And about those diverse Republican candidates
Some have said the solution for the Republican Party is to nominate fewer old white guys. So let’s have some Hispanics, blacks, women, what-have-you.
Just one problem—have you noticed that any members of those groups who have an “R” after their names are required to turn in their diversity badges, at which point they become Honorary Old White Guys?
I actually wish people would shut up about this for a little while and think. My only suggestions would be that the party support no candidates with IQs under room temperature and that single-issue candidates stop using campaigns to promote themselves.
I agree that nominating minorities or women BECAUSE they are minorities or women is a bad idea. First of all, it goes against conservative principles to engage in ethnic or sexual discrimination or group politics. Second, as you point out, it won’t work: Republicans won’t get credit for having minorities in positions of power unless the persons selected also happen to support the Dem agenda. Otherwise, they are “Uncle Toms” or worse.
What the Dems’ racial politics really boils down to is two things, IMO: Affirmative action and redistribution. In order to authentically black or hispanic according to the lefty racists, a minority must be willing to (a) defend treating blacks and latinos as legally superior to whites for purposes of college admissions, etc., and (b) generally promote policies whose purpose and effect is to redistribute wealth to people at the lower end of the earning scale.
Sorry. My comment should read, “In order to REMAIN authentically black” . . . .
The only legitimate conception of diversity pertains to the uniqueness of individuals. Any other definition serves to denigrate individual dignity and is prejudiced.
One of the reasons Mr. Zimmerman is a “white Hispanic”.
As usual Neo you get right to the point, “minority” members of the “right” will be marginalised, they will have their “hang out cards” revoked. I will not put up one of the black racist pics of Condoleezza Rice, I collect this crap, but this will continue for years. The Marxist concept of false consciousnesses strikes again.
Conrad gets to the point!
They ignore them outright, just as the speeches of every minority Republican who gave a speech at the convention.
And the cries of “sexism!” with Susan Rice are hilarious in light of the Sarah Palin treatment. Payback is a bitch.
Yes, nominate women will make folks support the Republicans more.
We all know how well that worked out for Sarah “slutty daughter, red-neck husband, should-have-been-aborted infant son, older son too dumb to not go into the military, I-can-see-Russia-from-my-house,” Palin.
Or maybe having Blacks will work out. Condi Rice and Colin Powell – you know those “house slaves,” could shed some light on this issue as well.
Speaking of redistrubution, I had an interesting encounter with a guy who described himself as a “Libertarian” a few weeks ago. He said he opposed most forms of personal income tax, but there was one tax in particular that he said he’d like to increase: The estate tax.
Why the estate tax? Was this so-called libertarian in fact hoping to sneak redistribution in through the back door? Well, the is where it gets a little odd. He said the goal wasn’t redistribution. Rather, the aim was to promote competition by ensuring a level playing field. You see, the accumulation of wealth by families creates big “bumps” on the playing field, and this works against the competition that forms the basis of our capitalist system.
He also said you have to have a “magical” view of property rights in order to believe that a person has any right to control what happens to their wealth when they no longer even exist!
But then he started sounding like a redistributionist again, for he said he’d be fine with the poor leaving all their wealth to their families; and if you’re wealthy, he could even live with leaving a couple of million bucks to your kids. But beyond that EVERYTHING would revert to the tax man. (Sorry Paris Hilton!)
(Seems to me he was not being consistent here, but whatever.)
So, live it up while you can, free of most of the forms of taxation that dog us now, but if you’re welathy all of your wealth goes to the tax man when you die!
What can I say? You meet some odd birds in NYC. This guy was not like any libertarian I’ve ever known!
No single candidate has the best answers to all problems. Our task is to find the candidates with the MOST right answers, according to our lights, and go from there. Ideological purity sounds good at conventions but doesn’t play too well in the real world.
yup.
Still; I don’t mind doing it if good candidates are available. Sometimes people bucking a trend in their community are the most articulate…
Sure, and then we can expect the Left to behave as disrespectfully as the did toward Sarah Palin & Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain. The GOP already has many young, non-white, and female representative in state and national office, it’s just that the media ignores them and the Left dismisses them as “window dressing.” However, any rising stars, such as Palin, must be destroyed.
oh, I forgot the ps.
PS
and doing so raises the cog dis in the community in question (but wait; that republican is an actual woman…) and helps create more changers…
Old white guys need love, too!
Perhaps a bumper sticker reading
Old White Guys Never Have A Nice Day
should adorn my vehicle.
But then, to tell the truth, I am blessed with many nice days.
Jamie Irons
Rob:
It seems that the guy rejects the natural, primary level of social organization: family. For the confused, that consists of one mother, one father, and their children. There are other arrangements, but they are not naturally derived or are simple guardianships.
I’ve found that there are a lot of people who call themselves “libertarians” whose primary interests revolve around sex and drugs. They’re much less concerned with issues of private property, free-market capitalism, or limited government.
Sort of like “conservatives” who defend agricultural subsidies and centralized government-run space programs.
Or the totalitarian Marxist speech-code writers and dietary enforcers who call themselves “liberals”.
@Rob,
I am open to ways to raise taxes that will make the wealthy, who vote for Obama, pay close attention. Maybe the estate tax is it. Fewer trust fund babies who push us all Left.
@n.n,
I am pro-family as the basic unit of social organization, complete with “I will save money because I want to care for my children with my own money”, but frankly, we are getting nailed. The middle class is sacrificing its freedoms, like free speech, while Obama demogogues taxes with “the rich should pay a little more.” Over and over again.
So, let’s go a little Galt on taxes. The Republican leadership have proven themselves incapable of articulating the point of the family over and above government.
This man should be President some day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xYaHbqcuVMo
“Our ideas work. Their ideas don’t work.”
This man has Ivy League degrees, was a national debate champion, a trial lawyer, and Attorney General of the State of Texas. He is an expert communicator and a rock solid conservative. He is a seasoned adult: seasoned in how the world works; accustomed to playing for big stakes, and winning. He is married, with multiple children.
This blog recently highlighted Joel Pollack and John Hinderaker prescriptions for a conservative comeback. Both Pollack, and esp. Hinderaker, argued that conservatives must be able to COMMUNICATE why conservative ideas are superior. Ted Cruz is that communicator.
Within weeks of Ted Cruz’ arrival in D.C., left blogs and left media will realize that he endangers them, and they will open up all artillery upon him. He will receive the full Palin. Cafe waitresses will suddenly recall that he is a hater. Conservatives must not abandon him, in the cowardly fashion in which we typically abandon the rest of our talent.
Now *here* is (another) the one article you must read on the campaign:
There We Went Again
Not exactly on the topic of this thread but not really off it either. Extreme media bias permeates everything we talk about here.
Ted was our Solicitor General, not Attorney General. A damned good one, too.
Rob & rickl –
There actually is a growing movement known as “left libertarians” (sometimes “liberaltarians”). David Henderson and Bryan Caplan argue with them a lot at Econlog (“them” being guys like Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson).
They basically agree with the left that “big” things – big companies, big estates, big wealth – are anti-freedom and so they agree that it’s good economic/moral policy to break them up and pare them down. Left libertarians believe that in a truly free market companies like Wall Mart wouldn’t exist.
Bill Maher calls himself a libertarian. ‘Nuff said.
I agree with n.n. “The only legitimate conception of diversity pertains to the uniqueness of individuals. Any other definition serves to denigrate individual dignity and is prejudiced.” Also great to see that clip of Ted Cruz.
Conservatives have been so “defined” by the left that it is bizzare. Why is there not a “strike back”
Why don t they call themselves the ” Party of Individual Rights” or “constitutionalists”.
No they let the Left accuse them of being “Old White Guys” why isn t someone out there listing all the lefts old white guys like Kerry, Biden, Pelosi (honorary guy), Rockerfella, Shumer etc
just as old just as white every bit as rich @ the publics expense !
“There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate, Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek — all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combatting Counter-Revolution [the Cheka] has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses
Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people.”
Winston Churchill
February 8 1920
Molly NH Says:
“Conservatives have been so “defined” by the left that it is bizzare.”
Totally true. They even picked our name. They named us ‘conservatives’…
“…have you noticed that any members of those groups who have an ‘R’ after their names … become Honorary Old White Guys?”
Yep. The same way white Bosnian Muslims become Honorary Oppressed Brown Natives in Marxist eyes, while conversely the non-white majority of Israeli Jews are still, and will forever be, White Settler Colonialists because they’re Zionists.
Anyone who takes the Race Card at face value is a blithering idiot. I’ve long switched to auto-translate: Racist = Opponent of the Marxist/Islamic agenda in any way you can think of.
It appears that my comment may have an extended useful lifetime. So it is proper that I should correct the causal relation in the grammar. It should be:
The only legitimate conception of diversity pertains to the uniqueness of individuals. Any other definition is prejudiced and serves to denigrate individual dignity.
Bill Maher is NOT a libertarian.
Nuff said.
For him to claim so is like me claiming i’m a woman.
So does Chomsky, AFAICR.