Watching the ridiculous spectacle in Ferguson, Missouri has
had me thinking about all kinds of things. Sorting out what I’m seeing, what
I’m hearing, what I’m learning, has left my head (and my reason) spinning. My
world view has changed drastically since Obama has been elected president.
Truths I held a decade ago, or even a few years ago, no longer seem realistic.
The reality I woke up to two weeks ago is not the reality I woke up to yesterday,
or today. A few random thoughts:
As a nation governed by men of European descent and culture,
we made an enormous mistake, or a series of mistakes. Importing slaves early in
our history created an economic boon, especially for states raising cotton as a
trade good. We should have never gone down that evil path, but that cannot be
changed now. When a lack of
statesmanship and ingenuity caused our nation to stumble into a bloody and
devastating civil war (how could our gene pool be so depleted in a hundred
short years? Madison, Adams, Franklin, etc. would never have allowed this scorched-earth
war to happen), instead of shipping the slaves back to Africa at its conclusion,
it was decided to assimilate them. Another mistake. When the black population, especially in the
cities, couldn’t put bread on their own table, the wise men of congress patted
them on the head and shoved them into projects.
And then the liberals committed the most heinous crime in our nation’s
history: they destroyed the black family by only providing welfare to women and
children who had no man in the home.
Why black men stood by and accepted this, why they threw
up their hands in defeat and mooched off of the welfare checks of the women,
why they didn’t do something, ANYTHING, to keep their family structure
together, is beyond me. I have no answer.
It’s not just blacks either. Poor whites (and other groups) are
accepting the same social structure, with glassy-eyed resignation.
Whipping up black rage, purposefully
whipping up black rage, surely is a strategy of the puppet masters behind this
administration, and a piece of the grand plan. Some blacks are beginning to see
how they, as a group, are mere pawns, expendable pawns, on the progressive
chessboard. No one will listen to them.
It’s too late.
Fred Reed penned a column this week that made so much sense it stunned me. A taste:
We need to realize, but will not, that blacks are a separate people, self-aware and cohesive. They have their own dialect, music, and modes of dress, which they value. They name their kids LaToya and Keeshawn instead of Robert and Carol because they want to maintain a distance from whites.
The races spring from utterly different cultures. Compulsory integration is thus a form of social imperialism in which whites try to force blacks to conform to European norms. Blacks have no historical connection at all to Greece, Rome, the Old Testament Hebrews, Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, to Newton, LaGrange, or Galois, to the philosophic tradition of Thales, Aquinas, Schopenhauer, or Hegel. Nor do Eurowhites have roots in Africa. No commonality exists.
Our nation is crumbling beneath our feet. Giving local
police departments military toys was a stroke of genius on the part of the
progressives; creating mistrust of the police is a must as they overthrow our government and replace it with their own vision, with them at the top
and the rest of us as serfs. ObamaCare
will destroy the trust the people have in doctors and nurses; we are unable to
provide quality care to patients under this structure. Resentment is already
boiling. Poor people are bragging that they are now “insured”. The word is
meaningless. These people are 100% (or nearly 100%) subsidized by the taxpayers, including working
people in the $50,000 to $100,000 range who do not qualify for major subsidies
and who do not have insurance coverage through their work. ObamaCare is cheap
for indigents or the minimum-wage poor; for the middle class with no insurance,
it’s literally unaffordable. Should a family pay twice as much for medical
insurance as they do for their mortgage?
How will they afford a new car, a vacation, a steak once a month? How
will they afford to save for retirement? To send their kids to college?
Bah.
Another random thought: if I hear one more word about the
moronic “ice bucket challenge” my eyes may permanently cross in stupidity
overload. The participants don’t donate to ALS research; they’re in it for the
“selfie” opportunity. The whole thing is tacky and attention-whorish, IMHO. Double
bah. Plus, ALS is very rare. How about quietly donating to autism research or
cancer research instead of plastering your drenched selfie all over facebook?
So, what are your random thoughts and grumblings this morning?
Do blacks have a different culture than whites? Do the English have cultural difference from the French who have cultural differences from the Germans who have cultural differences from the Spanish who have cultural differences from the Russians? Do New Yorkers have cultural differences from people from the South? It's just that whites get all clumped together (not that this is necessarily a bad thing) and they make an effort to work together.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with the thought as to whether something was really a good idea. Al Capone was a nasty guy who needed to go to prison. And while he did cheat on his taxes, sending him to prison for income tax evasion because they couldn't get him on anything else set a dangerous precedent. The government now knows that if it wants to get you, it can usually find something in tax law to do so. Either that or the nebulous "obstruction of justice" that the government can use even though it knows there really is nothing to the case it is investigating.
An other concern is "Crimes Agains Humanity." Certainly Axis leaders needed to be punished after World War II. But "Crimes Against Humanity?" Why not mass murder? Now, anytime some leftist organization (such as the UN, the International Court, etc.) wants to go after someone they can use "Crimes Against Humanity." It meant something at Nuremberg, but it means nothing now -- at least as it gets thrown around.
Were the original reasons for doing these things honourable? Perhaps, but they have left the door open for totalitarian abuse. There must have been better ways of dealing with the problems than giving carte blanche to those with oppressive bents.
I don't take it as far as Reed does in his musings. While Americans of Italian or German descent may have different customs, cuisine, and celebrations, the English language and a love for America bind them together as Americans. The same for families of different religions, or who live in different regions of our country. Many black enclaves have refused to assimilate the way other groups have. There is no sense in focusing on those that have assimilated, because they are, apparently, a quiet minority.
ReplyDeleteRefusing to be assimilated is not the same thing as unable to be assimilated. American blacks have more in common with American whites than they do with Africans. The point is that they are not holding onto their "African" culture.
ReplyDeleteThere are probably more who have been assimilated than the left is willing to admit.
"American blacks have more in common with American whites than they do with Africans."
ReplyDeleteHmm, that is probably true but from watching and listening to high-profile black Americans I gather they think they have more in common with Africans.
I feel I have very little in common with most black people. Certainly nothing in common with young blacks.
"... if I hear one more word about the moronic “ice bucket challenge” my eyes may permanently cross in stupidity overload. The participants don’t donate to ALS research; they’re in it for the “selfie” opportunity. The whole thing is tacky and attention-whorish, IMHO."
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, as Mrs. Lewis said on FB
"I'm not doing the bucket challenge because it's a marketing tactic that uses guilt and public shaming to coerce people into donating. (Having been bullied before, I recognize it, even when disguised as "fun")" Bravo!
Bullying, guilt, and public shaming is how society works. It's part of the whole "freedom of association" thing.
ReplyDeleteIn the golden age of European culture, the virtue of young women and the courage of young men was never cultivated entirely by the carrots of praise and esteem, but also by the sticks of contempt and exile.
Loose women were sluts and their spawn called bastards; cowardly men were delivered white feathers appropriate to chickens and shunned from society.
And philanthropy has always worked the same way. If you want to achieve or retain your status in society, you give.
It's ugly, to be sure. But the alternative, of course, is allocation, confiscation and conscription by the State.
I've always know it was ugly but my long exchange with social conservatives - and the accumulated insight which accrues with passing years - has taught me the necessity of this social mechanism. The cajoling, exhorting, trolling, and occasional outright extorting of normative behavior.
The ice bucket challenge is surely on the lighter side as the social coercion phenomenon goes. The ALS challenge is popular in no small part because so many people find it so fun. Ben Hunt, whose blog I follow religiously, had enormous and instructive fun with his four adorable daughters. Nobody has done a better introduction to the Prisoner's Dilemma and Game Theory.
As far as the disease itself, "orphan" diseases which are rare depend on the ingenuity of the sufferers and advocates precisely because they are, well, relatively rare. it was simply the good fortune of the ALS people to have stumbled on a fundraiser that went so "viral". The alternative might be allocation of charity by some kind of Ministry of Rare Diseases, which I'm not sure we would welcome. In fact, there was a proposal to restrict charitable giving of all kinds and redirect the money to priorities deemed more "deserving" by the government. It was floated early in the Obama administration.
In fact, there was a proposal to restrict charitable giving of all kinds and redirect the money to priorities deemed more "deserving" by the government. It was floated early in the Obama administration.
DeleteThat's just wrong lewy. And scary. I despise these people and their warped, self-serving ideology with every fiber of my being.