I cannot add to it.
Some sanity about civil rights
Shelby Steele writes in the Wall Street Journal about the current state of the civil rights establishment today, and unlike most of what I’ve read in the past week he states his case with both dispassion and compassion:
The purpose of today’s civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This idea of victimization is an example of what I call a “poetic truth.” Like poetic license, it bends the actual truth in order to put forward a larger and more essential truth—one that, of course, serves one’s cause. Poetic truths succeed by casting themselves as perfectly obvious: “America is a racist nation”; “the immigration debate is driven by racism”; “Zimmerman racially stereotyped Trayvon.” And we say, “Yes, of course,” lest we seem to be racist. Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason.
In the Zimmerman/Martin case the civil-rights establishment is fighting for the poetic truth that white animus toward blacks is still such that a black teenager—Skittles and ice tea in hand—can be shot dead simply for walking home. But actually this establishment is fighting to maintain its authority to wield poetic truth—the authority to tell the larger society how it must think about blacks, how it must respond to them, what it owes them and, then, to brook no argument.
The Zimmerman/Martin tragedy has been explosive because it triggered a fight over authority. Who gets to say what things mean—the supporters of George Zimmerman, who say he acted in self-defense, or the civil-rights establishment that says he profiled and murdered a black child? Here we are. And where is the authority to resolve this? The six-person Florida jury, looking carefully at the evidence, decided that Mr. Zimmerman pulled the trigger in self-defense and not in a fury of racial hatred.
And here, precisely at the point of this verdict, is where all of America begins to see this hollowed-out civil-rights establishment slip into pathos. Almost everyone saw this verdict coming. It is impossible to see how this jury could have applied the actual law to this body of evidence and come up with a different conclusion. The civil-rights establishment’s mistake was to get ahead of itself, to be seduced by its own poetic truth even when there was no evidence to support it. And even now its leaders call for a Justice Department investigation, and they long for civil lawsuits to be filed—hoping against hope that some leaf of actual racial victimization will be turned over for all to see. This is how a once-great social movement looks when it becomes infested with obsolescence.
The plain fact is this- white folk were rightly expected to do something about the Bull Connors and the Lester Maddoxes and the George Wallaces in our midst- and we did. It was a long, painful process, and not entirely successful. Human nature is what it is.
But they no longer have any power to go with their bigotry.
I was raised in the Fifties and Sixties to never judge a man by his ethnicity, but by his character. So were most of my peers- and I grew up in a small North Georgia town.
Now it is time for the black folk to do the same to the haters and civil rights profiteers, the Al Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons and the Reverend Wrights in their community. This is not an unfair or an unreasonable request. The plain fact is the black folks have to tend to their own business- they have to make the change. Otherwise we’ll continue down this bad road to a worse end.
Us creepy-ass crackers can’t do it for you, and rightly so. You need to clean your own house, and own the results.
Else, you really are going to own the results.
“He would not have made it”
Some words from the Diplomad:
Many years ago I was asked to address a class of new FSOs at the Foreign Service Institute in Northern Virginia. These new officers were about to go overseas on their first assignments. Since I had served in Pakistan, the instructor told me to expect to hear concerns from female officers heading to Muslim countries. I gave my little insipid pep talk. In the Q-and-A session, as the instructor had predicted, a woman officer asked how tough it would be for her in a Middle Eastern Muslim country. I still have the notes of what I said, “If you’re a woman get out of the Foreign Service. If you’re a man get out of the Foreign Service. If you’re black, brown, or white get out. If you’re Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or anything else, get out. When you’re out there, you’re an American. You represent only the United States, nothing else. You cannot let your interlocutors see you as anything other than as an American representing the USA.”
This President would not have made it through that class.
Nope.
Thoughts from Bin Laden
A new article from the BBC quotes documents purported to be from ‘the man himself’, and give some interesting insights:
The letters reveal that Bin Laden was also sceptical of so-called lone wolf missions by homegrown jihadists.
He urged his associates “not to send a single brother on a suicide operation; they should send at least two”.
He added that in cases when only one militant undertook an operation the “percentage of success was low due to psychological factors that affect the [designated] brother in such a situation”.
Other papers suggest Bin Laden ordered his militants to look out for opportunities to assassinate President Obama or David Petraeus during any of their visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr Petraeus, now CIA director, formerly commanded international forces in Afghanistan.
But Bin Laden warned them not to bother targeting Vice-President Joe Biden because “Biden is totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis.”
OUCH. I guess we’re not the only folks unimpressed by Slow Joe.
link via Ace
Yeah, it’s overdone, but- “Miss Me Yet?”
via Insty
News Flash!
News flash: National guard units in Massachusetts seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.
Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order. The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.
Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.
One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.” Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans. During a tense standoff in Lexington ‘s town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right-wing extremists. Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange
Ironically, the local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units. Colonel Smith, finding his forces overmatched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat.
Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, remain at large.
And this, people, is how the American Revolution began.
April 20, 1775
via Mehibatel33 at the Belmont Club
A reminder
Lest we forget:
[uber_audio id=”10″ accent_color=”#ed2828″ second_color=”#cccccc” playlist=”5″ ui=”light” width=”225px”]
Remixed for your listening pleasure…
Meekness of the mob
“Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.” G. K. Chesterton
via Gerard
Storm’s a-comin’
Miz Althouse points out the background to this picture:
The only two competent leaders on that sideways monolith are Ms. Merkel and Bad Vlad. Storm’s a-comin’ indeed.
Other voices
…presented without comment.
Modern Life
via GoodShit
A bitter truth
Those who are looking for a smoking gun that will finally, once and for all, prove The Preznit is ultimately culpable for the misbehavior of his subordinates are doomed to be disappointed. As Limbaugh said, mentioning the American Thinker Article, there is not nor will there be a smoking gun to link Obama to any of the current scandals.
From Ace of Spades:
So all Obama has to do is publicly castigate and demonize his those who oppose his policies (which he has done many times), and thugs like Eric Holder and Lois Lerner swing into action. No need for anyone to tell them what to do. They know what pleases Obama, and they will use the means at their disposal to carry out his wishes, to wit: to suppress and neutralize his enemies. Conservatives get on Obama for being a crappy leader, but that’s not completely accurate. This is leadership. It’s leadership, Chicago-style.
The lack of direct documentary evidence linking Hitler to genocide is interesting and if he had been captured alive, I’m not sure how the Nuremberg prosecutors would have built a case against him. Especially if he had pulled an Obama, thrown Himmler and Goering under the bus and piously claimed that the first time he had heard of the whole death camp thing was when he had read about them in the papers.
So…
It’s at the point that a wholesale housecleaning is needed- not just in the elected ranks, which, face it, is easy enough to do if enough people get motivated. The bigger housecleaning is going to be among the ranks of the civil servants- those who look on government work as a career in and of itself and not a temporary, mildly distasteful duty. Those are the ranks that have a vested interest in a government that grows ever bigger. Those are the people who are 90% aligned with the progressive movement. Until a solution is found for them, nothing will ever really change.
Perhaps a rail, tar, and feathers (some assembly required) for the most egregious of them is what’s needed- Pour encourager les autres.
Tap It
Res Ipsa Loquitur
via the whole damn ‘net
“Not a Serf or Vassal”
Speak it, sister!
via Miz Ann
From her commentariat:
What in effect we have as of right now base on this IRS testimony is a shakedown protection racket mob style, with Don Urkel at its head and the rest of the families that make up the cabinet. That’s what the federal government has now become, the mob, the mafia, and yet, I don’t see a single one of them that work within it coming up against any RICO statutes. But then again, why would they impugn their own. That’s like grading your own final. Hey, guess what,m I got a 100%. I’m awesome. Not even Sebelius who has admitted as much. You can’t have a mob state and think to yourself that it will go on, in this way much longer. Everyone can see it and they are disgusted by it, well, except for the sycophantic leftist citizenry that thinks giving the big fuck you to republicans and conservatives is what they deserve.
The natives are restless. Can you hear the drums?
All said in picture(s)
If you need an explanation, you’re too far gone. Via Ace
We’re still FOUR million FULL TIME jobs short of where we were in December of 2007.
Both those numbers courtesy of the BLS, if one cares to dig a little. And I believe those numbers are cooked, as well, to make the current thugs in office look better than they are
Ice, I think a lot of things are being cooked these days. I can appreciate what it must have been like in Dusseldorf around 1937.
But every once in a while, the truth slips out.
This was his real rating before sandy, and probably was after. At this point, they can’t lie too hard or they’ll be found out.
Diplomad:
I do not hear discussion about whether we need none, little, some, or a lot of immigration, and if we do, what type of immigration we should seek. Do we need millions more of semi and unskilled people from Mexico and other poor countries? Absent widespread elimination or reduction in minimum wage, taxation, public assistance, and zoning laws, how will these people contribute to the economic growth of our country? This is not nineteenth century America with small factories and workshops on every street corner, and belching smokestack industries eager for cheap workers. This is the America of EPA regulations, OSHA bureaucrats, job killing minimum wage and health insurance laws, outsourcing, and of a growing ethos that sees single parents living on the public dole as an honorable existence. It is also the America of multiculturalism whereby immigrants are encouraged never to become Americans.
The rubbish being put out by Obama and others on the taxes that these new immigrants will pay is just that rubbish. They will draw public assistance and not pay taxes. What impact will this continuing flood of poor migrants have on the job and advancement prospects of struggling poor and middle class black, white and brown Americans? I haven’t heard much said about that, but I predict it won’t be good.
Is our immigration law going to continue based on the idea of family reunification? Will adults be able to petititon for their adult sublings and those siblings families? Will we continue to ignore promises that the new immigrants will not become a public assistance burden? If so, we are in for an endless cascade of new immigrants petitioning for their relatives and on and on and on. Yes, sure, technically we will have solved the “illegal alien” problem by making them all legal. Is that what is best for our country, I stress for our country not for the Democratic party?
Bob Owens:
There were forty-seven shot and seven killed in Chicago over the weekend. This occurred in the heartland of America, in a city in which boasts of the strictness of its gun laws.
This is greater carnage that the low-grade war still being waged across Iraq between government forces and various insurgent groups.
This is comparable to our losses in the entire Afghan war zone over the same time period.
This is comparable to the dead and injured in continued fighting between factions in Libya.
This comparable to Turkey’s riots which have garnered international condemnation.
This is only slightly less than the casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Despite the bodies filling the morgue and screaming wounded filling emergency rooms, progressives insist this third-world conflict in Cook County is a model of how strict gun control makes citizens safer.
Tell us another lie. This one isn’t working.
Instapundit:
TENNESSEE WAS ONE OF THE LAST STATES TO PUT PHOTOS ON DRIVER’S LICENSES, and people who objected were called paranoid. But now: State photo-ID databases become troves for police. “The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations. The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for ‘law enforcement purposes.’”
Nope. No comment. None needed.