“It doesn’t seem likely that somebody would come from a concern with racism to that conclusion. It would be from something else with racism hauled in as a tool or excuse.”

Hey, a lot of people thought their was a capitalist conspiracy against the working class.. and they were needed to fight it.. Now they’ve just added a white middle class conspiracy against other races…

“and merely said that I wish he had gotten out in front of it earlier in the crisis.”

I wish that as soon as we identified any groups as not anti-American; we sent arms… Anti tank, anti aircraft, et cetera… we could program them to expire within a year and only work from certian gps zones…

oh, Oblio, I hope not, but this is a real possibility. Jobs are will be scarce this summer, especially for oppressed teens who roam the city streets in organized groups. I fear Obama would have a Mayor Tom Bradley like reaction and blame businesses for denying the rights of citizens to have jobs. Obama would say this is completely intolerable; he would stand with the people against the injustice of it all!

I agree with your comment, above.

I thoroughly understand why Goldwater voted against the 1965 civil rights act. A privately owned business should be able to decide who may or may not enter and do business. The act did not change minds, it merely enforced conformity with a PC code.

For example: If a business in my community had a sign in the window that read — “NO N*GGERS, NO KIKES, NO SPICS, NO GOOKS ALLOWED” I would instantly know I did not want to exchange with that business their offered goods or services for my hard earned cash. I would take my cash elsewhere.

I’ll add a more general point: the neatest trick of conservative philosophy (of the libertarian-tinged American sort, anyway) is that it opens up a generally freedom promoting policy-space that can be occupied by racists and non-racists alike. In other words, if one is a conservative, one genuinely buys into the “less government is better” concept, regardless of what one’s views on race are. That is a very intriguing way of neutering racism whenever it is present – if I may put it this way, by always (in principle) depriving it of an optional enforcement mechanism. This isn’t perfect in practice, of course, but of all the options for political philosophy, this is the one that passes the Churchillian test – it’s the worst except for all the others.

Conversely, the problem with liberalism (at least of the modern socialist-tinged American sort) is that it lacks this safeguard. Since the default of the liberal is always “More government,” even IF there were vastly more racists among conservatives, the comparatively few racists among liberals would have much more incentive and inclination to put their ideas or impulses into policy. The conservative racist has to overcome a more or less steep presumption against government involvement; the liberal racist has no such presumption to overcome. And here’s the kicker: once we grant the liberal notion that racism can be latent and subconscious, this is positively damning for liberalism, NOT for conservatism.

Interesting how they fail consider that this party line of theirs – “latent racism” – actually tends to hoist them with their own petard. There’s all sorts of ways to weasel out of that conclusion, but once they start to weasel, then conservatives can say “sauce for the gander,” and the game is up. (The usual liberal weasel-line is “Liberals only make good, wise, non-racist interventions,” which is so stupid it needs no refuting). So liberals are, by their own logic, either racist or supremely, embarrassingly arrogant.

Or, perhaps, both.

They resent the conservative, because he is like the guy that can have just a couple drinks. He can pass judgement on Barak Obama and carries no shame or complex in doing so. THEY DESPISE THIS ABOUT US because it exposes their attempts to atone themselves by merely redefining what a racist is. They want it to be only how you outwardly aquiesse that makes you a non racist, and never again have anything to do with how you inwardly feel.

That gets my vote.