You may say, "oh that’s all well and good but that was a long time ago what have you done for me lately?"Ingrates!
I think what happened during the Great Depression was that African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights but they became impatient for economic emancipation.
African Americans languished below white Americans in every measure of economic success and the Depression was especially harsh for those at the lowest rung of poverty.
The Democrats promised equalizing outcomes through unlimited federal assistance while Republicans offered something that seemed less tangible--the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets.In other words: The Democrats bribed you to forget all your old friends. No mention of Republican racial politics from the Compromise of 1877 to Nixon's Southern Strategy, nor of the traditional conservative attitude toward integration and equal rights, nor Jesse Helms, nor Strom Thurmond, et alia and ad nauseam. The Civil Rights Act Paul only mentioned defensively, as something from which he'd "never wavered" except for that part about using the power of the state to enforce it.
Layer in a generous helping of self-pity ("and when I think of how political enemies often twist and distort my positions... My hope is that you will hear me out, that you will see me for who I am, not the caricature sometimes presented by political opponents... Republicans are often miscast as uncaring or condemning...") and you've got a perfect speech -- not for the folks at Howard University, but for the commenters at Reason who seem to understand Paul perfectly ("Maybe Paul should have offered up more free shit since that seems to work so well").
So in that sense it was a great success.
unlimited federal assistance
ReplyDeleteThis is not a thing that happens.
Wall Street would beg to differ.
ReplyDeleteA poor, poor speech. The thing that stood out for me was he says "To understand how Republicans lost the African American vote, we
ReplyDeletemust first understand how we won the African American vote." Then blathers on for ages before never actually explaining why they lost it - apart from the dumb-as-fuck inference that the Democrats bought the black vote with handouts.
He ignored the opportunity to lance the boil and have an honest and open discussion about "moving forward" and how he was going to do things differently. But he didn't. Probably because the truth hurts.
Perhaps I was expecting too much.
Paul had a chance to rip up the old cheat sheet and try something different. Turns out he's just another shill for the "you won't like this medicine but you'll thank me later" bullshit.
*sigh*
... unless you're part of the military-industrial complex
ReplyDeleteDid he really claim that the Republican party "championed voting rights?" Oy...
ReplyDeleteI would love to have seen the faces of those Howard students as they listened to such tripe as "equalizing opportunity through free markets". No need for anti-discrimination laws in hiring. Why, if a small business refuses to hire a qualified Africana American, the market will fix that pronto. Somehow.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats promised equalizing outcomes through unlimited federal assistance.
ReplyDeleteSee, this is what happens when all you do is listen to the voices in your head (and the ones coming from Rush Limbaugh's ass). You get this imaginary notion of just what has happened in history, and your version turns out to be pure fantasy. So you get up in front of a bunch of learned people and embarrass the crap out of yourself.
Any wonder why Rand decided that the only possible way he's pass the opthamalogist's examine is if he wrote it himself?
Well, they do ... for the right people. And I do mean "right."
ReplyDeleteAfter a hard day of campaigning, I like to unwind with some Macaca Nut Brown Ale.... smooth and full bodied, it has 1/3 more macaca than our regular fear. I'm George Allen, and I approve this message.
ReplyDeleteOne only has to look at their sterling efforts in Florida and Ohio in recent elections.
ReplyDeleteWhat a whiner. "You won't have Rand Paul to kick around anymore!" That must have gone over well. Its the electoral equivalent of the pity fuck, I guess, that he's looking for.
ReplyDelete"Those Democrats tried to buy your vote, but not Republicans. Republicans known that the best way to make sure that no politician ever tries to buy the black vote is to make it as difficult for poor blacks to vote as possible. It's our way of keeping the playing field fair and balanced. Which is why you should vote Republican, depending of course on where you live and what laws are in effect."
ReplyDeleteTrent Lott's porch?Trent Lott's Porch!
ReplyDelete"... Republicans offered something that seemed less
ReplyDeletetangible--the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets."
Psst! Rand! You used "seemed less tangible" instead of "was transparent bullshit."
"... that you will see me for who I am, not the caricature sometimes presented by political opponents... "
Psst! Rand! You used "not" instead of "and."
"Republicans are often miscast as uncaring or condemning..."
Psst! Rand! You used "miscast" instead of "accurately portrayed."
the Depression was especially harsh for those at the lowest rung of poverty.
Psst! Rand! The EVOLution blimp crowd would like you to know that you left off "... because FDR took us off the gold standard." Just passing that one along.
The Democrats promised equalizing outcomes through unlimited federal assistance
Psst! Rand! You're a lying racist psychopathic shitbag. If the arc of the universe were bending correctly, right now you'd be crouching in a drainage ditch, chewing on a dead rat you found if you were lucky, you assboil on the body politic.
Yea, all that is apt, but you leave out the parts that very well could peal off more than a few votes that would otherwise go to democrats in the coming years. So much of the fun here is laughing at Republican's clownish attempts at appealing to the young; well, with the Pauls you have Republicans who are appealing to the young. It's not a bad idea to consider why their message is working to the extent it is, as well as to the extent it possibly could.
ReplyDeleteThe parts of the speech you left out, the parts about "choice in education, a less aggressive foreign policy, more compassion regarding non-violent crime, and opportunity in employment" are essentially liberal messages that liberals have abandoned, at least while Democrats are in power. And sure, the humongous-brained liberals amongst us can see past the lipstick on the pig, but those they refer to as "low information voters," which translated means something like "people with consistent values and a life not spent obsessing about politics," find these generally liberal ideas appealing.
As some have noted, I've recommended a very interesting article about Ron Paul's movement in the April edition of Harper's. Here's a little addendum to it that briefly discusses Rand: http://harpers.org/blog/2013/04/on-rand-paul-and-the-libertarian-statist-divide/
And just to be clear, the fact that I advocate learning about the Paul phenomena and considering its ramifications and possible consequences does not mean that advocate becoming a follower or voting for them. Quite the contrary. It would be nice, however, if we had actual liberals fighting for those particular liberal ideas rather than, or at least in addition to, the Pauls. I know a lot of those people who have consistent values and don't waste their lives obsessing over every single day's political propaganda are sick of watching the Democrats surrender just about every single liberal value for the sake of "Winning."
I totally don't understand how these people get up in the morning and face themselves in the mirror. Look: if you want to be anti-racist be anti racist. Pointing backwards in time to people who advocated the very same policies you do and saying "they are the real racists, not me!" ought to lead you, personally, to examine your actual policies.
ReplyDeleteI understand why Catholics don't like to take the blame for the pederasty of their priests, or why Jews like me don't like to take the blame for the behavior of Israel--we legitimately don't want to be held collectively guilty for the acts of others in our community with whom we share only a nominal identity. But for fuck's sake if you are a leading Senator in the Republican party and you are invited to speak at Republican events and your policies are, more or less, the policies of your party you ought at least to have some grasp of those actual policies and the intellectual honesty to admit that you are engaged in pursuing them.
Its why I"m always aghast at the Jonah Goldberg "Liberals are the real Nazis argument." There are, in fact, real life modern neo Nazis and they don't belong to the liberal party. Asking yourself why that is ought to be the first thing you do before you open your gob about Nazis in the first place.
"Using taxes to punish the rich, in reality, punishes everyone
ReplyDeletebecause we are all interconnected."
"Why punish the Wall Street Banker? He's gotta worry about whether his kids have clothes and if Johnny can afford to go to a state school, just like you. He too has to worry about if the bus is going to run today and where the next meal is coming from. When, oh when, will America stop hitting itself?"
Gutting public education for private, voucherized or home schooled fake education is not a liberal value that Paul is espousing. You'd have to be spectacularly ill informed--which I take it you are--to even make that argument. The millionaire's movement that backs "school reform" and vouchers is explicitly aimed at destroying free public education in this country and replacing it with vouchers that take education dollars straight from the taxpayers and feed it into corporations. Everyone seems to know this except you, Chuckling. This is precisely the same privitization movement that took over prisons and military support roles and has destroyed health care. It is a straight up grab for taxpayer dollars by corporations and has no other reason--although the rationale peddled to gullible voters and marks is, of course "choice" and "lowering costs while promoting quality."
ReplyDeleteThat some of the students who heard Paul were "libertarians" and thought that school "choice" might be an improvement over their underfunded local schools doesn't mean that its a good idea, just that there has not been sufficient liberal pushback against the stupidity, cupidity, and history of this idea.
Oh, I wouldn't say it couldn't work -- just that if it did work it would be a side-effect. There was no chance a speech like this would convince his immediate audience, so it was obviously meant to appeal to people who would read about it. And what I expect most of the actual target thinks is, "Good for him, he didn't back down."
ReplyDeleteAs to the effect on the youfs, I suppose it's possible they could think of Rand as a different kind of Republican, if by different you mean crazy.
I totally don't understand how these people get up in the morning and face themselves in the mirror.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the opening credits of Dexter, the protagonist managed it just fine.
Look: if you want to be anti-racist be anti racist.
I think we've finally found a non-fallacious version of denying the antecedent.
We are all interconnected? When did Aqua Buddha get all, well, Buddha about shit? I understand that his preferred voters still get giddy shouting "It takes a village!!"
ReplyDeleteI would be remiss if I didn't publish this salutary observation here:
Sarah Palin @SarahPalinUSA20h
Dear MSNBC, if our kids belong to you, do your kids belong to us too? If so, can we take them hunting after church in our big pickup truck?
Expand
TBogg @tbogg20h
@SarahPalinUSA Don't do it MSNBC! Or your kids will end up on meth and pregnant with children of their own with names like Sled or Tarp.
Hi
Well, you obviously missed, or misunderstood, my point about the gargantuan brained among us who know all about politics as opposed to the normally more intelligent folk who don't pay that much attention but actually care about traditional liberal values.
ReplyDeleteYou really should slow down and read closer before going off on these rants that are irrelevant to the post in question.
chuckling - agree with you wholeheartedly. However, this is basically a republican-bashing forum, so you won't get much traction here - especially when you point out the hypocrisy of many Democrats once they got into power.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like these token "minority outreach" efforts on the part of the GOP are done just so the politicians can afterward shrug and say "Well, I tried" and thus pretend that they're not racist.
ReplyDeleteSo, indeed, young Rand did leave a turd in the punchbowl, and expected to be praised for doing so. Not by his guests, of course, but by his comrades in arms in the Great Struggle.
ReplyDeleteIt's safe to say that his attempt at bringing more blacks into the big circus tent was all because they were short of waiters, busboys and clean-up staff in there. And because the fatcats in the party had no one left in there to lecture on the value of tugging on bootstraps.
What I really want to know, though, is did he arrive with bodyguards?
"choice in education, a less aggressive foreign policy, more compassion regarding non-violent crime, and opportunity in employment" are essentially liberal messages that liberals have abandoned, at least while Democrats are in power.
ReplyDeleteYou just can't help it, can you? From the speech:
I am working with Democratic senators to make sure that kids who make bad decisions such as non-violent possession of drugs are not imprisoned for lengthy sentences.
How is that possible? Liberals ignore the problems because they are hypocrites! That's the entire rationale of chuckling! It's interesting that you didn't include that. I wonder why?
And if you can't see the glaring problem with someone not believing in taxation while believing in "school choice", I know you are unserious about the problem. It's not choice which is the biggest issue, it's funding and quality of education.
Finally, "opportunity in employment"? Yeah, if only some liberal ever talked about such things.
However, you are absolutely right about Republicans pushing for a less aggressive foreign policy. It's unmissable. Liberals have totally abandoned any pretense of caring about reducing the Pentagon budget or calling for fewer wars. Not like the GOP.
Truly an ultra-leftist visionary!
ReplyDeleteaimai's already taken the unmitigated horseshit about "choice in education." So let's move along:
ReplyDeletea less aggressive foreign policy,
As his choice of filibuster theme demonstrated, he doesn't care how much we blow the shit out of brown people abroad, but at least he's just about the only Republican member of Congress who doesn't want to invade or nuke Iran. So vote GOP!
more compassion regarding non-violent crime,
Remind me again who he's working with in the Senate to make this happen? Primarily his fellow Republicans, right?
and opportunity in employment
Accomplished by eliminating government regulations, and abolishing the minimum wage and antidiscrimination laws.
I mean, really. That audience had plenty of "youths" in it; I wonder how many of them actually thought "Well, I'm sold!"
Yes! I kept waiting for his explanation of how the Republicans lost the African-American vote, and it wasn't there.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's Jay B in a nutshell. He never points out the hypocrisy of Democrats, that's for sure. What an O-bot.
ReplyDeleteIt also lets him solidify his image among the Village media as a dynamic new presence who is serious about reaching out to new constituencies and changing the Republican party, even though his "outreach" amounts to repeating the Same Old Shit they've been saying since Nixon.
ReplyDeleteSee also: all the MSM swooning over Paul's "Libertarianism" that in reality is entirely within the lines of theocon/plutocon/neocon boundaries of the modern GOP.
These were the prepared remarks. I'm going to guess that a recording will include either a lot of stony silence from the audience, or laughter.
ReplyDeleteAh, another angry internet commenter guy. Do you just wake up one day I appoint yourself hall monitor on someone else's blog?
ReplyDeleteChuckling, this is non responsive. What people think they are opting into in desperation isn't determinative of what actually happens. I live in the epicenter of busing and in a state where kids are still bussed out of their inner city schools to good suburban schools. We also have charters and I perfectly understand the difference between charters and vouchers. This does not, in fact, take a rocket scientist to know.
ReplyDeleteThe Charter school movement is related to the voucher movement because Charter schools occupy a space between public schools (being publicly funded) and private schools (having the right to refuse to educate certain kids, not being forced to use credentialed teachers, not having unionized teachers, not having to obey various local laws about classroom size, health care, textbooks etc...) In other words Charter schools are scab schools run on the taxpayers dime without taxpayer accountability. Kay over at Baloon Juice has written extensively about this and the role of large corporations in ripping off the taxpayer is extremely well known.
This has nothing to do, of course, with the personal experience of inner city parents trying to move their kids from underfunded local schools to better funded schools elsewhere--schools which they can't afford because they either can't afford to move to the suburbs or can't afford tuition at the remaining private schools.
I don't know why you keep dragging in the personal experiences of other people who got the short end of the stick in this economy. Its like arguing that the problems of the entire crew of the Titanic can be solved if one person manages to get into a lifeboat. Sure: everyone wants to get into the lifeboat and we don't fault them for climbing over the weaker members to do so. But you can't run a society on the principle of "sauve qui peut." Quite the contrary. Our goal as citizens ought to be to fight for every child's right to a top quality education near their home--safe and fully funded.
To the extent that the voucher/charter movement drains the local citizen base of initiative--distracts them from fighting for funding for all our kids--its seriously damaging to all our kids and to the cause of a good education for everyone. I don't have any criticism of those parents. But their interests as citizens are diametrically opposed to that of everyone else who can't take advantage of the life belt the corporations and rand paul are tossing them.
In fact: that's the whole bloody point. To keep the few parents with initiative occupied with fighting for their own little slice of the pie rather than fighting for fully funding their own neighborhood schools.
"To understand how Republicans lost the African American vote, wemust first understand how we won the African American vote."
ReplyDeleteIt is like a finger pointing at the moon. This finger, right here, on my right hand. Let me point at it using my other hand. This finger right here, look closely at it.
You think you don't come across as an "angry internet commenter guy?" Really? And I think a far better name for you would be "hall monitor and general scold to the world" rather than Chuckling.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul is against both of these things.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's funny to see someone point out that Democrats are surrendering just about every single liberal value, with no apparent awareness of whom they're surrendering to.
A lot of what's pushing it today is the desire of people, mostly minorities, living in bad neighborhoods with bad schools wanting to do better for their children.
ReplyDeleteAnd you think the Democrats aren't addressing this problem...Why? I mean, it's barely in the Democratic Platform and, while I might not have spoken to a black family once (more like a lot, but that's neither here nor there), I deal with public education literally every day. And it's often a conversation many parents have in Los Angeles all the time.
I BET YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ THAT HARPER'S ARTICLE.
ReplyDeleteAw, punkin.
ReplyDeleteYou're cute when you're angry.
Typical garganutan-brained contemptuous elitist, bringing "informal fallacies" and "reasoning" and "the sense God gave a turnip" into it.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice, however, if we had actual liberals fighting for those particular liberal ideas rather than
ReplyDeleteThere's lots of those people out there. Yes, even in Congress. Read the Progressive Caucus Budget. I don't know what your beef is. Maybe it's that they're not properly praising you for being the first person to ever have those ideas?
republican-bashing
ReplyDeleteEven if the Republicans weren't lying shitsacks bent on taking away every possible toe-hold on the economic ladder for the needy and disadvantaged as they relentlessly funnel the country's wealth to the already-wealthy, I'd bash them anyway.
Because I just can't help myself.
I do like how Ames gives examples of powerful elected officials as the "Establishment Right" who FEAR THE PAUL and has only media figures, and not necessarily highly-influential ones as the "Establishment Left" there.
ReplyDeleteIt's black people's fault, you see, for choosing the fish instead of being taught to fish. Those short-sighted black people! Racist, me? Where would you get that impression?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm merely a gargantuan-brained elitist who uses the internet, not a common, salt-of-the-earth political naïf who reads Harper's Magazine.
ReplyDeleteYes, Aimai, I understand all that, but Roy's conversation starter is about Republican outreach to minorities and my point is that Paul's emphasis on school choice (read better quality education) could peel off a few Democratic voters down the road. Same with being anti-big military, anti-corporate welfare, and anti-stupid drug laws. Ignoring what makes the Paul's as popular as they are with young people who would otherwise vote Democrat will not make the phenomenon go away; it will more likely help it grow.
ReplyDeleteI bet you don't even subscribe!
ReplyDeleteWelp, it turns out Chuck was right all along. Vacuous red-baiting is a traditional liberal value, unfortunately, and one which Democrats have largely surrendered. Watch out, the Youth will be all over that like flies on shit.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm sure playing Tom Friedman was fun, but here's the data: http://www.gallup.com/poll/122432/parents-rate-schools-higher-americans-overall.aspx
ReplyDelete76% of parents are satisfied with their own child's K-12 education, including, yes, 75% of public school parents. In fact, they're more likely to rank the education system at large lower than their own local school, i.e. the opposite of 'especially if their own kids are involved.'
There are problems with the public education system, yes. A lot of those problems are heavily concentrated in poor minority neighborhoods, I agree. The idea that there's some mass crisis in education and that vast amounts of desperate parents are waiting for a private school to save the day is nonsense, an invention by people who often went to the wealthiest prep schools in the country and haven't set foot in a classroom since they left. It's a scam they're running because they know there's lots of money to be had by dismantling the public education system and selling it off to their well-connected friends. I think you're falling for it because you really like being seen as bold and unconventional and must always be the smartest guy in the room-a sucker, in other words.
Well, excepting the drone argument does wonders, as does excepting the social security/medicare argument, and the big business argument, and the stupid drug war argument, and a host of other arguments. Why when you except all the arguments that detail Obama's Republican friendly positions and initiatives, he's quite the solid liberal.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's 100 percent certain you'll never find anywhere that I've said the Democrats aren't better than the Republicans on those issues. I'm just saying they're not good, certainly not good enough.
But of course you have to make stuff like that up or your whole angry internet commenter guy schtick looks even more ridiculous.
I agree with every word of that, but generally when you ask teachers themselves you get a more dismal portrait of the state of education. But those teachers' complaints mostly seem to stem from the inroads that have already been made into, as you said, "dismantling the public education system and selling it off to their well-connected friends."
ReplyDeleteWell no. An angry internet commenter guy launches personal attacks under the comments of others. You may note that I never launch personal attacks against anyone under their own comments, and very rarely attack their arguments. And almost always reply politely to polite disagreements with those who have problems with whatever I have to say. Of course I may reply in kind when personally attacked under my own comment, but that's outside the definition of angry internet commenter guy.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said before, in high school terms, which all the angry internet commenter guys should be able to understand: I'm not, nor would I ever aspire to be, the hall monitor. I'm the kid smoking dope out in the parking lot wishing the stupid fucking hall monitor types would just leave me the fuck alone.
Sure, it could "peel off a few votes." So what? Is it news that the Republican Party and its standard bearers are looking for ways to "peel a few votes" off the Democratic coalition without pissing off their own base voters? Its been in all the papers where I live.
ReplyDelete"Ignoring what makes the Pauls as popular as they are with young people who would otherwise vote Democratic will not make the phenomenon go away; it will more likely help it grow."
That has to be one of the funniest things I've ever read. Do you really think the young folks are reading Alicublog to find out whether the alte kockers think "the Pauls" are corporatist lackeys masquerading as principled libertarians? And that if they do find out that "the Pauls" are held in total contempt by people who have some knowledge of history and the economy they will, in some form of juvenile reaction formation, harden their hearts and become even more Paultardy? The first is unlikely and the second implausible. Not because young people don't stupidly get caught up in various political cults and fevers but because those usually burn out over time. The LaRouchies are still going strong(ish) but they have never constituted more than a fringe political element.
I agree both with Roy's point that he wasn't speaking to the immediate audience and with you that one of the speech's main purposes was to solidify his image among the Village media. Gotta say though, that being against interventionist military and going easy on drugs is not the same old shit they, at least not the Republicans, have been saying since Nixon.
ReplyDelete? You keep accusing other people of being angry like if you just say it enough you will win a prize. People are not angry with you at all--if anything I think people exhibit an incredible amount of patience in dealing with someone who persistently argues in bad faith, backpeddles from his own statements, misstates the facts, argues from anecdote, and accuses everyone else of lacking principles, common sense, or education (conversely you also accuse the same people of being overeducated but consistency is not your strongpoint). This whole "you are angry" shtick is really passive agressive--its so weird I can't even say I've ever come across it before as a general tactic--at least not from a man to other men. Its pretty commonplace for men to say it to women, though. Did you learn it from someone as a child? Does it work in your family? Did your mother say it to you to keep you from voicing your opinion?
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of this internet tradition that posting comments under other people's comments is an infringement on the liberty of the first comment to smoke dope in the parking lot.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you suppose, for instance, that Rand Paul hasn't introduced a bill to legalize marijuana, or to close foreign military bases? He's a US Senator, he's not some voice in the wilderness. Nothing's stopping him.
ReplyDeleteO mistress mine, where are you roaming?
ReplyDeleteO stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey's end in lovers' meeting—
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
I think you're right there, and also that Democrats are disappointing. I'm less sure this is the way other people look at politics -- "Obama sold us out to the bankers, I'm going to vote from the abortion-ban/anti-drone guy, he'll fix things."
ReplyDeleteIts the same old shit to say what you don't mean in order to get to power. Nixon had a "secret peace plan" you know. While at the exact same time he was undermining LBJ's actual peace talks. There's nothing new under the sun and never has been. Republicans have been, variously, isolationist and even hands off on the drug war at various times. Just because Rand Paul is the flavor of the weak (sic) doesn't mean that he's anything novel. He's just a garden variety fake iconoclast--a coporate stooge who chooses to emphasize state's rights because historically and obviously states are not able to deal effectively with multi-state, multi-national corporate rape.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats promised equalizing outcomes through unlimited federal
ReplyDeleteassistance while Republicans offered something that seemed less
tangible--the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets.
Of course, Paul ignores that fact that certain things always seemed to happen when African-American communities equalized opportunity through free markets.
Apparently, if you read DailyKos, that's more or less exactly what some Kossacks are thinking.
ReplyDeleteWell, he did use the past tense.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you think I'm falling for? Search all you want and you'll never find anywhere that I've said I favor vouchers. I've just said that "school choice" is something that appeals to a lot of low income and minority parents.
ReplyDeleteAnd your statistics and comments bolster my point. 25 percent or so of public school parents are dissatisfied with their school choice and the problems are heavily concentrated in minority neighborhoods; hence that's a large block of voters, especially minority voters, that Republicans can conceivably peel off from the Democratic coalition.
But you seem to be saying that the fact these problems with school satisfaction are concentrated in poor minority neighborhoods makes it into a sham problem. Really? I'm sure you don't mean to be saying that a problem is only a problem if it affects the white and affluent and it's a sham if it mainly affects the predominantly the poor and minorities, but that's sure what it sounds like?
You do realize that "choice in education" is code for "defunding public education", no? Of course, by championing "choice in education" on the primary school, middle school, or high school level, they are reducing actual choice in education on the college level.
ReplyDeleteBut isnt' that because the teachers are bearing the brunt of the anti-education high stakes testing regime, as well as union busting, failure to honor contracts, increased cost shifting as well as demonization of teachers that is ongoing in the society at large? Sure teachers are demoralized and underfunded--but that doesn't mean that they think teaching is a waste of time or that they aren't good teachers. Most of the teachers I know in the private school world used to fight to get into public school teaching because of the benefits/higher salary and because they wanted to teach everybody, not just the children of the priviliged. The only thing they valued in private school teaching was the high expectations and the autonomy that was offered them. They loved teaching, though and especially away from the high stakes testing that has ruined the lives of public school teachers.
ReplyDeleteYou make good points there. but I think the difference between the Pauls and Larouche like right wing nuts is that a big part of the Pauls' appeal comes from the parts of their message where they advocate things more associated with traditional liberal values. And it's not necessary to peel off a lot of votes to make a huge difference. Recall Nader in 2000 or in 1992.
ReplyDelete1) It is far from clear that the 25 percent is entirely minority/urban. In fact a huge portion of the voucher/homeschooling/charter school movement parents are white/christians seeking to avoid sending their kids to what they perceive to be interracial or atheistical public schools.
ReplyDelete2) Why accuse another poster of being a closet racist uninterested in the problems of minorities (the "sham") line. That's pointlessly hostile and ineffective given that SL has a rather long history here and on other blogs that all of us know.
3) Even if people are dissatisfied with their public school options that does not mean that they are so foolish as to believe that gutting the public school funding, transferring funding to private/charter schools will actually help their own children--let alone all the children in their neighborhoods. In fact the charter school scam is so virulent and vile that plenty of hopeful minority parents have fought for charter schools or places in charter schools only to find that their children languish in warehouses that are poorly supervised, with untrained staff, high staff turnover and that none of the promises that were made to them were kept. http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/05/02/gop-budget-rewards-white-hat-for-failing-ohios-children/
You keep talking about what people want (better education for their children)--and that's obvious. What is not obvious is how to get it and whether any one gimmick is a panacea. More to the point--why do you keep arguing as though minority parents are as gullible as you represent them to be. Hispanic and African American parents are generally more savvy than White ones about just how likely they are to be betrayed by the programs that propose to help them. Hispanic voters are extremely suspicious of the "charter" school movement--for example--and are not particularly interested in letting their children be used to subsidize corporate profits.
Well, excepting the drone argument does wonders, as does excepting the social security/medicare argument, and the big business argument, and the stupid drug war argument, and a host of other arguments. Why when you except all the arguments that detail Obama's Republican friendly positions and initiatives, he's quite the solid liberal.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can't believe I called you intellectually dishonest because that was totally, exactly, what I was talking about and you responded so totally on point that it's almost eerie. For example, when I pointed out that a Democrat, as we speak is proposing to cut Social Security, but that had nothing at all with what Rand Paul was liberally talking about it with the "liberal values" you say Democrats are hypocritically avoiding and that on those liberal values he's working with Democrats who are hypocritically avoiding all those liberal values Paul is talking about by, I don't know, working with him or something — It's obvious I was really angrily sucking up to Obama's banking policies.
It's clear at this point you can't read, but the voices in your head can, just very, very, very poorly. That, or again, I'll hold out that you are smart enough to just lie. There's really no middle ground here.
HINT: I DON'T THINK OBAMA IS A LIBERAL. Maybe that'll help. That or you can continue to be disingenuous. Either way.
I accuse people of being angry when they launch personal attacks, and otherwise appear angry. Accusing me of arguing in bad faith, for example, is a personal attack. Anyone with integrity back peddles from his or her own statements on occasion, when they are wrong or ill thought out, which happens when writing fast. Everyone argues from anecdote, I typically acknowledge it and the possibility it may not represent a universal truth. And of course you cannot justify the accusation that I accuse everyone else of acting any particular way.
ReplyDeleteBut again, it's never, certainly very very rarely, me launching personal attacks against anyone under their comments and that is probably the main character trait that defines the angry internet guy, or woman, in some cases. Obviously, there is an inherent anger in people who feel the need to launch personal attacks on the internet. Why would you even argue that point?
SL, I suppose Rand Paul is a pathetic little shit and agree with aimai's point that people like him say things they don't mean in order to get to power. All I said was that he's saying different shit than Republicans have said in the past, and that some of it may appeal to some people who would normally vote Democratic.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope not.
ReplyDelete"You do realize that "choice in education" is code for "defunding public education", no?"
ReplyDeleteYes, I thought I made that clear. I'm just talking about messaging.
Yes, Aimai is our duly elected hall monitor and she beat spaghetti Lee quite handedly in the last election. You would know that if you had bothered to show up at any of the meetings.
ReplyDeleteIt's an Alinskyite tactic.
ReplyDeleteSteveM has a nice little piece up about what I guess we might call the context of the speech, or maybe I mean something like illocutionary force--he points out that ordinarily when you give a speech to "a people" or any group--from your ethnic group to a garden club-- you try to find some commonality between them and you, but you do it deferentially, self deprecatingly, rather than hectoringly. Paul clearly swotted up on Black History and found himself and the Republican party as the...uh...something something in the woodpile but the conclusion he drew from that is that Black people forgot their Republican history, rather than that the modern Republican party suppressed its former alliance with Black people.
ReplyDeleteOne can't really begin to imagine the arrogance of asking the students at Howard University whether they "knew that the NAACP" had originally been founded by Republicans. Its the academic lecture equivalent of Bill O'Reilly complimenting the crowd at a fine restaurant for not shouting "give me my motherfuckin' ice tea."
So to return to Chuckling's point upthread, which is that Paul buried some kind of libertarian/youth appealing nuggets in his speech that's like arguing that if I bury a couple of sugar cubes in a truckload of manure there are lots of people (lots of "votes") who are going to dig through the entire truckload to find them. In real life I'm guessing--but I don't know for sure--that the context of the speech, the way it is prestructured in our political discussion, the way it will figure in Rand Paul's subsequent mau mauing of the Howard Student ("I barely escaped with my life. These people are so ungrateful") mean that whatever good Paul may have attempted to do on the libertarian front has long since been lost.
Sure, some people who are libertarian/free market oriented may think "dang, I wish his ideas on letting the free market solve my problems educating my child like its just yearning to do had gotten a fair hearing" but even these people may find themselves stumped by his arrogance at lecturing Black people about their own storied history in one of their own storied African American colleges as though they had just tumbled off the hip hop turnip truck last night.
Why are you posting critical comments under someone's comment which is exactly what Hitler would have done if he had a blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that minority parents are more gullible, don't know where you get that. I guess a bit of the confusion might have to do with the anecdotal portion of one or more of my posts. Here in New York City, there actually is quite a bit of school choice that has nothing to do with charter schools or vouchers. After grade school, one does not automatically go to one's neighborhood school and may not actually be allowed to. Students choose their schools and then the schools choose, or not, the students. It's a different can of worms.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where you can learn a little lesson: I didn't accuse SL of being a closet racist. I pointed out that what he or she wrote could be interpreted that way and then explicitly said that I was sure that was not the intention.
So what? there will always be disingenous political actors attempting to spoil/split the vote. A "big part of Paul's appeal" comes from one thing for one set of his voters and from something else from his other set of voters. This is the problem of the Republican party writ large: they can't move on immigration because it will piss off their white racist base. They can't move too far on gay rights because it will piss off their white homophobic base.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul's "solution" to this problem is right inside the Republican small tent--it is to attempt to side step the culture war by shifting responsibility for fighting it to smaller, sub federal, units wherever possible. Paul's not going to lecture you about your sex life--he's just going to let the individual states get all up in your crotch and your marriages.
State's rights and local control are obvious code words--and I daresay that the students at Howard University were as familiar with their long racist history as I am--for leaving various communities at the mercy of their white neighbors without bothering with messy things like law. Its the free market in action.
To the extent that you--and Paul--pretend to think that this is "liberal" or will appeal to informed liberals, well--its a free country. I don't think so. I think serious voters with serious liberal credentials won't be fooled for long. Paul will not do away with the drug war although he may say he will. School choice we've already dismissed as a stalking horse. Again: informed voters and informed liberals already know that school choice is a code word for destroying public education and further immiserating the working class and their children.
SL, and I meant to mention, if you or anyone else is interested in the public education system and how it's performing, you should definitely read The Daily Howler. It's not all Bob Somersby writes about there, but when he does he brings a very interesting perspective.
ReplyDeleteYou are such a fun guy. "I didn't accuse SL of beign a closet racist. I pointed out that what he or she wrote could be interpreted that way..." Charming.
ReplyDeleteAs for school choice in New York City--my cousin is a long time public school teacher in the New York City system and has been the principal of an alternative/smaller/selective public highschool in New York City for about six years. I know quite a bit about school choice in New York City. But large though NYC is it the entire of school choice/charter/voucher movement is not comprehended in what is happening in NYC. Far from it.
My city also has "school choice" within the 8 grade schools that all funnel into the one highschool. I think school choice is a total distraction from what really needs to happen which is that the state has to pour money into each school as it needs funding rather than relying on these weird, rube goldberg, methods to distract parents and force them to do tons of diligent homework to try to find the "best" option. Especially working and/or single parents don't have time for this shit. Make every local school walkable, make every local school great. It can be done. It just can't be done on the cheap.
I should have worn my hall monitor hat. But I think someone stole it out of the locker.
ReplyDeleteYou know you're beautiful when you are angry, don't you?
ReplyDeleteNo, idiot. You're the kid who practically leaps out of his jorts to try to correct the teacher or snitch on a classmate or bog the lecture down in a half hour of tangents. I can practically hear the shirt re-tucking every time you think you've nailed those Damn Elitists on some procedural point.
ReplyDeleteIt was a failure for Paul - he was probably hoping the audience would boo him or try to shout him down or something. That would have been fundraising heaven.
ReplyDeleteApparently that interconnection doesn't work both ways, and the hunger of poor schoolchildren only punishes the schoolchildren.
ReplyDeleteHave Republicans candidates had any other kind lately?
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe you're right that the Republicans are finished as a national party, though for someone with your rhetorical history during the last presidential election, I'm a bit surprised you're relying on the "informed" voter part of the equation to ensure the defeat of all things vile and Republican.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I still don't see how you and so many others mistake my comments about the Pauls' messaging as being somehow supportive of their beliefs. The liberal message against military intervention, the corporate takeover of government, the stupid drug war, and in favor of personal freedom is powerful when enunciated clearly -- and very dangerous in the wrong hands. Or maybe not, but why that take throws some people into such a state of apoplexy that they feel the need to hurl personal insults, is a mystery to me. Well, maybe not such a mystery, but something that certainly doesn't reflect well on the hurlers.
Snitch on other students? You're obviously projecting. I bet you were an actual hall monitor and that's why you're so angry. You were probably on the student council.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I'm not one of the voices in your head so I don't know what sins you are accusing me of "during the last presidential election." I don't think the Republican party is finished, but like the Republican Party itself I think it may have played out its string of wins based on its largely elderly, angry, white base. Again--this is not news. Anyone with access to the internet, the newspaper, or the talking sticks might be aware of this since the Republican party itself talks about nothing but whether it will go the way of the whigs and how to prevent that fate.
ReplyDeleteIf you were paying attention to reality you would grasp that Rand Paul and his father were and are big players in suppressing the votes of black people in order to keep the proportion of their own white votes artificially high during both local and national elections. This makes whatever the Pauls say about FREEDUMB in any other context less than meaningful to any voter with experience of Republican anti-voting intransigence. Why you think black people are going to suddenly forget the Civil Rights Act or the people who opposed it and still oppose just because for 1/20th of the time Rand Paul says "You people should like me because I'm against locking up your drugged out asses" is beyond me.
I'm opposed to the war on (some people) who use drugs but Rand Paul is not opposed to the war on those people, he's just temporarily opposed to the war on white people who use or sell drugs. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. As a woman--as zuzu pointed out way upthread--neither Rand nor his father are in any sense a friend to women. Sure, they'd let a pot smoker out of jail, but they'd happilly send a pregnant woman to jail in his place in order to prevent her from having an abortion.
The internet tradition is that you can post comments wherever you want, but if you repeatedly hurl personal insults under someone's comments, you are an angry internet commenter guy, or woman. That's just the truth of the matter. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI accuse people of being angry when they launch personal attacks, and otherwise appear angry.
ReplyDeleteSee, there's your problem. You're mistaking contempt, or mockery, for anger.
Of course, that's if we accept that there's an actual correlation between "launching personal attacks against chuckling" and "chuckling accusing people of being angry." As detailed in an earlier thread, there's quite a lot of the latter regardless of the existence of the former.
You aren't sorry. Just being disingenous as usual. As well as making shit up. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteOh, you've launched plenty of personal attacks under people's comments. Are you just not including those made in the sub-levels of a thread?
ReplyDeleteYou really read that "sorry" as an attempt to fake sincerity? You should step away from the computer for awhile. Your reading comprehension skills are fading.
ReplyDeleteDo you somehow think that minority parents are so stupid that they will somehow be swayed by the messaging and ignore that this dude wants to eliminate the Department of Education?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not including those made in sub levels of a thread I started in reply to those who have hurled personal insults at me.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that I may have erred on an occasion or two, but I would be sorry about that. I make a strong effort to reply politely to polite comments, however negative they may be.
I get it: you don't know anything about logic, discussion, or conversation. Accusing you of arguing in bad faith is not a personal attack. Calling you stupid, or angry--that's a personal attack. Calling someone, however ritually and tediously, an "angry" guy because he disagrees with you on a post is a personal attack and is ad hominem despite your conviction that something something something that you are doing (the position on the page? the order of the comments?) renders it above reproach.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate I don't think there's anything wrong, exactly, in a technical sense in your repetitively ascribing anger to your debate counterparties. Its just pointless. An angry argument can be true, or logical, or reasonable and a bland, milquetoast presentation of an argument can be utterly false or misleading or dishonest. I'd put your bland and vaguely insulting query to Spaghetti Lee in the latter category--telling someone they'd better watch out or unnamed other people will suspect you of being racist is both insulting and, in that case, disingeous and dishonest (since you pretend you were not aware of the implications of your remark) and yet it wasn't "angry" or at least it was delivered rather mildly.
Oh, I'm sorry. You mean you meant to be insulting but were using words that were not angry words? How very confusing.
ReplyDeleteCareful! Now Chuckling will point out that the fact that you used the word stupid and the words minority parents within ten words of each other means that some other people, not Chuckling of course, might think you were saying Minority Parents are stupid. And Chuckling, who has spoken to many of them and there fore can speak for many of them will be very sorry if that is true.
ReplyDeleteSee, chuckling, I didn't hurl any personal insults at you in the last thread, and yet you accused me of a) having a small mind; b) being tantamount to a Paultard. I merely asked you a question designed to point out that your position (Paul is an ultra-leftist) was contradicted by Paul's own public policy positions (anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-Civil Rights Act).
ReplyDeleteYou may choose to see that as a personal attack or an insult, but you'd be wrong.
Believe me, you polyp on the colon of a bottom feeder in a sewer, you won't miss it when I choose to launch a personal attack on you.
Why, some of his best friends are black!
ReplyDeleteWho's the white congresscreep who tells off all the liberal sheep?
ReplyDeleteRAND!
Can you dig it?
ReplyDeleteHe's a bad mother--
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't see how you can not consider accusing someone of arguing in bad faith a personal attack. And of course I've never accused anyone who disagrees with me about this or that of being angry, just those who hurl personal insults. Maybe I'm coming from such a totally different place than you and your cohorts, but I could not possibly launch a personal attack or express contempt or mockery at someone if I were not angry. I'm pretty sure that's how normal people work.
ReplyDeleteBut I think it bothers you so much because it hits too close to home. You don't like those angry internet commenter guys, you despise them, actually; but then you act like one and lash out even more when called on it.
And of course I've never accused anyone who disagrees with me about this
ReplyDeleteor that of being angry, just those who hurl personal insults.
Oh, bullshit. Did you miss the fact that we can all see what you write here?
Not sure what you're saying there? The "sorry" was not a personal insult. You're reading comprehension skills really are fading. I don't mean that to be a personal insult either, but if it crosses the line, well, it's true I am getting a bit annoyed at all these personal insults, so perhaps some of my replies do come off as angry. Though honestly, I'm usually more amused than annoyed.
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing this in the cadence of John Wayne's Teeth.
ReplyDeleteProvide examples whenever they come up and I'll happily apologize.
ReplyDeleteWell, if that's the case in the last thread (Im not going to go look it up), I'm sorry. You have a long history of hurling childish insults, so perhaps I rashly jump to conclusions on occasion.
ReplyDeleteSo why do you feel the need to hurl insults at people you disagree with over minor issues? You really do have a right blogger type mentality. You should consider trying to fix that.
Well, some people are swayed by messaging. Does anyone really think otherwise?
ReplyDeleteI think we're interpreting the same number differently. My assumption was that getting 75% of people to agree on such a large issue is pretty big, especially in such a polarized body politic. Nothing wrong with focusing on the other 25, but Aimai's right that you can't just assume that that 25% is mostly minority parents in poor/underserviced districts. I'll readily say that anecdotes aren't data, etc., but my parents have both been teachers in a racially-mixed public school district for a long time, and the parents who come to school and raise hell about this or that issue tend to be wealthier and whiter, and the poorer parents, unfortunately, are less likely to be involved at all. I would be interested in seeing some stats one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteYou have a long history of hurling childish insults, so perhaps I rashly jump to conclusions on occasion.
ReplyDeleteLet's see the links, big-talk boy.
Based on those Reason comments, I think this is part of the speech they heard:
ReplyDeleteRepublicans are the party of voting rights. That's why we want to make sure that you all have picture IDs. Otherwise the Mexicans might try to vote in your place. It's all for you. Besides, so many of you all look alike.
And speaking of civil rights, it wasn't that Republican business owners in the South didn't want to serve you people. The Jim Crow government wouldn't let us. Of course, the government forcing business owners NOT to discriminate is just as bad as forcing them to discriminate -- not that we wanted to -- but if we did want to the government shouldn't tell us not to, but we really don't want to so the government shouldn't make us. I'm not sure you can all appreciate the nuances of this since, as my father once said, "only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."
By the way, am I the first guy to stand before you and compare himself to Prufrock? It's a Kentucky thing.
It's just bizarre that you can't seem to comprehend the fact that someone can talk about messaging without supporting the people doing the messaging. Between the personal insults, you've wasted I don't know who much time ponderously lecturing me about what I already know about the Paul's. Yet you ignore the fact that their messaging is working to a certain, and growing, extent. They compromise something like 10 or 12 percent of the Republican party and a lot of their flock most likely would have voted Democratic otherwise.
ReplyDeleteBut it's even more bizarre that you fly into such a rage that someone considers questions like that. Or if, as you say, you are some kind of rare person for whom hurling personal insults is not indicative of anger, it's still bizarre that it bothers you enough to shit all over Roy's blog, yet again.
20,000 hard core moochers.
ReplyDeleteOh wait, wrong movie.
Shut yo mouth!
ReplyDeleteI suspect if you watched the faces of the Howard student body you would have seen a lot of eyelids propped up with toothpicks, just like anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteWall Street don't have to beg.
ReplyDeleteHave no idea what you think those links show. Certainly no personal insults from me directed specifically at anyone. If you and Jay think a general comment about small minds is a personal insult, well, that's an example of poor reading comprehension. Or if not poor reading comprehension, at least an example of more sophisticated writing than the straight up "you're stupid you stupid fuck" personal insult that small minds tend to employ.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to acknowledge, however, that I was out of line with the first Paultard/right blogger comment. Must have been mentally linking to some nasty old exchange.
"... we must first understand how we won the African American vote."
ReplyDeleteHm. Didn't they do that by the communist expedient of trampling brutally on the property rights of Southern slaveowners and taking their chattels away?
Your problem is that you see disagreement as insult. When someone asks you for proof, it's not evidence of a small mind. When someone calls you out for that insult, it's not evidence of being a Paultard. When someone says you argue in bad faith after you've been arguing in bad faith for three fucking straight days, it's not an ad hominem, it's the fucking truth.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the "old exchange" you're thinking of is the one where you were utterly aghast at having your white male perspective pointed out to you and you responded viciously to all and sundry. Hey, if you want to bring up old exchanges and use them in current disagreements, I can point out that your fanboying of Paul and refusal to credit those who point out that his positions are harmful to those who aren't non-poor white men BECAUSE OH MY GOD Y'ALL THIS HARPER'S ARTICLE CHANGES THE ZEITGEIST AND PROOOOOOVES HE'S AN ULTRALIBERAL NO MATTER WHAT HIS ACTUAL POSITIONS ARE SO THE DEMOCRATS ARE GONNA LOOOOOOOSE LOOOOOSERS is just another expression of your white male privilege.
As Roy mentioned up top, what really stands out for me is the self-pity, the sense of persecution. Having either eyes and ears or aides with same, he comes to Howard knowing that a big part of the populace might have problems with a border state Tea Party Republican who's expressed qualms about civil rights laws. He does nothing to engage them, though. He mostly whines about how everybody's out to get him. Besides showing himself to be kind of a weasel, he also demonstrates a complete lack of self-awareness about how he and his party got where they are, never mind desire to change.
ReplyDeleteThese aren't Reagan Republicans we're talking about here. There's a reason why 90-odd percent of African-Americans vote Democrat. Appealing to them on one issue that may not even be all that important to the majority of them while still signing on to the bigoted Republican platform in order to keep the Confederate base in the fold is just not going to have the effect you seem to think it will.
ReplyDeleteYou keep talking about Rand's appeal to young voters as if that appeal were universal. It's not. Neither Paul counts many minorities or women among their followers, and for good reason.
but even these people may find themselves stumped by his arrogance at lecturing Black people about their own storied history in one of their own storied African American colleges as though they had just tumbled off the hip hop turnip truck last night.
ReplyDeleteThat one sentence beautifully conveys the similar observation I was going to make, while outstripping it in brevity.
Paul tried to sell a make-believe version of black history and a Republican hagiography so brazenly one-sided and contrary to the facts that perhaps only Libertarians and naive white middle-schoolers are capable of falling for it.
If I'm a student at Howard I'm appalled for being condescended to in such a way.
It's possible. So far, though, I think he's an old person's idea of what young voters would like.
ReplyDeleteHe's a complicated man, and no one understands him but the Paulbots.
ReplyDeleteHe’s the legacy hire, whose heart’s aflame with freedumb’s fire.
ReplyDeleteLGM's SEK does a light rewrite, and dares you to pick out which parts were actually in the speech.
ReplyDeleteThe opening credits for Dexter are the best opening credits EVER!
ReplyDeleteDaaammmnn right.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thanks for that link.
ReplyDelete...too bad about the rest of the show.
ReplyDeleteHey, I love Dexter.
ReplyDeleteHey! Seasons 1 through 5 were superb (although I HATED the Rita/baby subplot. God bless John Lithgow! My hero!). Season 6 was a savage dip in form, which led to 7 being a bit muddy. I do wish they'd stop forcing Dexter to have a love interest. Or rather have stayed hooked up with Lumen. This Deb story-arc is the creepiest thing in the entire series.... *shudder*
ReplyDeleteI think they usually pay for it.
ReplyDeleteMeh. The first season--hey, let's be generous and say the first two--were genuinely well-done. After that, it descended quite precipitously. If only the show would recognize that it's pure kitsch and embrace that, instead of making these embarrassingly half-assed failed attempts at being, like, some sort of deep moral interrogation, it would be better. Oh, and if they'd kill off all the secondary characters. PLEASE.
ReplyDeleteI'll concede that it didn't actually become unwatchably horrible until season six, however.
I'm not in a rage. You really need some other verbal crutch to lean on when you are losing the discussion. The Paultards to not comprise (nor compromise) 10-12 percent of the Republican party and I doubt sincerely that "a lot of their flock most likely would have voted Democratic otherwise." What on earth is your evidence for that? Their voters, such as they are, are either local and therefore ordinary Republicans or they are mere supporters and groupies. What is the evidence that they were ever not reliably republican or that they are simply non voting young groupies?
ReplyDeleteAt any rate your argument in this thread is based on the assertion that Howard Students are representative of the kind of youth voters who are ripe for Paul's particular line of shit. This is obviously not the case--the one woman cited in the article who was amenable to his brand of bullshit on education and who self identified as a libertarian (a vanishingly small percentage of the current minority vote, btw) was turned off by his obvious racism, his pandering/sneering approach to black history, and the entire rest of his fakery.
Had to go look up the Eliot - all I could remember was the bit about being "etherized upon a table" as the women come and go discussing Michelangelo. Ether being my first requirement for attending a Rand Paul event, I expected relevance but was gratified to find perfection:
ReplyDeleteNo! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
True dat.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is basically the nub of the gist. Chuckling's argument:
ReplyDeleteRand Paul is a real liberal and real liberals who care about education, drugs, and war will support him.
The Youths is real liberals.
The Youths will support him
The Youths will thus "peel off" and vote for Rand Paul and the Republicans
Democrats will lose because they are insufficiently liberal.
When you try to break this down into something approaching our earth reality and say
1) Rand Paul is not a real liberal
2) Rand Paul is pro big government when it fucks over women and workers, anti big government when it helps women, blacks, hispanics, sick people, old people and immigrants
3) Rand Paul is only against the drug war on white people
4) Rand Paul is only temporarily and opportunistically against some subset of current wars against brown people
5) Rand Paul is only potentially against drones used against white people in this country if they are US citizens. He is not on record as opposing any killings in any fashion anywhere else of non whites.
6) Rand Paul and his father Ron Paul are running a home schooling scam and the entire "school choice" movement is, in fact, a corporatist scam that sucks children's educations dry.
and then you add:
And most women, minorities, and gays actually know this
Chuckling? says "I've got to dash out to the beach...aloha!" which I take it is his version of "crickets."
I haven't seen this season yet--season 7 I think? I think the deb subplot as partially revealed in season six was incredibly stupid and unbelievable. I wasn't crazy about season 6 either but I watched it on Amazon on my computer and it was frequently so badly downloaded that a lot of the force was lost.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, it sounds like he did the "Romney goes to the NAACP" trick everyone was expecting.
ReplyDeleteI imagine this is now a doofy Republican rite of passage, like demographic cow-tipping or something.
I think its more like having your picture taken with a stuffed lion. They hand you a pth helmet and a fake gun and you pose with your foot on it, looking solemn.
ReplyDeleteI read the Harper's article. Basically it depicts a healthy number of enthused young people who are disappointed by the Democratic Party falling short on various liberal values, and choose to champion Paul's inconsistent nonsense rather than roll up their sleeve and do the hard work of pulling the Dems back to the left.
ReplyDeleteAnd then follow up with the "unofficial" portrait where you're mooning the camera.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the article but I'm very, very, old. In fact, I voted for Anderson during my very first election cycle. Yes I did. Because I was once a young person who was dissapointed in the Democrats because they were insufficiently liberal. I wonder where I ended up on the political spectrum, given my liberal/left leanings and the ensuing years? Oh, that's right. I ended up being a yellow dog democrat because despite their many deficiencies they were the only working party that came close to trying to deliver on some of the issues I think are important. Other people ended up supporting Reagan, of course, and becoming Republicans. There are no Anderson voters left.
ReplyDeleteWell, that was my official portrait, actually.
ReplyDeleteWhile he might be saying some things that normal Democratic voters might agree with, the chances that his libertarian positions on drugs or foreign intervention, let alone him, will make a national ballot seem remote. Like me dating Kate Upton remote.
ReplyDeleteDingdingdingdingding.
ReplyDeleteYour school yearbook must have been way better than mine.
ReplyDeleteI love how every discussion with chuckling ends with him harumphing that everyone is so mean to him and that they've totally missed the point because they're idiots.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that he ignores is that the positions that Paul espouses on drugs and foreign policy are the first ones that will be jettisoned should he run for higher office. I guess liberals are just supposed to hope he gets back to them after he's elected.
ReplyDeleteFinally! I was reading this entire thread (because, apparently, I am a masochist; it's not like I couldn't predict how it'd go) and I was wondering why no one was calling out the passive-aggressiveness with that particular phrase. Now I can sleep easy. Later, naturally, it's ten AM.
ReplyDeleteOf course not! Things can't trickle UP - that's ludicrous! The economy always and forever only goes one way, where great men (and it is always men) create pure wealth out of the ether and then have it stolen from them by moochers.
ReplyDeleteI'm visualizing the "Springtime for Hitler" horrified gapes.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt its all our fault. Imagine my chagrin.
ReplyDeleteJeezus, you don't even understand threading. That takes the cake.
ReplyDeleteWell, hope on, hope ever. Mitt Romney also ran a campaign where imaginary centrists and Democrats who were supposed to be sick of Obama not being liberal enough were to believe that Mitt would run as a right wing Republican but rule as a moderate Democrat.
ReplyDeleteMy point here, and I do have one, is that pace Chuckling there remains nothing new under the sun. Rand Paul is not a liberal. His father is not a liberal. He isn't even a very good libertarian. When/if he runs he will run as a standard Republican who will need to win a base of far right, scenery chewing, foaming at the mouth Republicans and tea partiers (same thing).
During the money gathering, backer finding stage he will talk up his libertarian bona fides and propose to various right wing billionaires that he will legalize pot so they can all smoke as much as they want. He will probably propose legalizing prostitution too. Whatever they want.
But he will then have to run in Iowa and etc... and gather up Santorum's lonely followers et al. If we have gotten out of our two wars he will have to whip up the jingoism against climate change, the UN, and Iran. He will talk windily about cutting the deficit and reining in spending on the military but he will never, ever, do it. He will stop talking about drug legalization and start talking about god, guns, and gays (if necessary).
And then, hopefully, he will lose.
Bingo! Wall Street gives the orders - Democrats and Republicans alike bow and scrape in the most servile manner in return
ReplyDeleteYou know the saddest thing of all is that those Howard Kids have probably been hearing this shit for a long, long, time. I'm betting that they weren't surprised at all, or if they were they just were apolitical enough to have no idea who was giving the assembly that day and stumbled in unprepared.
ReplyDeleteI like how his history of the Republican Party just sort of stops around 1934 or so.
ReplyDeleteI'm by no means an expert in African American history, but I suspect that there may have been some events in the last 80 years that have had some effect on African American voting patterns.
I'm pretty much a fan of Mr. Paul, but his original civil rights act remarks made me think that he hadn't thought carefully, or really at all, about America's history of racism, and he clearly hasn't learned much since then.
what the fuck is a rand paul?
ReplyDeleteWOW
ReplyDeletei love you too.
ReplyDeleteYikes.
ReplyDeletetee hee
ReplyDelete"When I'm old, when I'm old
ReplyDeleteI shall wear my trousers rolled".
Chandler has a good take on Prufrock in his novel The Long Goodbye.
Careful with the Shakespeare quotations, aimai. Rand Paul will be forced to up the ante by composing villanelles on the fly, and the next thing you know, the Youth of Today will be casting down their gilded panties around his silver sea, IYKWIMAITYD.
ReplyDeleteOMG, MDS, that was TMI. . .
ReplyDeleteOn Doughy Loadpants' argument, I'm fond of repeating that the right-wingers show, repeatedly, that they have no fresh ideas because they endlessly recycle old ones. I was visiting Adam Curtis' blog at the BBC a few days ago, and there he mentions Joseph Kamp's 1949 opus, Hitler Was A Liberal (published by the Constitutional Education League, which was a right-wing anti-communist organization which equated unionism with Soviet communism and New Dealers as fifth columnists).
ReplyDeleteThat prompted me to go back and look at Curtis' "The Trap," which included mention of a quote from Reagan which described Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iraq and North Korea as "an axis of rogue states who supported global terrorism." And, since ol' Ronnie Raygun was fond of using the phrase, "evil empire," I guess it was no big trick for David Frum to just recycle those two phrases into one simpler (of necessity) "axis of evil" for Little Boots.
When one remembers that Rand Paul's basic philosophy has its roots in the extremism of the likes of Gen. Edwin Walker, H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison and the Christian fundamentalist fanatics of Searcy, Arkansas, it makes sense that he'd want to disguise it. After all, it was Bunkie Hunt, H.L.'s son, who described Kennedy as a "nigger-loving commie."
I have no fears of Rand Paul retaliating in such a fashion. He strikes me as someone who would define villanelles as female villains.
ReplyDelete"But I think it bothers you so much because it hits too close to home.
ReplyDeleteYou don't like those angry internet commenter guys, you despise them,
actually; but then you act like one and lash out even more when called
on it."
--Chuck Ling: The Internal Monologues
Check the parking lot, aimai. That's where all the cool kids hang out, smoking dope and laughing at the bookworms.
ReplyDeleteI agree; except, speaking as an old person, I'd like to amend this to say "a boring and stupid old person's idea of what young voters would like."
ReplyDeleteAs a liberal, I demand mandatory omnisexual polygamous marriage with all the participants in this subthread.
ReplyDeleteOK - so, if I'm catching your drift, the idea here is "Yes, you overeducated liberal asshole, you're right about Rand Paul's plan to crush public education. That's exactly what he wants to do. But you're not giving him credit for how well he's deceiving those minority voters!
ReplyDeleteSee, lots of poor people are easy to fool, because they live in poor neighborhoods whose schools are underfunded. You aren't giving Rand Paul enough credit for deceiving poor people - and he Totally Does it, every day!!!
Its possible the repugs really have persuaded themselves that Democratic efforts to help minorities have done more harm than good ("that's why so many African American men are in jail!, and all the women have 6 illegitimate kids on Welfare!"), and that the Repugs forcing them to "stand on their own feet" is just a form of tough-love. In reality, conservatives do and have done everything in their power to keep minorities and poor people poor and powerless (voter ID, rotten schools, "stand-your-ground" laws re-legalizing lynching), and that reality is QUITE different from them wanting teh Poors to "bootstrap themselves", sans boots.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul: "Lee Atwater? NEVER HEARD OF HIM. Lalalalalalalalalalalalala what?"
ReplyDeleteLate to the party, but: the man who wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act, coming to a school named after a man who lost an arm fighting against treason in the defense of slavery, lecturing me on black history? There's something about an Aqua Buddha man. . .and it isn't pleasant.
ReplyDeleteSure as shit didn't happen during the Depression, either. FDR crashed the recovery in 1938 by embracing austerity.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet those students didn't even know they were getting unlimited federal assistance!
ReplyDeleteAnd then there are those simpletons who see shitty schools and think: "Huh. Maybe we need to make those schools better, let alone the lives of their families."
ReplyDeleteI'm not black and I'm not a great writer, but luckily this guys exists and gave the perfect response to this in another discussion.
ReplyDeleteAn unfortunate portion of the black experience consists of
being told that you are collectively hidebound to folly, by people presently
frolicking in their own. To be black in America is to take lectures on dignity
from naked emperors.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates
I usually refer to him as "Ron-Paul II, the Pope of Ayn Randianism".
ReplyDeleteBut it's even more bizarre that you fly into such a rage
ReplyDeleteTone troll is tone trolling. She didn't fly into a rage. She schooled your ass. Not that it got through.
I didn't know aimai was an alumna of Vince Lombardi High School.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to see someone stand up and slap the curl right out of his toupee.
ReplyDeleteBut they should.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing missing from Pauls bullshit bloviating was "Accidental Racist" playing in the background.
ReplyDeleteGreat quote. Ta Nehisi Coates is at MIT this year and if you hop over to Balloon Juice you will find out where he is lecturing and hosting some interesting talks and you can go attend them if you are in MA. He's really tall. I saw him at a talk last year and I was stupidly surprised, as though on the internet everyone is my height.
ReplyDeleteonly Libertarians and naive white middle-schoolers are capable of falling for it.
ReplyDeleteBut you repeat yourself...
I voted for Anderson during my very first election cycle.
ReplyDeleteI gave him serious consideration, but ended up voting for Jimmy for fear he'd peel off too many votes.
I got to see my choice a few weeks later when we marched in the Inaugrual Parade, although it was just a quick glance as there were horses in front of us.
I should say I voted for Anderson during the primary in MA--I voted for Carter in the real thing.
ReplyDeleteMy spouse and I absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post's to be exactly I'm looking for.
ReplyDeleteDo you offer guest writers to write content for yourself?
I wouldn't mind producing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write with regards to here. Again, awesome site!
my web blog; activity calorie calculator
What's up Dear, are you genuinely visiting this website on a regular basis, if so then you will without doubt get nice knowledge.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to surf to my web site - acoustic guitar a chord
Having read this I thought it was extremely informative.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this short article together.
I once again find myself personally spending way too much time
both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worth it!
fans-n-followers.com