Sometimes a picture can tell a thousand words. At least this cartoon, ridiculing Hillary Clinton's remark that the House of Representatives "has been run like a plantation," does.
Um... Republicans are planting cotton on the senate floor? lol
Dan, I have another question that's rather random.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2002/11/20/Opinion/Raise.Your.Left.Hand.If.You.Hate.America-497776.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com
In this (lame) review of WTLHA, this lady says this:
"In fact, the search for a true definition of what Flynn addressed in his book as "the left" was never completely laid bare. He initially stated that liberals and Democrats don't count as the left. Flynn then stated that the left is a vague 10 percent of Americans who hate all American success and want to dwell on American failures. Upon further questioning from the audience, the murky definition came to be any individual who openly questions the actions of the U.S. government."
Dan, clear this up for me as you did the Chomsky situation in that symposium awhile ago.
I question "the actions of the U.S. government" more than any leftist I know. Certainly I don't trust the government to run the health care system, select art to fund, run a train line, or any number of other tasks they undertake or seek to undertake. Leftists generally want the government to do all that and more. What's the Left? It's more important to clarify what's not the Left. It's not Hillary, or John Kerry, or Al Gore, although each of these figues embrace parts of leftist ideology. Leftists are people who dogmatically adhere to a number of ideas, which include a hostility toward traditional religion, marriage, and the free market. Hostility to these principles, and conversely an embrace of opposing principles, consistently holds true for leftists throughout the ages, whether the leftist is Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, or Michael Moore.
I hope this helps. In the future, comment threads are for comments that relate to the main post or some subsequent comment. An open thread, which is coming up soon, would be a good place to discuss such a topic. I'm sure other readers have their own idea of what distinguishes a leftist from a liberal. Like your query regarding why conservatism isn't an ideology, that subject might make a good topic for a future main post.
That does help, Dan. Thanks. Sorry for the off-topic post.
I'm still looking forward to your post on conservatism and ideology!
This is getting so good. Most Dems want this woman as their candidate in 08' and she is already incapable of keeping her mouth shut and acting like a serious candidate!!
Although, by all accounts, she's gracious and professional on the floor and in the halls of the Senate, she is still the same caustic, shrill liberal beeatch she's always been and true to form is catering to the radical wing of the Democratic Party.
She will continue to insert her foot in her mouth and like Dean and the war hero will self destruct.
I found it interesting - and even more telling of her strategy - that Hillary delivered two very different speeches to other audiences on MLK Day, according to Fox News. I think it's funny that she seems to forget that everything she says in public will be known, if not immediately, then soon afterward. That she can deliver a speech to one audience that is entirely different in character to that of another shows that she has an ill-founded perception that her words will go no farther than the venue she's speaking in. This might have been true in the 19th century, but in today's global news market, it ain't necessarily so.
Similarly, what was Harry Reid thinking when, immediately after the Patriot Act renewal vote, he said - in conspiratorial tones - to an audience of liberals, "We killed the Patriot Act," as if he thought no one besides the people in the audience would ever know what he said?
If Clinton hopes to become president in '08, she's going to have to adopt a better strategy to get there. Telling each audience the message you think they want to hear is part of why John Kerry lost. Note that President Bush had a consistent message that he delivered everywhere he spoke.
Gary:
Was that message a ban on nation building?
I don't know, Guido. What I heard on Fox was that her other two speeches, delivered to different audiences on te same day as the "plantation" speech were very different in character; i.e., not as shrill and openly hostile. My point was that she is presenting herself differently to each audience in order to disguise her true intentions and to make herself palatable to every constituency. This is what Kerry did, also, to his own detrement. As I pointed out, in todays era of rapid communications and complete tranparency of media, it is impossible to pull off such a two-faced deception.
Doncha worry yosef Miss Hillary. We's still gwanna votes fo ya.
If Hillary Clinton dressed like that, I'd probably vote for her.
In all seriousness though, how many token black conservatives give some foundation funded speech for College Republicans who are too chicken to hire a white person to speak out against affirmative action with titles like "Back to the plantation" or the "slavery of welfare."
How many conservatives and libertarians call Taxation or Conscription slavery or leftists speak of "Wage slavery."
I don't see why this is such a big deal in the scheme of things.
Just to prove my point
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/13545/
http://www.yaf.org/speakers/star_parker.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0785262199/103-8882565-5887060?v=glance&n=283155
Marcus, I think it's fairly obvious why white conservatives can't get away with saying such things. They'd be attacked instantly and branded racists and none of them is willing to go through that. This is unfortunate, but it's a fact of life in a politically correct world. For that matter, though, even someone like Thomas Sowell isn't immune. He is either called an "Uncle Tom" or simply ignored by the left, as a crackpot.
I have heard few liberals complain about black conservatives using slavery an*logies. Some liberals (though they are almost all black) call Thomas Sowell an uncle tom, but that is neither here nor there. My point is that conservatives are quite fond of comparing stuff to slavery, with little fanfare.
PS I'm not allowed to say "An*logies" because it is seen as "questionable content"
I ran into the same thing, yesterday, when using the same innocuous word.
I disagree that conservatives get away racial remarks. In fact, they are more apt to be jumped on for doing so than liberals. Take Trent Lott, for example.
Nagin's comment was as racist as it gets. He even defined what he meant by a "chocolate New Orleans" ("a majority black New Orleans") and it was quite evident that the blacks surrounding him at the time knew exactly what he meant by "chocolate New Orleans," also. The main defining characteristic of racism is racial exclusivity.
You're missing my point again. I am the first to say that there is a black/white double standard, but I wasn't talking about Nagin making "racist" statements, I was talking about Hillary accusing others of being racist or comparing something to slavery.
Yes liberals do this more often, but conservatives do this every single chance they can get, especially against other conservatives. In fact the Trent Lott case you brought up was the product of PC "conservatives" going after him, not liberals.
The only difference between the conservative and liberal race card is that liberals are much better at using it.
Udargo.com just posted a comic strip about the flap (the Jan 21 link). It's more a "plague on both your houses" angle, though, and not nearly as funny as its other comics. (FOXy lady is the funniest).
Marcus, I didn't miss a thing. Hillary's comments weren't nearly as racial as Nagin's; just stupid. Nagin's comments were overtly racist. He said, quite literally, what he meant: i.e., he want's a majority black population in New Orleans. Hillary's comment was a metaphor and wasn't anything offensive to blacks (or was it, Homer?)
Yes, I'll agree the liberals are more skilled at racism; they've had much more practice, especially Southern Democrats, whose ancestors were slavemasters.
You are either still missing my point or just not addressing it. I'm not talking about whether liberals/democrats are more "racist" than conservatives/republicans. I'm talking about the fact that Conservatives/Republicans jump on the opportunity to call their political opponents (on the left and right) racists and compare something they don't like to life on the plantation just as much as the liberals do. That you responded to my point by calling liberals racists is further evidence to my case.
Getting back to Hillary, I find it incredibly hypocritical for all conservatives to get up in arms over her plantation an*logy when they make stupid an*logies about slavery all the time. Virtually every single black conservative of any note has compared the Welfare state to life on the plantation, in fact I think that is about all they do. Star Parker has a book called "Uncle Sam's plantation" Clarence Mason Weaver gives an inspirational speech thriftily converted into book form called "leaving the planatation." I have heard/read Jesse Lee Peterson, LaShawn Barber, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Alan Keyes, Reginald Jones, JC Watts, and Larry Elder all make the comparison. If there are any other black conservatives who I forgot existed, I'm sure they also made the comparison.
Personally, I have always found this insulting, because I have never gotten how when my tax dollars goes to some poor black person that I'm somehow enslaving them.
Finally, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but does anyone actually believe that Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, or George Wallace were liberals? The south has always been the bastion of conservatism in America, and it was much more conservative before it embraced the party of lincoln. Call the dixiecrats racist if you must, but please don't call them liberal.
You are either still missing my point or just not addressing it. I'm not talking about whether liberals/democrats are more "racist" than conservatives/republicans. I'm talking about the fact that Conservatives/Republicans jump on the opportunity to call their political opponents (on the left and right) racists and compare something they don't like to life on the plantation just as much as the liberals do. That you responded to my point by calling liberals racists is further evidence to my case.
Getting back to Hillary, I find it incredibly hypocritical for all conservatives to get up in arms over her plantation an*logy when they make stupid an*logies about slavery all the time. Virtually every single black conservative of any note has compared the Welfare state to life on the plantation, in fact I think that is about all they do. Star Parker has a book called "Uncle Sam's plantation" Clarence Mason Weaver gives an inspirational speech thriftily converted into book form called "leaving the planatation." I have heard/read Jesse Lee Peterson, LaShawn Barber, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Alan Keyes, Reginald Jones, JC Watts, and Larry Elder all make the comparison. If there are any other black conservatives who I forgot existed, I'm sure they also made the comparison.
Personally, I have always found this insulting, because I have never gotten how when my tax dollars goes to some poor black person that I'm somehow enslaving them.
Finally, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but does anyone actually believe that Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, or George Wallace were liberals? The south has always been the bastion of conservatism in America, and it was much more conservative before it embraced the party of lincoln. Call the dixiecrats racist if you must, but please don't call them liberal.
Does affirmative action include the "right"
of black churches to engage in political action
and still maintain tax exempt status? Evidently, it does.
