Pardon me if I’m not shocked by the latent racism displayed in Hillary Clinton’s campaign this season. Anyone who’s been listening to the Democrats talk about race for the past 20 years should be unsurprised. It is too much to hope that a party enamored with nonsensical bean counting will implode as a result of this perfect storm of identity politics. Perhaps though, this could be the beginning of the end of identity politics itself. We can only hope.

Ferraro

“I’m sorry, I said nothing negative,” she told FOX News earlier Wednesday. “I care about the black vote in this country. I really don’t think this is right that they should attack me as racist.”

Of course she doesn’t think she said anything negative. This is how the Democratic party leadership has logically considered race within the mind of the electorate for years. Black people vote for black people, women vote for women, hispanics for hispanics… etc. Who can forget Bill Clinton pardoning members of the FALN during Hillary’s campaign for Senate in 1999 in an effort to court the Puerto Rican vote in New York?  It should come as no surprise to find Ferraro assessing the political landscape based soley on race. That is the ideology of the party.

Here’s more:

Those backwards Mississippians

“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress,” Clinton told the paper. “There has got to be something at work here. How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.’”

Translation: Mississippi is mostly backwards - and black. In light of Ferraro’s comments, is it surprising that Hillary made this statement?

How about this comment from her husband:

Oops.

Even with this presumably innocent comment, what else can she mean:

…as he should have…

“I’m well aware that Senator Obama has an enormous amount of support here, as he should, as he should have,” Clinton said. “Some people have said ‘Well Mississippi is very much a state that will most likely be in favor of Senator Obama.’ I said ‘Well, that’s fine,’ but I want people in Mississippi to know I’m for you.”

Why should he? Why “should he have” support in Mississippi? The answer of course is that he’s black and the large population of black people in Mississippi are going to vote for a black candidate. IE: they are incapable of thinking independently. This is what Hillary Clinton and those within her campaign think. It’s been painfully obvious and percolating just below the surface for this entire election season. In fact, it’s been around far longer but the beauty of Obama vs. Clinton is that the campaign has brought this logic into the spotlight. This is the intellectual hole that Democrats who think like Hillary Clinton have been digging themselves into for years.

You see, the peddalers of identity politics have no respect for the communities which they divide. How could they? If your opinion of a community of people is that they reduce complex political decisions to skin color, you have no respect for that community. It’s that simple.

In reality, the backward thinking is not in the electorate. It’s in the upper reaches of the Democratic party - and it has been there for a long time. Whatever conservatives and the right think of Barack Obama’s liberalism - he is changing the mentality of race and gender in politics and hopefully in the Democratic party. Perhaps this is bad news for those who want another Republican President; but if it spells the death knell of identity politics - it is good news for this country.

It is important I think to note here that when Acton refers to “minorities” he’s referring specifically to minorities of opinion. Our understanding of minorities today has been so corrupted by political correctness and antiseptic groupthink that we often fail to understand that minorities of condition (race, gender, sexual orientation and other accidents of birth) are separate and apart from the minorities that Acton, Tocqueville, many in the founding generation and other classical liberals (not Al Franken liberals) referred to.

It is not that race or gender cannot be part of such minorities and indeed, we know well from history that they can be wholly oppressed based on their condition. But minorities here refer to democratic minorities - opposed in other words to majority opinion. For example: smokers, gun owners, people who don’t wear seat belts, snowboarders, sky divers, people who love cheeseburgers… individuals who take advantage of the freedom of this country to pursue their own happiness in the manner in which they see fit. Sometimes racial or ethnic minorities are part of democratic minorities but the concept that the thinking of any person can be confined by the accidents of his or her birth is anathema to every notion of classical liberalism. In other words: blacks can be Republican, white men can be liberal, homosexuals can be radical conservatives and women can be Patriarchal traditionalists. Conditions of birth do not dictate habits of mind. That is the essence of freedom of conscience.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. From The History of Freedom in Antiquity:

“Two men’s lives span the interval from the first admission of popular influence, under Solon, to the downfall of the State. Their history furnishes the classic example of the peril of Democracy under conditions singularly favourable. For the Athenians were not only brave and patriotic and capable of generous sacrifice, but they were the most religious of the Greeks. They venerated the Constitution which had given them prosperity, and equality, and freedom, and never questioned the fundamental laws which regulated the enormous power of the Assembly. They tolerated considerable variety of opinion and great licence of speech; and their humanity towards their slaves roused the indignation of even the most intelligent partisan of aristocracy. Thus they became the only people of antiquity that grew great by democratic institutions. But the possession of unlimited power, which corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding of monarchs, exercised its demoralising influence on the illustrious democracy of Athens. It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. The humblest and most numerous class of the Athenians united the legislative, the judicial, and, in part, the executive power. The philosophy that was then in the ascendant taught them that there is no law superior to that of the State - the lawgiver is above the law.

It followed that the sovereign people had a right to do whatever was within its power, and was bound by no rule of right or wrong but its own judgment of expediencey. On a memorable occasion the assembled Athenians declared it monstrous that they should be prevented from doing whatever they chose. No force that existed could restrain them; and they resolved that no duty should restrain them, and that they would be bound by no laws that were not of their own making. In this way the emancipated people of Athens became a tyrant; and their Government, the pioneer of Europen freedom, stand condemned with a terrible unanimity by all the wisest of the ancients. They ruined their city by attempting to conduct war by debate in the marketplace. Like the French Republic, they put their unsuccessful commanders to death. They treated their dependencies with such injustice that they lost their maritime Empire. They plundered the rich until the rich conspired with the public enemy, and they crowned their guilty by the martyrdom of Socrates.

While the absolute sway of numbers had endured for near a quarter of a century, nothing but bare existence was left for the State to lose; and the Athenians, wearied and despondent, confessed the true cause of their ruin. They understood that for liberty, justice, and equal laws, it is as necessary that Democracy should restrain itself as it had been that it should restrain Oligarchy. They resolved to take their stand once more upon the ancient ways, and to restore the order of things which had subsisted when the monopoly of power had been taken from the rich and had not been acquired by the poor. After a first restoration had failed, which is only memorable because Thucydides, whose judgment in politics is never at fault, pronounced it the best Government Athens had enjoyed, the attempt was renewed with more experience and greater singleness of purpose. The hostile parties were resolved to govern by concurrence. The laws, which had the sanction of tradition, were reduced to a code; and no act of the sovereign assembly was valid with which they might be found to disagree. Between the sacred lines of the Constitution which were to remain inviolate, and the decrees which met from time to time the needs and notions of the day, a broad distinction was drawn; and the fabric of a law which had been the work of generations was made independent of momentary variations in the popular will. The repentance of the Athenians came too late to save the Republic. But the lesson of their experience endures for all times, for it teaches that government by the whole people, being the government of the most numerous and most powerful class, is an evil of the same nature as unmixed monarchy, and requires, for nearly the same reason, institutions that shall protect it against itself, and shall uphold the permanent reign of law against arbitrary revolutions of opinion.”

In this clip: The Mom represents the Democrats, the Dad represents the Republicans, Aunt Clara represents Hillary, the pink bunny is Hillary's universal health coverage and Ralphie is the American taxpayers.

Just because you believe you're doing good doesn't necessarily mean that the effect on other people is going to be positive. Ralphie would have done better with cash in an envelope becaue of course Ralphie knows better than anyone else what he really wants.

Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism is a must read for anyone interested in politics today. It is a compelling historical analysis of the left wing in the 20th century. I'm not finished yet but what I've seen so far is an extraordinary amount of research and thought behind his thesis. Agree or disagree, his discussion is compelling and englightening. His grasp of history and political theory is rare amongst modern so-called pundits.

Goldberg's description of modern left wing "fascism" is very similar to Alexis de Tocqueville's vision of what tyranny might look like in America as he imagined it in the 1830's. Tocqueville was indeed a prophet. It is a shame more Americans today do not know of his eloquence:

"It would seem that, if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them ... When I consider the petty passions of our contemporaries, the mildness of their manners, the extent of their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which they almost all observe in their vices no less than in their virtues, I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but rather with guardians.

I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate; the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it.

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an inumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasure with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is a stranger to the fate of all the rest - his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasure, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Thus, it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The pirnciple of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

After having then successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It coves the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

I have always though that the servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itsellf under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutleary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; that gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by reflecting that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons but the people at large, who hold the end of his chain.

By this system, the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the poeple; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience."

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

We are told that the Second Amendment does not really protect our right to bear arms.  Nevermind what it says of course.  If you were to do that, you might think it preserves the right of all Americans to bear arms without any interference from the federal government.  If you consider history logically, you will notice that the Bill of Rights was a document conceived in succor to those who opposed any organized central government at all.  The idea that a document which was intended to appease anti-federalist fear of a single, powerful central government could ever contain restrictions to the rights of a person or a state is perposterous.  After all, why would individuals afraid of the new Constitution demand a statement in the original Bill of Rights further restricting their rights?

A lot has been written based on what I believe is a common misconception that the Founders were only looking to militias when they authored the Second Amendment.  They weren't concerned about the individual's freedom to own a gun, they were afraid that the power of a State to keep militias would be usurped in favor of a federal army that would someday disarm them.  Well, that's exactly what happened by the way - it was called the Civil War.  But I digress...

What follows is an excerpt from the text of a bill of rights proposed by the minority members of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention who were opposed to the new Constitution.  It is this anti-federalist sentiment which actually spawned our current Bill of Rights.  Professor Ralph Ketcham explains further:

"The address was subsequently reprinted often in Pennsylvania and other states, becoming in some way a semi-official statement of anti-federalist objections to the new Constitution."

Here is Amendment Seven to that document:<BR>

"That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and their own state, or the Unites States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up:  and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil powers."

You will notice that the statement outlines very clearly an individual's right to keep arms for self defense and hunting - two activities we are told were never envisioned when the Second Amendment was authored.  This statement of course is not what was finally authored but it is, as Dr. Ketcham points out, a clearer view into the minds of the anti-federalists.  There is no singular magical "Founding Fathers' View" of the Constitution but it is beyond question that both the rights of the individual and the State were on the minds of the Founding generation when the Bill of Rights was devised and ratified.

 

Hello all. New to Townhall.com, though not to blogging as you will find if you read my profile. I tend to be conservative with a serious libertarian bent. Here's something recent from my existing blog. Not sure if this is taboo. If so, I implore the moderators to please show mercy and direct me aright (pun intended). Thanks...



The discussions about race and gender in this country have become so tiring and detached from reality that it's difficult to believe we continue to have them at all. A candidate's race or gender is irrelevant to their qualifications as President of the United States. The vast majority of Americans know and believe this. Those pushing the issue want to have it both ways. Consider Gloria Steinem:

Both Ways

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule.

Sorry but the statement that Hillary Clinton has "no masculinity to prove" is sexist. The implication Steinem makes is that a man is less qualified than a woman because of his presumed need to assert his masculinity. This then is a crutch defined exclusively by gender - something that we are to believe Steinem has spent a lifetime trying to battle. Earlier in the article, she makes this statement:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

You can't have it both ways. You can't lament the tendency for voters to make qualification judgments based on sex as sexist and then immediately reveal that your own personal judgment is based on sex. Steinem, angry with the "polarization of gender roles", proceeds to polarize them even more.

Suppose Sean Hannity were to make the following statement: "I'm voting for Fred Thompson because he has more Senate experience, the ability to rally untapped resources because of his acting exposure and no femininity to protect." He would be lambasted by the Gloria Steinems of the world for daring to mention gender as an issue in an election. That is what you call a double standard.

The reason race and gender continue to generate such "polarizing" discussion is because of the sensationalist media's obsession with it and the oversized influence that fringe groups with small followings and big mouths have as a result of that obsession.

Pundits such as Gloria Steinem, Al Sharpton, Naomi Wolf and the rest continue to make race and gender an issue because they derive power and relevance from it. Certainly there is - and always will be - racism and sexism as a component of the electorate just as there will always be ignorance, hypocrisy, misinformation, class mentality, jingoism, etc. However, gender and race are no longer questions of equality as they once were. They are levers used by small interest groups to exercise power.

Women can flock in number to Hillary Clinton and it's considered wonderful, fresh, new, exciting. Men can flock away from her and we're just a bunch of sexists. Absurd. Not only that, but the perceptions that women will vote for Hillary because she's female or blacks will vote for Obama because he's black are sexist and racist presumptions. They are an insult to an electorate far more sophisticated than it gets credit for.

Another discussion on it:

Double Standard?

"The focus on the clothes and the figure and the hairdo — not only are they not used with male candidates, they're used to trivialize Hillary Clinton," Gandy said.

They most certainly are used to trivialize male candidates. Have we forgotten Nixon's loss to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 debates because of his scruffy beard and poor makeup? How about Bill Clinton and his boyish good looks vs. stodgy old George Senior? Physical appearance has been an issue in elections at least since the advent of television - and most likely much longer than that. The idea that such issues are confined to women is preposterous. Nevertheless, the statement is accepted without objection.

Here's another article written last year by Susan Estrich. I find it astounding:

Estrich

What difference does it make if you have women at the table if they don’t exercise their clout as women? ... If promoting women isn’t part of the answer, why should women particularly care?

This is precisely my point. Estrich here lays bare the truth of the feminist movement. It no longer has anything to do with equality or a fair shot for women. Instead, it is about power, access to power and women exercising that power as a gender - precisely in a manner they criticize men for doing. Estrich is not looking to eradicate sexism - she's looking to institutionalize her own version of it.

This is nothing new. It merely exemplifies the problem human beings have with power. No group of humans - be they defined by gender, race, occupation, social status, wealth, party affiliation or whatever else you care to conjure - is capable of responsibly wielding power. The essential point of feminism at one time was equality. That time - whatever Estrich or Steinem want to tell you - has long since arrived. Consequently, the relevance of the feminist movement has passed. America has moved on. It is time for the media and those in political power to recognize that fact - and move on with the rest of us.

"We have got to understand, this is not about us personally. It's about what we are trying to do for this country," Edwards said to applause from the audience.

Clearly, Edwards meant to say "It's about what we are trying to do TO this country."

Democrats