Comments on: Pelosi’s most ethical Congress ever…

By: J.J. formerly Jimmy J.

J.J. formerly Jimmy J. — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:52:57 +0000

AVI, I agree. Our ancestors lived in tribal units for 125,000 years. It has only been since the invention of cities and then states (6000 years + or -) that we have had something more sophisticated than the tribe. Our genes gravitate toward the tribal form of organization. Much of what has happened since the Magna Carta has been on a trend away from tribalism toward the concept of individualism. In spite of the superior results in terms of living standards and freedom, it has been a struggle every step of the way because the genetic pull of tribalism has been strong. What we are experiencing today is not that unusual in the fullness of history. I believe that tribalism may have many more years of fight left in it, but the concept of individual rights will eventually triumph. However, that day will not occur in my lifetime. Another hundred years – perhaps?

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:04:10 +0000

Tom, my assessment is even grimmer. It’s not just Africans, but most of humanity. Outside of the Anglosphere – and a good portion inside it – that is how everyone thinks. Let your mind drift over the nations of the world and see how often it is true. Then look back on history, including honky-white European history up until relatively recently, and you see much the same.

In America – and Canada, NZ, Australia – we had the enormous advantage of British political theories of something better taking hold when we were looking around for what kind of government to have. We adopted those things before the mother country did, showed they could work, and they began to spread back toward some countries of Western Europe.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:02:06 +0000

My point, Richard, is that the Africans who came here and have been members of our polity for a good while, have not changed to any meaningful extent. I repeat: it is not tribalism. You don’t see it; I do.
Hard-wiring certainly exists in humans and in other species too. Part of the nature/nurture debate.

By: A_Nonny_Mouse

A_Nonny_Mouse — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:38:24 +0000

“Neither Rangel nor Waters seems inclined to [throw themselves under the bus]”
============

Well, of COURSE not. They have spent a lifetime playing the race-victim card, being OWED (not just money, but deference and respect) because they are black in a white-racist world. Society at large has let a verrrry looong generation of these race-grievance-mongers coast along on the excuse that “Whitey done me wrong”. The trouble is, this “helpless me, I’m a victim” whine still works. Waters and Rangel figure all they have to do is turn on the spigot of “Waah, those racists are picking on poor little black me AGAIN” and they’ll get a pass. It’s worked for them their whole lives, hasn’t it?

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 15:36:15 +0000

Tom, if you’re saying it’s something more, then one possibility you’d be posing is a hard-wired propensity to behave that way, more so than other races.
There are two problems with that. One is that African Americans who came here or whose parents came here from elsewhere do not exhibit that trait,afaik.
The other is that you’d have to posit a different set of environmental pressures in Africa than in the rest of the world in order to press the humans resideing therein to have differing reactions to the Big Man.
Keep in mind that, until democracy, most governments combined the qualities of fascism and a protection racket.
Louis Quatorze, for example, attacked everybody he could find on a map, and it was said that the trees along the country roads leaned inward because of the frequency of supporting hanged peasants.
A few, Rome, for example, tried to have a government of laws (“civis romanus sum”) and bless them for it. But, even in Rome it was rare.
So we’re talking about a Big Man–the local baron, for example–as a constant in most of history and why it would have been different before that is unknown.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:29:22 +0000

I did not say my theorem was culturally rooted; far from it. I did say I think it is not tribalism. It is something more.

By: Alex Bensky

Alex Bensky — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:43:46 +0000

I disagree with your theory, Tom. It strikes me as similar to black assertions that Africa is “the homeland.”

There is a great deal of what might well be termed tribal thinking among black Americans, but it’s not because of any African cultural ties, especially as any such ties after centuries are greatly attenuated. For perfectly understandable reasons, though, appeals to racial solidarity over everything else resonate with many blacks and as they are effective in getting votes and/or maintaining power and influence, they continue to be made.

I don’t say it’s wise or productive; quite the opposite. But I understand why it happens. I lived in Detroit for nearly two decades and now live in a contiguous suburb. The city would not be in good shape under any conditions–the economic and social stresses would be present even if the city had had more enlightened government–but the ossified bureaucracy and corrupt leadership certainly aggravates the situation markedly.

By: Charles

Charles — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:44:48 +0000

Both Rangel and Waters know that the black folks will vote for a BAD black candidate before voting a white candidate.

Tom,

Marion “the bitch set me up” Barry was even elected AFTER spending time in jail! All he had to do was wrap himself in African Kente cloth, say that whites were trying to bring back slavery and that they need to elect him to prevent that from happening. Folks in Anacostia (in S.E. DC, an over 90% black area) ate it up.

By: rickl

rickl — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:18:51 +0000

Tom:
I think you’re right. Around the time of Clinton’s impeachment I vividly remember hearing a black woman on TV say, “He da Big Man! Why dey be runnin’ down da Big Man?”

Obviously, she was a half-literate imbecile, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more glaring example of tribal thinking in the modern United States. I was disgusted.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:27:42 +0000

One of my pet unprovable social theorems is that Africans, whether American or not, expect, seemingly require, to have a chief, a Lord Who Must Be Obeyed; and chiefship has nothing to do with merit.

This is more that tribalism. Tribes can be run in many different ways; compare Iroquois with Apache with Comanche, for example.

Africans , whether or not American, simply do not do well with democracy. I give you Marion Berry, Thomas Bradley, the whole Detroit and DC sagas, and the entire subSaharan continent as examples, to say naught about Sharpton, Jackson et al.. These unworthies simply abide, with their everloyal subjects in unshakable allegiance. The evidence is ignored or excused.