of government/market cronyism and the canoodling of a neo-socialist administration, then gay marriage will be the least of the stresses facing the traditional family.
But I asked Kahn, a gay-marriage supporter: “What do you make of the fact that voters have categorically rejected gay marriage, even in liberal bastions like Oregon and California?”
Her response: “There’s a survey that shows 60% of voters today would vote against the Bill of Rights!”.
I ignored the irony that this was a woman who’s spent a career going above and beyond the DFL’s drive to flense the Second, Fifth and Tenth Amendments, and who’s spent 36 years in the Legislature serving as a front-woman for an educational-industrial complex that’s dumbed down Minnesota students to the point where I’d be surprised if a tiny minority could recite the Bill of Rights in the first place. But I did point out that even if I accepted the accuracy of that “survey” (or its existence – and I accept neither, but I digress), it’s a non-sequitur; specific states in all their diverse glory did vote, repeatedly on on the record, in states conservative, liberal and whackdoodlesque, to reject the idea.
And yet she repeated that exact refrain several more times during the appearance. “You can reason with Lufthansa; you can also reason with livestock, for all the good it’ll do you”, PJ O’Rourke once wrote. I thought of that as I listened to Kahn repeat the meme over and over – and then shook it off. This was not bovinity.
It was part of the Dems’ attempt to control the language.
If you dissent from The One, you’re a racist. There’s no nuance asked or granted; your motives are no different from a Klansman’s.
Have a principled objection to the notion of Gay Marriage? Your nuances – wanting to separate religion from contract law, your actual beliefs – are of no interest. You are no different than people who want to beat protesters or burn heretics at the stake.
And of course, this follows nearly a decade of “them” accusing “us” of…well, you know.
Dissent isn’t patriotic. It’s a sign of moral turpitude.
Oh, yeah – and don’t you dare call them unpatriotic!
K-Rod:
“Why would you even mention racism, DickyDFL? Why?” Wow. Someone got a full serving of Vitamin Stupid. Why? Because that is the topic of the post. More specifically b/c AC says and Terry disagrees that ‘Obammy’ is a racist term. I am trying to figure out who is right, but, as usual, when evidence is requested, the SITD crowd scuttles away.
Terry: Thanks for reviving some greatest hits. Nothing you cited changes the fact that you and I have no factual disagreement about MO.
jimf:
“there`s no right to marrige in the Constitution. Which is why Kahn`s answer was so evasive.” I guess Kahn would disagree with your read on the Constitution. That does not make her answer evasive.
JPA:
“And there is nothing racist in my comment” Agreed. “0bamination” is a rather trivial and uninteresting play on ‘abomination’, but clearly not racist. Even though I disagree, I can understand why someone who thinks like you do, would call him “0bamination”. “Obammy”, I don’t understand, so I can’t decide whether it is racist or not.
So once again, Mitch states as obvious, a claim that leftists routinely equate all criticism of Obama as racist. Yet, when challenged no one can produce a single clear example of such conduct. Pathetic.
Q: Why would you consider comments as racist, DickyDFL?
A: Projection.
My Karma just ran over your Dogma
K-Rod:
“My Karma just ran over your Dogma”
More like your stupidity left you just babbling.
Terry: Thanks for reviving some greatest hits. Nothing you cited changes the fact that you and I have no factual disagreement about MO.
SO it is your position that Missouri was not a confederate state?
You can’t square this circle, RickDFL.
DickyDFL can’t admit when he is wrong. It would leave him no time to do anything else.
In your heart you know I am right. 8)
Terry:
“SO it is your position that Missouri was not a confederate state”
I wouldn’t call it my position, but I wouldn’t argue with you about it. It is basically a question of definitions. Your definition of ‘confederate state’ is not unreasonable, so I would be happy to accept it when talking to you.
RickDFL, it is not ‘my definition’. It is history’s definition. Your insistence that Missouri was a confederate state makes no more sense than a claim that Iceland was part of ancient Egypt.
Only in your own mind are you allowed to define reality to reflect your intellectual errors.
Rick,
It is NOT a matter of definitions. Missouri, Connecticut, Maryland and Kentucky were NOT part of the Confederacy; they were “Border states”. They had considerable Confederate sympathies (and so, for that matter, did large swathes of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio), but they were NEVER parts of the Confederacy.
Terry:
“It is history’s definition” No. Most historians don’t divide every single state into either purely Union or purely Confederate. They know the Civil War was more complicated than that. Most standard histories do a whole section on the border states (W.Va, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri). Read a history book. Look at a map. Missouri is often a different color than both Georgia and New Hampshire.
“Your insistence that Missouri was a confederate state makes no more sense than a claim that Iceland was part of ancient Egypt.” I don’t insist it was a confederate state. Did Egypt ever claim Iceland? Did Iceland ever play a role in the government of ancient Egypt? Did regiments from Iceland ever fight as part of an Egyptian Army?
“Only in your own mind are you allowed to define reality to reflect your intellectual errors” Whether you call Missouri a ‘Confederate State’ or a ‘border state’ or a ‘divided state’ or a ‘Union State’, does not change or define reality. It only changes they way we talk about the facts. The facts of history are what they are. If you have some factual disagreement with me, let me know. Otherwise, I am happy to call Missouri a Confederate State when talking to you.
Mitch:
Aside from Connecticut, I agree with you. But it is a matter of definitions. You have a bunch of states with different factual histories. Some people want to divide them into just two piles, some three, and some more than that. The fact that you prefer to call Missouri a border state instead of a Union state, does not entail you and Terry disagree about any historical facts.
Look, RickDFL. You were even wrong in context, which was what states did the federal government, before & after the war, did the federal government consider to be confederate states.
I suspect you knew that Kentucky & Missouri were slave states & so assumed they were part of the confederacy. They were not.
Once again, the quote from the article The Confederate States of America
What else do you think the Britannica is wrong about? The Earth going around the sun?
Talk about being thick-headed.
Terry:
Thick headed is refusing to admit someone agrees with you. I don’t think Britanica or you are factually wrong. In context, I was just trying to deal with every state someone might claim as part of the Confederacy. You don’t want to call Missouri a Confederate State, feel free. What historical fact do we disagree about?
As for Britannica how do you feel about this:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/235402/global-warming
“The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to a warming of the surface and lower part of the atmosphere (and a cooling higher up in the atmosphere) relative to what would be expected in the absence of greenhouse gases.”
Fascinating as Civil War history and global warming may or may not be, could we swing the conversation around to the actual topic of this post – the demonization of dissent?
Thanks.
Mitch
“could we swing the conversation around to the actual topic of this post – the demonization of dissent?”
Amem brother. Two agreements in a row. Must be some kind of record. Perhaps you could kick it off with an example of some criticism of Obama you think was unfairly attacked as racist by a leftist. Concrete examples preferable.
I thought I gave a good example of that — a quote from RickDFL in reply to my non-controversial statement that the Federal Government was a creation of the states:
“So, now we are back to treason. The people who held your position were justly butchered by loyal Union troops. “
Well, Terry, Missouri did pass an act of secession and was claimed as a Confederate state by the Confederacy. And just about equal numbers of Missourians fought on either side.
AC, I am well aware of the history of Missouri during the Civil War. The act of secession was passed by the Missouri legislature without a quorum (so said the feds, who therefore considered the act null), the occupation of MO by Federal troops was a result of Lincoln refusing to accept the MO legislature’s earlier wish to be considered neutral, ‘old’ Missourians were pro-confederacy, ‘new’ Missourians were pro-union. There are good reasons why MO is called a ‘Border State’, rather than a Union State or a Confederate state in the history books.
The context of the discussion between RickDFL & myself was what congress can and cannot do, re the constitution, with regard to recognizing a state. His inclusion of MO with states historian’s call the Confederacy, that had been ‘reconstructed’ following the Civil War (the reconstructed states had their sovereignty taken away & were ‘readmitted’ to the Union), was silly. Missouri was never reconstructed, neither were the other Border States. The Federal Government never considered the border states to be rebel states.
Terry said: “Your insistence that Missouri was a confederate state makes no more sense than a claim that Iceland was part of ancient Egypt.”
You pretend RickDFL is making a factual error or a frivolous argument. Tain’t so. One of the Confederate flag’s 13 stars was for Missouri, it was admitted and represented in the Confederate Congress. Clearly, Missouri is a special case – not exactly a Confederate state, but not a loyal member of the Union either. Missouri was kept from seceding by force of arms. The state wasn’t reconstructed only because Lincoln used the U.S. Army to override its sovereignty early in the war.
Angryclown recognizes that we few non-wingnuts give you very little to attack. Our posts are factually sound, more than 99 percent of the time. When you far-right kooks do think you’ve found an error, you swarm like jackals around a dead zebra.
Fascinating as Civil War history and global warming may or may not be, could we swing the conversation around to the actual topic of this post – the demonization of dissent?
Thanks.
Terry:
When you said the “Federal Government was a creation of the states”, I took you to be restating the general doctrine of Calhoun and the secessionists. If I am wrong, mea culpa. If I am right, it is treason.
So Mitch, any examples of a leftists alleging all criticism of Obama is racist?
Anecdotally? Sure! In conversation with not a few PBO supporters in person and in various alt-media outlets, it’s not been an uncommon statement.
And no, it’s not “all criticism”; it ranges from Cafferty’s “people who don’t vote for Obama are racists” to a VERY common “Republicans just don’t want a black president”.
Which is a distinction without a meaningful difference.
Robert E. Lee is responsible for global warming.
Sorry, can’t help you with your anecdotal problems.
As for Cafferty you are inventing problems. He did not say “people who don’t vote for Obama are racists” (once again using quotes when not reporting verbatim speech, naughty). He said Obama is getting less votes than a white candidate with the sames views would have gotten because some non-Obama voters are racists.
“Republicans just don’t want a black president”. Who said that?
Sorry, can’t help you with your anecdotal problems
It’s not a “problem”, it’s an observation. Not a unique one.
And you’re just plain wrong about Cafferty
Mitch:
“it’s an observation. Not a unique one” So are group delusions.
“you’re just plain wrong about Cafferty” I guess I have to do with my lying eyes on this one. Cafferty said more or less what I said he did and that is very different from what you are complaining about.