Ragged Republican

Nick Gillespie | September 28, 2005

Last week at Ragged Thots, NY Postman Robert A. George, the self-described "Catholic, West Indian black Republican," explained why he stayed with the GOP despite that party's jag-off tendencies.

Now he explains why is still not a Democrat.

Could it be that party's jag-off tendencies? The answer may surprise you.

Comments

|9.28.05 @ 3:42PM|#

Could this guy be any more shallow in his thinking?

He gazes at his navel and manages a barely audible "maybe" when asked if the transparently racist, though coded, statments of Republicans indicate racism. Then he looks at Democrats who express non-racist, or even anti-racist, ideas, but who grab onto old, racist terminology to discuss that which they object to, and he eagerly leaps to the conclusion that they're barely-concealed Klansmen.

|9.28.05 @ 4:03PM|#

Joe is a turd

|9.28.05 @ 4:14PM|#

By calling me by the diminutive "joe," you're clearly demonstrating the racism that lurks beneath your progressive exterior.

I'm going to go stand over here, with the guys who throw eggs at my car.

|9.28.05 @ 4:21PM|#

By calling you a turd I am clearly demonstrating that i think you are a turd.

|9.28.05 @ 4:28PM|#

McGarnicle doesnt seem to be engaging you intellectually, Joe. What does that demonstrate?

|9.28.05 @ 4:29PM|#

To this lifelong non-member of any party and occasional non-white person, the linked post rings roughly true.

Today's Republicans are disinterested in what are termed "racial issues," but that disinterest is pure vote-counting; they're crass accountants, not acting racists (though, yeah, they're probably racist too). Meanwhile Democrats ally superficially with "civil rights leaders" so that come votin' time they'll round up their old constituencies--a stunning comtempt for which constituencies D language always betrays.

Republicans "don't care about black people," and Democrats abuse them like owned property (see "joe"). But all politicians are our "class enemy," so to speak (sorry, Reason), so who cares that all the elected Klansmen are Democrats, and that all the rank-and-file Democrats talk like plantation owners? Thinking it matters is the only "shallow thinking."

|9.28.05 @ 4:35PM|#

"...all the rank-and-file Democrats talk like plantation owners"

Say good night Gracie.

|9.28.05 @ 4:44PM|#

Here, fill in the blank: a promient _______________ stated on a radio talk show last night, "...you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

theOneState|9.28.05 @ 4:45PM|#

George doesn't really come off as an apologist for racist republicans. His discomfort is clear. Otoh, Gilliard's post was astoundingly demeaning. And a little bit stupid to boot. I mean a lot. A lot stupid.

|9.28.05 @ 4:46PM|#

Steven D. Levitt?

|9.28.05 @ 4:54PM|#

Why, no, McGarnigle, the answer is "Republican," none other than former cabinet official Bill Bennett.

Which is pretty much the same thing as using loaded imagery to describe the use of black people as props in Republican campaign ads.

Though, to be fair, black people are often featured prominently in campaign ads by Democrats. The fact that they are often the candidates doesn't indicate anything at all.

|9.28.05 @ 4:58PM|#

I could have sworn that Levitt made a similar argument (or connection rather) in Freakonomics.

|9.28.05 @ 5:00PM|#

Do you have a transcript for that radio show? Not that I don't believe you, and NOT that i want to defend Bill Bennet. Who btw, i think is a turd even bigger than joe.

Mike|9.28.05 @ 5:28PM|#

I could have sworn that Levitt made a similar argument (or connection rather) in Freakonomics.

Actually, I think Levitt made a very different, more subtle claim: the crime rate went down when we started allowing women to more easily abort unwanted pregnancies. The distribution of those abortions by race seems to have very little to do with the result. The important point was less unwanted children leads to less crime.

|9.28.05 @ 5:32PM|#

The important point actually was not less unwanted children leads to less crime, but rather less unwanted children in economicaly tough environments leads to less crime. In which case race has a lot to do with the result.

|9.28.05 @ 5:40PM|#

"Many racists are Republicans" does not imply "Many Republicans are Racists".

To me, shallow thinking can be no better characterized than by the view that a greater number of racists in party A implies party B somehow makes sense.

|9.28.05 @ 6:05PM|#

"Please join my political party, which you don't feel represents you, because I don't think you belong in that party."

"Because, you know, I'm one of 'those people' to, and most of us are in my political party."

"Please."

"Please?"

"C'mon, we don't even have a house of Congress."

"Last chance, c'mon?"

"OK, you little fucker. Now the gloves are off..."

R C Dean|9.28.05 @ 6:07PM|#

The biggest racists I know are Democrats.

And I mean the good old-fashioned black-hating racists. Most Republicans of my acquaintance are quite indifferent to traditional race issues. They are too apathetic to be racists, perhaps.

Now, nearly all of your new-fangled racists are Democrats. By new-fangled I mean the kind of people who believe in collective responsibility, collective guilt, preferences allocated by race, and the like.

|9.28.05 @ 6:07PM|#

Alright, yeah, in reality things start off at the last line. But honestly, the "You should be voting for us! US! You fools, you're either with us or against us!" line for various ethnic groups and tiny, weird minorities like libertarians is getting old.

|9.28.05 @ 6:23PM|#

|9.28.05 @ 7:28PM|#

RC,

You may be surprised to hear this, but I agree with you to a large extent. "Old fasioned, black hating" racism plays a vanishingly small part in the race-related problems facing our country today. Black households don't have 1/10 the value, on average, of white households because Klansmen are stealing their money.

I realize that most Republicans are completely apathetic about any issues that have a racial dimension. They arne't interested in perpetuating racial injustice. They aren't interested one way or the other. What is, is, and the modern conserative project's major contribution to the situation is to come up with explanations for why we, as a society, shouldn't do anything about the problem in front of our faces: it's genetics and therefore immune to our efforts; it's black culture and therefore immune to our efforts; or, my favorite, it's just too digusting to bother my beautiful mind thinking about the problem, so I'll be "colorblind," and ignore what's in front of my face.

And, of course, these excuses completely fail to resonate with people who actually experience how race matters in this country, and as a result, the Republicans who don't care about race, who wish they never had to spend an ounce of energy thinking about it, find themselves staring at an unbroken sea of white faces. Which looks bad, and out of concern for PR, they have to gin up some black faces to appear. So you end up with a sub-mediocrity like JC Watts getting a leadership position in Congress, and both black Republican sewer commissioners in Florida being seated between Dick Cheney and Ahnold at the Convention.

None of which, you are correct, has anything to do with racial animosity or prejudice.

|9.28.05 @ 9:37PM|#

Here is what in my opinion is holding black people back in this country and continuing the creation of white and black racists;
Welfare, affirmative action, and varios other laws that make it easier to be a single parent, or to be a father and not care about your offspring. (OK I had a better list, but now the ideas evade me)

Also, lets look at the candidates for president: On the Dem side there is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Two jokes. Never will be president, they know it. Them running for president is a cheap sham.

On the Republican side, if Powell had run, he probably would be president. If Condolezza Rice runs, then there is a strong chance she will be president.

Also, I don't know if Howard Dean was conciously racist, but he did make a comment regarding gun control about it being ok to own guns in some places (mainly white ones) and forbidding gun ownership in other places (mainly black ones).

If I were a Klansmen, and I hated black people and I wanted to destroy them or keep them down as a people, I think I couldn't have come up whith a better plan that what the leftys have enacted.

|9.28.05 @ 10:57PM|#

I just clicked on this link because I was curious about how many of the 22 posts were written by Joe. My guess was that it'd be four or five. Turns out I was slightly conservative.

|9.28.05 @ 11:33PM|#

It's joe's world, we're just living in it.

|9.29.05 @ 12:23AM|#

The biggest racists I know are Democrats. And I mean the good old-fashioned black-hating racists

There's definitely something disturbing about how enthusiastically their party loyalists resort to the language of the Jim Crow era when an "uppity nigger" comes along.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.29.05 @ 1:51AM|#

By calling me by the diminutive "joe," you're clearly demonstrating the racism that lurks beneath your progressive exterior.

Throwing this quibble at Gilliard was not, admittedly, George's finest hour, but I can tell you from personal experience that Gilliard is not only a lunatic but a cause of lunacy in others. I had a run-in with leftish blogging's own Mr. Furious back when he was one of the brains behind "NetSlaves" (this was before Juneteenth in 2001, when all the slaves were freed by the drying up of dotcom investment), and Suck was doing some kind of cross-promo deal with them (not my idea, believe me). To this day, I've never figured out what made him mad, but I do remember the overamped rage, the rabid ad hominem attacks against people who had done nothing but try to help him (I was not the main target of his wrath), his paranoid conviction that everybody in the world was in some kind of hypercapitalist cabal whose sole purpose was to pick on Steve Gilliard, and a habit of articulating his arguments in ways that made Gary Gunnels look like Socrates.

It reflects well on George that the Bob quibble was the silliest thing he said in his response. Gilliard could make a sane man mad.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.29.05 @ 1:56AM|#

There's definitely something disturbing about how enthusiastically their party loyalists resort to the language of the Jim Crow era when an "uppity nigger" comes along.

Could you make your point without resorting to the language of Jim Crow yourself? Or do the scare quotes make it ironic?

|9.29.05 @ 3:31AM|#

Or do the scare quotes make it ironic?

Bingo.

|9.29.05 @ 3:46AM|#

less unwanted children in economicaly tough environments leads to less crime.

Actually, that wasn't the point at all. The point was that fewer unwanted children=less crime. The socioeconomic status of the mother played little roll beyond the fact that having a kid in a single income household with no other reliable form of support tends to hit your class level pretty hard.

A transcript of the Bill Bennett comment is right here. It was in the context of the ends not justifying the means, but it was still a pretty stupid thing to say and it betrays a pretty superficial understanding of the book.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.29.05 @ 4:23AM|#

less unwanted children in economicaly tough environments leads to less crime.

Actually, that wasn't the point at all. The point was that fewer unwanted children=less crime.

I haven't followed who's on what side in this debate, but Shem wins automatically because he knows the difference between less and fewer.

|9.29.05 @ 4:51AM|#

"Shem wins automatically because he knows the difference between less and fewer."

Yeah, I bet over 90% of the people don't.

|9.29.05 @ 7:21AM|#

No. McGarnicle wins because Shem is wrong. Levitt's argument is clear. I'm reading it right now.

Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship.



McGarnicle 1, Shem 0.

|9.29.05 @ 7:21AM|#

No. McGarnicle wins because Shem is wrong. Levitt's argument is clear. I'm reading it right now.

Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship.



McGarnicle 1, Shem 0.

|9.29.05 @ 9:22AM|#

"The socioeconomic status of the mother played little roll beyond the fact that having a kid in a single income household with no other reliable form of support tends to hit your class level pretty hard. "

Whah?

Well when it comes to crime that's a pretty freakin big role isn't it?

|9.29.05 @ 9:28AM|#

"Yeah, I bet over 90% of the people don't."

I'm sure that even less people than that know it. ;-)

Before this thread gets yanked into full Freakonomics mode, the significance of Bennett's comment to this debate is that, when thinking of the point about reducing crime, he didn't single out unwanted children, children born to single mothers, or children born to poor mother. His mind went immediately to black people.

digamma|9.29.05 @ 9:54AM|#

If the fact that a party contains an asshole blogger were enough reason not to join the party, there would be no parties.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.29.05 @ 1:06PM|#

McGarnicle 1, Shem 0.

That means Shem got fewer points than McGarnigle. So Shem still wins!