Thursday, September 17, 2009

Time to Revoke The Card

I'm done. The recent spate of people willing to play The Race Card against any and all opposition to The Won's policies have pushed me to the point where I just don't care anymore.

Jimmy Carter, Janeane Garofalo, and the Newsweek cover may be the most blatant, but there have been so many it's not worth listing them all. Once upon a time, the word "racist" meant something. I recently tried to clarify that definition. But now I'm not sure the word can ever again mean anything close to what it once meant.

There are two ways to examine what words mean. One is to look at the definition in the dictionary and see how it may apply. The other is to observe how the words are actually used. Based on the latter, I have come to the an inescapable conclusion.
The effective meaning of "racist" today is:
"You disagree with a leftist. Shut up!"


From now on, whenever someone says a person or behavior is "racist", I'm going to stop them, and insist that they make the case for it or retract it. No one gets to throw out an accusation of "racism" as if it were an established fact. If they refuse to back up the accusation, I will say "How dare you use that word without any proof that it applies!"

When someone is summarily accused, "convicted", and punished without a due process hearing in which they can defend themselves from the charge, there is a word often used to describe the process.

We call it a "lynching".

I'm not going to stand by and let it happen.

[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

14 comments:

  1. It's my humble contention that we, as conservatives, allowed ourselves to "lose the game" years ago by not standing up for ourselves and saying "No, I'm not" when called a racist. As a result, liberals have been able to get away with hurling the "R" word at every opportunity and have done so whenever they have had no real argument at hand. All we can do now is refuse to back down; we must say "Sorry, I will no longer play your silly little game."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm done. The recent spate of people willing to play The Race Card against any and all opposition to The Won's policies have pushed me to the point where I just don't care anymore.

    While I can sympathize with your exasperation, Monster, may I suggest that you look on the bright side? Thanks in large part to Liberal Fascism and its sizeable readership, your side has made a valiant effort to proffer this handy retort to every Democratic overture. If a slightly more cohesive effort was made, I'm certain you could supply a "Fascist!" to every "Rascist!" argument that is callously sent your way.

    Heck, if all goes well, we might even be able to move into a new political future, featuring a Democratic Party morphed into the Fascist Party, and a Republican segueing smoothly into the Racist Party.

    Sure, it will mean the further degrading of our already base political culture and Byzantinian-Blue-and-Green partisanship, but think of all the new opportunities it will offer for sarcastic sound bites and entertaining, barb-tipped Tweets!

    Adios.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, Tyrone, the difference is that using the word "fascist" to describe policies under which the government allows nominal private ownership of business, while exerting great power over how business is operated, is entirely consistent with the dictionary definition and historical usage.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Monster, I would much appreciate it if you could please direct me to any historical definition of fascist that is consistent with the political and national make-up of the United States in 2009.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tyrone, you seem to have reading comprehension problems. I said "dictionary definition and historical usage", not "historical definition".

    The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines "fascism" thusly:

    1. often Fascism
    a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
    b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
    2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.


    The "stingent socioeconomic controls" distinguish fascist economic policy, (which allows for nominal private ownership but with government control) from socialist policy (which calls for government ownership of industry).

    Look at the partial nationalization of two of the three US automakers as straddling the line between socialism and fascism. The financial industry has been subjected to very stringent controls; control of finance is inevitably control of other sectors, because nearly all businesses require financing.

    The current push to subject the entire health care industry to the stringent control US Government, if successful, will literally place life-and-death decision making under that control.

    We have not, as of 2009, reached the end of the process, for this site would not be allowed to exist under the sort of censorship practiced by a fully fascist government. But one need only read what the members of the majority party in Congress say to realize that they would like to rectify that omission as soon as practicable.

    When we describe policies as "fascist", we say that they are leading the nation down that path. If they succeed, we will lose the freedom to articulate that concern, for fear that we will be treated harshly by their financial and health care instrumentalities.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Exactly, Monster. If Tyrone can't see the fascist nature of the Obama regime's actions, then he doesn't qualify as a rational observer at all.

    ReplyDelete
  7. As to "racist," it means nothing anymore. My typical response is, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, what else you got? No one believes your claims of racism anymore." I also like to say, "We don't oppose Obama because he's black, we oppose him because he's red!"

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Monster wrote: Tyrone, you seem to have reading comprehension problems.

    Now, now, Monster, no need to get nasty just because you've been asked to provide a measure of justification for your claim that calling the Obama administration fascist - or even fascism-enabled - is perfectly reasonable.

    The reason I stressed historical is because it is impossible to attempt to define fascism outside of its historical context. It has no evolutionary pedigree comparable to classical liberalism, conservatism or socialism; indeed, it truly was born after a brief and bitter gestationary period immediately following the First World War. It cannot be described without acknowledging the unique admixture of war-wounded national pride, remnants of a military aristocracy, acute economic devastation (with a hyperinflationary currency), and immature nationhood that were amongst the chief components of its meteoric rise. When you attempt to divorce the word from its historical meaning, you are playing semantic games - and you know this.

    Nevertheless, let's look at the meat of your proffering from The American Heritage® Dictionary:

    a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

    You have allowed that the US has thankfully not "reached the end of the process"...but how close are we to that grisly terminus? At the midway point? Just starting out? Let's see:

    1. Obama is not a dictator. Not even close. Let's ignore those dictatorship-inconvenient term limits that would halt his fuehrership at eight years - he faces not merely another presidential election in just over three years, but congressional elections in just over one. Furthermore, I continually read gloating proclamations from GOP sources that confidently assert that the Democrats will lose a substantial number of seats in the latter. If a non-dictator Obama can't even pass the health-care measures he wants when he has a majority, what further blows will his non-dictatorship take when he faces a congress with an augmented hostile membership then?

    2. Can you at least point towards some evidence of any suppression of the opposition through terror? Nope. Minor, even baby steps towards the use of a secret police force to snatch up its political enemies? Nope.

    3. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that the Obama administration is pursuing, or intends to pursue, a policy of belligerent nationalism? Further to that, would it be too much to ask if you could repost some of your dire warnings of the fascistic tendencies of the Bush-Cheney White House when the case could be made - or at least made much for readily than for the current administration - that they were dangerously dancing down such a perilous path?

    4. This point ties in rather nicely with your lamentations about the current abuse of the term racist by the MSM and the Left - where is the racism, the apportioning of blame and directing of hatred at a scapegoat ethnic group? Are we perhaps in a Twilight Zone reverse-fascism, in which Hitler is a half-jew who is extolling the Jewish Minority to rise against the untermenschen Germans, doing so primarily by pointing out their appalling, historically well-documented anti-semitism?

    Continued in post below.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Continued from post above.

    So, let's do a brief recap: we have no banning of political opposition to the dominant party; we have no secret political police force that is monitoring and enforcing the party obedience of the populace; we have no political prisons or concentration camps wherein dissenters or opponents are deposited at the dictator's whim; we have no demagoguery promoting the unique brilliance and global heritage of the American people and aggressive attempts to provide them with their divinely-ordained lebensraum; we have not even a smidgen of political terror; we have not built up a mighty military and a prison state mentality...well, OK, we have, but I seriously doubt the blame for that can be placed at the feet of Chicago Barry. In short, we have none of these particular historically required markers that would point towards a fascist form of government.

    So what exactly do we have?

    The US automotive industry. An industry that, through their own chronic ineptitude, were perched precariously over the abyss of financial ruin right at the moment that, according to the Wall Street "experts", the unemployment rate was at a dangerous tipping point. The government has bailed out automakers in the past. It's not a dividing line between fascism and socialism - it's a boundary between capitalism and socialism. For Pete's sake, the US automaker's have to compete against Japanese, German, Korean and Swedish products in their own country - companies in which the federal government has no directorship lash.

    The alleged control of finance is another canard. How well are those Wall Street crackdown regulations coming along? The reason the government intervened with the banks was to try and force them to provide much-needed credit to the market against their historic tendency to hoard. Have the banks followed the stern urgings of their master? Not as far as I can tell. The Obama dictatorship wanted to provide a general cap on bonuses - how well did that turn out? Washington most decidedly does not control Wall Street - Wall Street controls Washington. Perhaps we should seek our future Duce in the boardroom of Goldman-Sachs?

    Finally, we have the Health Care reform - the private-option-preferring health care reform that this fascistic-leaning party cannot pass, unamended, with a majority in both houses. This so-called, dire-sounding control of life-and-death - in other words, rationing - exists in varying degrees in most of the European democracies that provide universal coverage, and in your northern neighbour where I currently reside. Is Canada a fascist state? Is the United Kingdom? France? Germany? How about the Danes? The Finns? All fascist realms-in-waiting? Your paint-brush is so wide that your strokes have lost all definition and detail.

    The Obama administration tends to operate in that center-zone where the Clinton admin did. They have bursts of leftish-to-far-leftish activity that are quickly and authoritatively portrayed by both the MSM and other sources as inherently unserious and clearly dirtily-hippyish and subsequently are vastly watered down, if not shelved. It's a government with socialist tendencies. Not fascist.

    It is absolutely right to be aware of the threat a modern form of fascism poses - just as one needs to be aware of the threat islamic terrorism poses, or the threat that an economically and militarily resurgent Russia poses. However, these threats need to be assessed soberly, historically and realistically. Petulant posturings and hysterical shriekings of imminent Hitlerhood, cries that oftimes seem to stem from a deep-rooted-rage at the loss of control of the levers of political power during a time of economic uncertainty, is neither of these three.

    I'm out for the weekend gentleman. Have a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Can you at least point towards some evidence of any suppression of the opposition through terror?

    Hmm... a bunch of SEIU purpleshirts beating a Town Hall protester is a start. I believe there were some other incidents too, but a pro-life protester getting killed doesn't get the same coverage as when it happens to an abortion doctor, so I don't expect you to be aware of it.

    It cannot be described without acknowledging the unique admixture of war-wounded national pride, remnants of a military aristocracy, acute economic devastation (with a hyperinflationary currency), and immature nationhood that were amongst the chief components of its meteoric rise.

    What Italian national pride was wounded in WWI? What military aristocracy was decimated in that war? The Fascist manifesto was all about giving more power to women and labor unions, progressive taxation against such "aristocracy" as might have held any power.

    Or are you conflating "Fascism" with "Nazism"? Nazism certainly had some common ground with Fascism, but they differed on a lot too, as they did with the Falangists in Spain. The various groups that have had "fascism" hung on them seemed to be offering a competing "workers of the nation, unite!" national socialism against the international socialism known as Communism.

    You have erected a straw man here. Anything less than a 100% faithful replica of Nazi Germany, complete with extermination camps, apparently can't be called "Fascism". Just so long as the frog is boiled slowly, we can't describe the cooking process.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Not so much a straw man argument, Monster, but the logical fallacy of equivocation, using words differently that they were used in the original argument or changing their definition midway through the discussion. For Tyrone, Fascism = Naziism, with no degrees or variations possible. Typical of the left, to not actually think about what they say.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hmm... a bunch of SEIU purpleshirts beating a Town Hall protester is a start.

    No, it isn't - unless you can show me where Obama and/or the Democratic Party sent these people with the express purpose to intimidate the political opposition with the threat, or the actual carrying out, of violence. Otherwise, it's one of a handful of examples of tempers flaring at protests/meetings - on both sides - over a political issue that seemingly always inspires heated debate.

    I believe there were some other incidents too

    I really don't believe it's necessary for me to point out the utter laziness and poverty of this response. If you're not going to make any effort, why on earth should I?


    but a pro-life protester getting killed doesn't get the same coverage as when it happens to an abortion doctor, so I don't expect you to be aware of it.

    Leaving aside the smug condescension of your claim here - where is the connection between the killer, Harlan James Blake, and the Democratic Party? It requires a remarkable amount of chutzpah to attempt to use this tragic event to thicken the evidentiary gruel of your political terror argument.

    Or are you conflating "Fascism" with "Nazism"?

    Actually, I'm not - but even if I were, let's be honest here: In all of the video and photos seen of the Tea Party members, of anti-Obama/Democrat protests and Town Hall meetings, how many references have you seen to the Italian Fascists, or the Arrow Cross, or the Action Francaise? How many of the photos of Obama were doctored to make him resemble Mussolini or Mosley? It's quite clear that in virtually every single instance of the assertion that the Obama administration is behaving in a fascist manner, or threatening to transmogrify into a fascist dictatorship, Fascism does conflate with Nazism.

    You have erected a straw man here. Anything less than a 100% faithful replica of Nazi Germany, complete with extermination camps, apparently can't be called "Fascism"

    Oh, for Pete's sake Monster - you're the one who provided the definition! I didn't say anything about extermination camps, BTW. I have merely pointed out that none of the criteria that you provided have been met. The only one you actually managed to touch upon was stringent socioeconomic controls - and even in that you can't make a strong case.

    You are totally free to describe the cooking process - but you haven't even managed to assemble the necessary ingredients, let alone provide any proof that the cooking has actually begun.

    Adios.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Tyrone, you're right. You shouldn't make any effort to convince us that the Obama administration isn't proto-fascist. Especially since the evidence that it is is so bountiful and obvious. You must have to squint quite a lot to not notice it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. [Re: Tiller/Pouillon killings]
    I don't know if Blake had any connection with any organized group or not. But I know that Roeder was declared to be directly connected with anyone who has ever opposed abortion. I just thought it might be time for some shoe-on-the-other-foot therapy. My own position on abortion tends to make everyone mad, so I can see a certain symmetry here that most people tend to miss, being on one extreme end or the other.

    Oh, for Pete's sake Monster - you're the one who provided the definition!

    Those were the definitions (plural; two listed) of "fascism", which denote the fully-assembled system of fascism. Individual policies or acts do not include all of the parts of fascism; they are its parts.

    The term "fascist", which is used much more than "fascism" in this discussion, is either an adjective formed from the noun, meaning "of, relating to, or characteristic of" the corresponding noun; or a noun with several meanings, of which the one I think best applies in this case is:

    3 : one that adheres to or advocates a (specified) doctrine or system or code of behavior <socialist> <royalist> <hedonist> or that of a (specified) individual <Calvinist> <Darwinist>

    So in my mind, the term "fascist" has a much lower bar than "fascism", as it doesn't require that the advocacy has been successful. I see plenty of advocacy of the elements of a fascist system; you don't.

    ReplyDelete

We reserve the right to delete comments, but the failure to delete any particular comment should not be interpreted as an endorsement thereof.

In general, we expect comments to be relevant to the story, or to a prior comment that is relevant; and we expect some minimal level of civility. Defining that line is inherently subjective, so try to stay clear of insulting remarks. If you respond to a comment that is later deleted, we may take your response with it. Deleting your comment isn't a personal knock on you, so don't take it as such.

We allow a variety of ways for commenters to identify themselves; those who choose not to do so should take extra care. Absent any prior context in which they may be understood, ironic comments may be misinterpreted. Once you've earned a reputation for contributing to a conversation, we are likely to be more tolerant in those gray areas, as we'll understand where you're coming from.