I was listening to Hannity’s radio show on the way home last night, hoping for some scoop on the latest ACORN video (Giles and O’Keefe MUST get a Pulitzer. They won’t, given how that works, but there hasn’t been a bit of reporting this year more deserving.) And this woman called, who sounded to me to be an African-American, and asked Sean, “What do people mean when they say, “Take this country back”? Hannity gave her the basic Tea Party argument, but he didn’t pick up on the question she was actually asking, or thinking of. Here we have a whole mess of people who are predominantly white (and thank you, all you black conservatives who are part of the movement). They get a black President, and now they want to “Take their country back.” I can’t blame her at all for thinking “They want to take it back from us black people” as opposed to “take it back from the Marxists”. After all, when a group of young black punks started beating people up in Akron, saying “This is our world now”, it was very clear what “our” meant.
For the record, I don’t want to “take our country back”. She can have it; she just needs to keep it out of my face. The only thing I want to take back is my personal sovereignty. The key problem is that there is enough government power to fight over. This isn’t a country for white people or black people; it’s a country for individuals. And it doesn’t seem that white racism is the problem here; I’d like to see some statistics, but anecdotally I’ve noticed an increase in black-on-white violence, with more of it being racially motivated.
We’ve got the Senile Cracker Carpenter claiming that opposition to Obama’s policies is rooted in racism. Well, let’s compare the goings-on to the happenings during the term of “America’s First Black President” (and notice how you never hear that any more about Clinton, now that we have a mulatto holding the office?) Nobody has brought down any government buildings. Obama hasn’t been accused of murder even once, let alone several times. He hasn’t been set up with a blue cocktail dress (and this time that would work out better, as Michelle would kill him with her own two hands), nor has he (yet) faced articles of impeachment. Overall, the Right has been a lot easier on Obama than Clinton, aside from the issue of his status as an undocumented worker. Even the press has been.
Now the difference is that we didn’t have 1.7m people marching in D.C. against HillaryCare. But then, we didn’t have a “Republican Revolution” with a “Contract with America” , dishonored by politicians which were themselves revolting. We didn’t have 8 years of a center-left President spending money he didn’t have. If there’s anything that scares the bejeezus out of the Beltway crowd, it’s that the TEA folk are just about as disgusted with the Republicans as the Democrats, and can’t be fobbed off with false change in 2010. At least I hope they can’t. But I’m probably wrong.
I was still in my loyal Democrat phase back in the ’90s, so I don’t specifically remember stuff–but were conservatives as riled up during Clinton’s first year as they are now? From what I remember, Clinton Derangement Syndrome didn’t kick into high gear until a couple of years in; and I don’t remember as stiff an opposition to Clinton as there is to Obama. Of course, Clinton was more limited in his programs, which probably accounts for a good deal of the difference–HillaryCare, gays in the military, and futzing up the tax code, IIRC.
I do think you are overestimating the intelligence of the conservative base, alas. I noticed it with the Moronosphere (Ace of Spades crowd), which started out wondering aloud if they could bring themselves to do anything for McCain and the GOP last year, except the bare fact of voting (and not even then). However, as soon as McCain named Palin as his VP choice, they fell back into line, quite literally overnight, apparently for no reason better than the fact that she appeared to be their kind of conservative, and pretty in a Palinish sort of way, (yes, I’m pretty sure a bit of lust entered into it) without any sort of indication that she would have any actual influence on policy under McCain (assuming she is actually something more than a typical GOP politician). I’m sure the GOP can put together something as effective the next time around.
BTW, are you aware that the 1.7million figure is apparently completely bogus, and started off with a hoax (a false attribution to ABC News)? And that the actual figure was probably well below that. (Benchmark being the 1.8 million supposedly attending Obama’s inauguration, which apparently caused much more of a mess.)
As for Jimmah, there should be a policy in place that allows us to label any position he takes as presumptively wrong on the evidence. My own take on Wilson is that, apparently being a Southern good old boy, it’s easier for him to think and act disrespectfully towards a black man than a white man in the same position, even if he never thinks of it in any terms other than high principle. And it’s probably a subconcious clue that of all the possible moments in Obama’s speech when he could have shouted “Pants on fire”, he chose the one that highlighted his own case of xenophobia.
Is my liberal side showing too much?
1. I don’t recall conservatives being that riled, no. But I wasn’t online in ’93, nor were most people, and the MSM was doing their usual gatekeeper thing.
2. I probably am being optimistic. It beats Zoloft.
3. Figure I was pulling off Beck from an IU computer study of the photos. 2m is pretty obviously too many, ABC’s 70K too few. DHS (whose job it is to know these things) says 1m, and I’m cool with that too.
4. I don’t have a dog in the Joe Wilson hunt really. You’re probably right about subconscious racism there.
Well said! And the bit about this being a country for individuals, too. Hear, hear!