Hello All,
Full Disclosure: I am a Republican, was a liberal when I was in my early 20’s, but
came to my senses. I have no problem with people being Democrats, although I have to admit I don’t understand their way of thinking. They have their beliefs and I have mine.
I do enjoy politics and like to discuss policy, canadites and such not only among those who share my view, but debate those who don’t. I am and always try to be respectful when discussing these things, I NEVER resort to name calling (although I confess I have used the term “hippie” on occasion). I think that it is very important in a democrocy that people discuss their and debate their views. In fact I have on occasion voted for a Democrat based on discussions with friends and they have convinced me that the right person for a particular position was with the other party.
Now with that being said I recently made a comment in a SD discussion about the Obmama administration and it’s habit of spending too much money. I have read and re-read the thread to make sure I wasn’t being mean, dis-respectful and/or rude. The only thing I can even think of that was even mildly offensive (if you can call it that) was a comment that I made comparing democrats to users of Apple products, because with both groups I find them defending their positions to the death regardless of facts. You can point out the obvious and they will ignore it to support their position. Anyway, a poster came in a basically accused me of being a racist because I disagreed with the way Obama is spending. His exact words were:
Just wow! What can I say. No where did I mention the race of Obama and in fact I made this comment:
I would love to see him succeed as that would mean that all of us would benefit. I really don’t care what color a person is, just as long as he is qualified and does what he was elected to do.
So why is it that it seems that if you are a Republican today and you disagree with the current administration that someone, somewhere ends up calling you a racist? Why can’t I disagree with the policies that are in place. The funny thing is the very person trying to defend Obama uses the degrading term “nigger”. I guess it is okay if he uses it?
Sorry to rant, but this whole thing has gotten me flustered. I can’t stand the insinuation that I am somehow racist. It is bothering me to no end. And to all those who say that this never happens. It does, I have had race brought up numerous times when discussing this and I have heard people accuse others of being racist because they don’t approve of this President. Just boggles my mind.
People who accuse Obama of spending too much and being unconcerned with spending are mostly engaged in a big lie of propaganda to cover up much worse spending practices under Reagan and Bush II, partly ignorant and lastly crypto racist.
I am not longer a supporter of Obama, but Republicans accusing Democrats of spending irresponsibly is the same as an accused patricide begging for mercy because he is an orphan. It’s an insult to the intelligence of people who pay attention, which we are not. If someone is going to make such a willfully ignorant argument and still use complete sentences, those watching will assume some hidden malice, such as prejudice against Democrats or black people.
I will be the first to agree that the spending on both sides is out of control. However with that said it is time to stop blaming the other guy. What does it matter if Reagan, Bush or Lincoln spent more or as much as Obama. The data I have seen says that the current administration has spent more than every administration from Washington to Reagan COMBINED. But even that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that HE is in charge now and we need to be concerned with what HE is doing, because we can’t change what has already been done. Put it to you this way as my mom used to say: “If Billy stole something from the store, that doesn’t mean it is all right for YOU to steal something from the store”. Yes, the Rebublicans have spent their fair share and I am sick of that too. I think that the whole notion of politicians drunk on public money is sickening. But, the concern I have now is with the current adminstration. The same people that call me racist for knocking Obama over his spending would be applauding me if I were to do it if a Republican was in power. (I guess the same could be said if the positions were reveresed too) But they aren’t in power now, the Democrats are and trying to defend the actions that are taking place now by saying someone else did it before isn’t helping. How is covering up anything done before helping the situation now? Hell, I concided that the when the Republicans were in power they spent to much. That doesn’t change the way I feel about the current administration and it’s spending habits.
Not to mention it doesn’t answer my origional question. Why am I a racist if I disagree with Obama and his policies?
Why? Because throwing out the term “racist” is a cheap way to make people feel defensive. Like other terrible labels such as “rapist” or “child abuser” it doesn’t even have to be true to bother people being accused of it, that’s the beauty of it.
What I’m waiting for is for people to cry about racism when Obama isn’t reelected. The explanation that an increase in racism, not disagreement with his policies, will be responsible for losing him the race should at least be entertaining.
Cuz you kept your mouth shut about the same thing for eight years, and when a guy comes into office who is very concerned with matching the two ends up, you suddenly think it is the most important thing in the world that spending be reined in and end your silence. Since you clearly aren’t an imbecile (you write coherently) those watching must ascribe it to either you don’t like Obama’s politics, which are the same as Bush’s in every f’in respect, or that there is something personal about him that you do not like, such as he doesn’t sound like a hillbilly when he talks, like Bush. But even hillbillies understand that the POTUS should have good diction, so that can’t be it, so what is it? Could it be because he is black? It’s possible. I’m not going to jump to that conclusion as my Regis Philbin “Final Answer” just yet.
Why don’t you enlighten us? Why do you dump on Obama for the very things you kept silent about Bush for?
Do you ever have racist thoughts? I do. But I don’t act on them. I have all sorts of ugly, beastly inner demons, including occasional racist thoughts. But I don’t act on them. And if I do, I damn well apologize and fix it.
I voted for Obama and regret it. He is Joe Lieberman without the whine. A Republican pretending to be a Democrat. If I’m going to vote for a Republican, I’d rather vote for the real thing. Romney or Huntsman could get my vote. If it’s Perry or some other nutjob, I’ll vote for Obama without hesitation.
I’m a Democrat and I’m largely in agreement with what obbn is saying. People who automatically accuse anyone who disagrees with Obama of being racist are using a rhetorical cheap shot with no basis in reality. One may accuse a person of racism if they actually say something racist, but criticizing the President’s economic policies is not racist. The only defense of this tactic is the implication that Republicans wouldn’t criticize Bush when he spent a lot, but do criticize Obama for spending a lot, and supposedly the only explanation for the difference is the skin color of the two presidents. But that fails on two counts. First, many did criticize Bush for spending a lot; secondly, it would be perfectly rational to accept $400 billion deficits under Bush while not accepting the trillion-dollar plus deficits under Obama.
Some on the far left, particularly in academic circles, simply hurl charges of racism at anything they disagree with, and have been doing it for so long that it never even occurs to them to think about whether it makes sense.
If that is your idea of entertainment, then you are one sick puppy. Don’t think for a minute that Obama’s people wouldn’t use racism as a charge if it was useful for them. That’s what politicians do. Obama’s people accused Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton of being racists to try to gain an advantage in the 08 primaries. (Yes, I was for Hillary.) In American history there were arguably people that did more to fight for black people than Bill and Hillary Clinton. But Barack Obama sure as hell wasn’t one of those people who did anywhere near as much for black people as the Clintons have done for equal protection.
So then the question is did the OP, in the context of his criticizing Obama for spending, heap just as much criticism on Bush and the Republicans for spending? It’s called a regression analysis. From this thread the OP seems to be saying that Bush, Reagan and Lincoln’s spending problems are irrelevant to Obama’s because it is not in the present. Sorry, but that smells of bullshit. The differences between Bush/Reagan and Obama are which party they belong to, or the color of skin. Or is it something else? It seems to me to be a choice or combination of party and/or skin color. If the OP had said “I was all over Bush for this too”, then I’d think it was really about spending. But I didn’t see that. Did I miss it?
For example, do a board search for threads about TARP and see how many of the board’s conservatives were happy about it. You won’t find many. Why, if you go farther back, you can even find people like me who went on record against the costly wars Bush started.
Part of the problem with people saying “But when Bush was president you didn’t complain about $!!” is that they actually believe people like Pelosi who have tortured statistics to hide the fact that Obama is on the fast track to outspending Bush by a wide margin. Already Obama has raised the ratio of debt as a percentage of GDP by over 3x as much in 2.5 years than Bush did in 8.
Well, some massive confusion here. Why all the hate first off? Secondly how in the world could you possibly know if I kept my mouth shut or not? Wether it makes a difference or not I didn’t keep silent about the spending during the Bush administation. However I don’t have a public sounding board so I guess you wouldn’t know that. I do find it strange however that you automatically ASSUME that I had no problem with the past administrations and their willingness to destroy our economy with irresponsible spending. Iguess you neglected to either read or understand the following quotes from my OP:
I would love to be able to prove my point and provide you with a SD thread in which I complained and showed my displeasure with Republican spending. However, I have only recently discovered SD and started posting here. The other forums that I stated that opinion in don’t archive like SD so I am unable to provide the link to prove my point. But once again, trying to bash me on that point does absolutely nothing to fix the problem of today. And while Bush was busy spending too much and causing our dollar to become weaker and weaker I was putting my money where my mouth is and buying as much gold and silver as I could to hedge my investments. And a smart thing I did, for those investments have served me well.
Sure I do, but thoughts are one thing. Using them against someone, especially in a arena such as an internet forum is something I won’t and have never done. I was raised a bit better than that. As I stated before, I don’t give a flip what color you are if you are able to get the job done. In fact, it is my belief that most Republicans don’t. And to give credence to that thought I would point out the following: Clarance Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. All of African American decent. All in positions of power. All during Republican administrations. If we Republicans are as racist as we are portrayed, don’t you think other choices could have been made in the selection of the mentioned people?
I don’t like most of his policies. I do find it rather amusing however that he ran as the canadite of change and his actions are, as you pointed out, not much different than the previous administration. However in my opinion some are worse financially for the country. The first thing that pops into my head is his mandate for government controlled health care. It is my opinion that our government is not in anyway, shape or form in the position to see this mandate through. Although I think that it is a laudable goal, we can’t afford it. We don’t have the resources to see it through and are risking the financial life of our children and their children.
But overall my biggest problem with Obama was the promises of change and the promises of “fixing” everything when most of us knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell of it happening. It was sickening to watch his supporters during the election full of smug, buying everything he said hook, line and sinker. They were sold a bill of goods and it was sad to see. I vote Republican because as a whole they are more in line with the values that I and my family believe in. However, I am not niave enough to believe everything a right wing candidate has to say.
However, we are finding ourselves off topic once again. I really didn’t want this thread to evolve into a flame war about Obama and his policies. Rather I wanted to know why it seems impossible in this current climate for one to disagree with Obama without someone claiming it is his race that we don’t care for.
Please see my follow up post and you will see that I sure did have a problem with spending. The government spends more than it takes in and we can’t keep doing that. You or I can’t do that in our lives and they can’t do it with our country’s life.
And I have to confirm my comment that it doesn’t matter what any other President spent. It is in the past and using if for justification now is useless. Doing the same wrong thing and justifying it by saying someone else did it before only ends up acomplishing one thing and one thing only. Doing the wrong thing.
“Came to your senses”? You talk like that about liberals, yet you get angry when people think less of you for being a Republican.
Hardly; your OP started with an insult of your opponents. You come across as another right winger who can dish it out but who can’t take it.
That describes Republicans a lot more than Democrats, you are projecting. And a link to the discussion would make it possible for the rest of us to judge if you were racist or not.
If you are a Republican, then you either are racist or support racists because that’s what the party is. The Republicans have been overwhelmingly dominated by racists for decades. It’s only natural for someone willing to support the Republicans to be suspected of racism. And on top of that much of the right wing hatred towards Obama is clearly racist in origin.
Wow, wow and wow. Do you feel much better now? It is becoming quite apparant as to what the answer is to my question.
If you want to see the thread I am discussing, feel free to click my SD name and you can view all of the threads I have posted in. I am certianly not hiding anything.
Beyond that you have already bored me with your apparent hate of the right. So, I see absolutely no point in trying to debate your post with you, it will lead around in a big circle. Too much effort to end up right back in the same exact place.
But on second thought I will ask you one question. Can you possibly give me one, just one mind you, reason that anyone would stoop not only low enought to accuse another of racism during a discussion that has in itself nothing at all to do with race AND why it is okay for that same person to throw around the word “nigger”? A word that I don’t use on the internet or in real life.
My comments were quite mild. You need to grow thicker skin if you want to discuss things with people who actually disagree with you.
And I’m not interested in wading though your 287 posts to try to find something you refuse to link to.
He or she no doubt used the word to underline what they thought was actually going though your head. And I can’t comment much on what you said since you refuse to link to it, except to reiterate that by being a Republican you at the very least support racism whether you intend to or not since the party itself is racist.
Okay, first off my skin is plenty thick. Your comments were not only mild but without a doubt one of the most stupid things I have read in a long time. You showed that you aren’t interested in the topic. You are interested in showing your hate of the right. You don’t like the right, fair enough but save it for another thread.
From your previous post, but I might as well answer it. Notice how I said MY sensees. Not YOUR senses, nor did I say anything to the effect that ALL liberals are completely nuts for their beliefs. A political belief is a very personal thing. When I made the decision to no longer support the views of the left I did so because I felt that it was the correct thing to do. In essence I came to MY senses. As far as what anyone “thinks” of me for being a Republican I couldn’t give a flip. Just as I am sure that you don’t really care if someone thinks your being a Democrat mean much to you. I do however care that someone would label me a racist though I never mentioned race. I don’t like racist and I sure as hell don’t want to be labled one. If I am something, then by all means feel free to comment on that, but don’t sit there and try to support your political views by stooping as low as one can possibly go.
I am not refusing to link to anything. Re-reading this thread I fail to find anywhere that I stated “I won’t tell you what thread it is”, but then agian I never mentioned race in the other one, but that didn’t stop someone insinuating racism. But don’t let the truth get in the way of your attempt to make a point. I posted quite clearly the relavent sections of the post and made it very clear that the thread I was discussing had to do with Obama’s spending. A quick click of my stats and a scroll down the first page would have easily lead you to the correct thread. With your attitude of superiority I would think that it would have been quite easy for you to quickly find the thread in question.
So, I see you are EXACTLY the kind of person the would resort to using the word “nigger” and throw the racism card out to try to win your argument. ‘’ How would you or the poster I was refering to have any idea what was in my head? It sure wasn’t based on what I posted, but once again, don’t let the facts get in the way of you trashing another persons character.
I guess you are right though. We Republicans, the party of the racist. We certianly aren’t the party the put Clarence Thomas on the bench (boy I wonder who was against him? But that was only for his politics right? It had nothing to do with his race?), had an African American Secretary of State, Conoleezza Rice and a Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell who happens to also be African American. Jeez, how the hell did we let that happen? What? We aren’t the racist that you claim we are?
For someone who says it’s time to stop blaming the other guy, you sure spend a lot of time blaming Obama.
You append some of your comments with “but even that doesn’t matter”, and “I really didn’t want this thread to evolve into a flame war about Obama and his policies”, which is a weaselly tactic in a debate.
If you think people should stop blaming the other guy, then stop doing it yourself. If you think certain statements aren’t relevant to this discussion, don’t post them.
Another out of text commentary. First off, in my origional post I only mentioned my critisism of Obama so the context of my question could be more clearly understood.
Secondly, in the following discussions where I mention my disagreement to Obama’s policies I am responding to the comments of others. Now unless you think I can reasonable resond to a comment without discussing the facts you might have a point.
And lastly, it does matter what Obama is doing and it doesn’t matter now what previous administrations have done. Why? Because we can’t change what has happened in the past. So how is it that my thought of quit blaming the other guy, it is your responsibility now doesn’t hold up? Should we just continue on the wrong path because that’s the way it has always been done? I am glad we didn’t take that stand with issues such as Civil Rights and Women’s Sufferage. If we did, we would still be using the same practices we did in 1850 wouldn’t we?
Okay, let’s start here: assuming for the moment that you lack a racist bone in your body, which is assuming a lot, you certainly tolerate racists and support them merely by dint of lending your support to the Republicans. At the very least, you support the party holding a far higher proportion of stone racists whose votes you rely on to remain viable as a party.
This is probably a hijack of the question of your own personal racism, so I’ll just argue this point arguendo for another moment, but I would suggest that while there are millions of racists in each major party, there are many millions more in the Republican Party right now than in the Democratic Party, and those in the Democratic Party must be much subtle in their outward racism, because Democrats are not tolerant of racism, nor of its expression, but they still do have (and acknowledge) their duty to expose racists and to oppose them, because racism is wrong.
Republicans OTOH make excuses for racism and try to minimize it or even to deny it, as you are doing here. The Dems were saddled with this issue when (1865-1965, roughly) they were the party that housed and supported racism, but to their credit, as LBJ acknowledged at the time, they were willing to lose the support of racism for at least a generation to come out in support of Civil Rights legislation, and that is exactly what has happened. The racists in the U.S., by and large, have found a home in the Republican Party, and you are unwilling to acknowledge that, much less do anything about their noxious presence.
So at the very least you are guilty (as Dems used to be) of tolerating racism and racist policies within your own party, which is at least tacit support of racism. I’d think that the majority of tacit racists would have at least some racism themselves, but we can start here. If you’re not willing to denounce the racists in your own Party, no argument needs to made about your own personal racist beliefs. Are you?