I suppose A could always ask B, if she would not at least look at it out of regard for their friendship, but then A probably already knows what result would ensue in that case.

What kind of friendship then, is this? What kind of character does this express in the instance of B? Is that kind of person even capable of loyalty to anything more than her own comfort?

I don’t say that that is unusual; nor that it is not in fact representative of a great many Americans` attitudes. But it is an example of a kind of psychological cowardice that ill befits either a friend, or someone styling himself as an American.

However it is not unusual. If we retain any illusions that our own friends and relatives might not even go so far at some point as to denounce us out of some hope of advantage, and then justify it on the basis of a disagreement expressed during what should have been a trivial and long forgotten conversation, we should rid ourselves of such illusions.

The American Civil War was by and large a war between the States. But where it was a civil war, as developed say, in Missouri, all bets were off. People can justify anything to themselves; and their spite, when loosed by petty resentments or some hope of personal advantage, knows virtually no limits.

We too easily call too many people, friends. And because a companionable attitude over coffee or a beer is all we usually require of someone we are willing to call a friend, most of us do it. But ultimately character counts. For everything.

OK, for a while I thought it was just my tinfoil hat getting too tight.

How about this (xhe says, looking into xhit’s crystal ball):

Two (TBD) years from now, after all the Persons of Diversity have been expunged from packaging, the professionally cranky start to complain about the preponderance of pale people. I can see it already “What, you think black folk can’t cook?”

Betty Crocker, look out!

Don’t the BLM-istas understand that these faces have been on packaging for decades because they are TRUSTED??? How can that be construed as racist?

I think we are on the road to some type of reparations and I actually think that a lot of white Americans would support it if they believed that it would solve the racial divide. But I think reparations would actually solve nothing and like many other government programs, with the best of intentions, only make the problem worse.

Robert Johnson’s proposal of a wealth transfer of about $350,000 to every black person in the country would both do too much and too little to solve the racial divide. Too much because the $14 trillion price tag on top of our already out of control debt would be economically devastating. It would also cause a lot of resentment for poor and middle income Americans who don’t qualify. Too little because $350,000 isn’t that much money. It’s enough to buy a decent house in most of the country but it’s not enough to live on, and more importantly, it wouldn’t address the cultural issues that led to the wealth gap in the first place.

There is also the psychological factor of earning money versus having it given to you. Money is very good at eliminating the type of unhappiness that is derived from being poor (lack of food, housing etc.) but it doesn’t address the need for a life with purpose and the satisfaction that is obtained from achieving a goal through work. In a relatively short time a new wealth gap would emerge and we would be back to square one, only with a more frustrated black population and a more resentful white and Hispanic population.

I don’t think there is any government program that is capable of bridging the racial divide. The best it can do is to ensure equal opportunity. For many, this will not be enough. Despite the trillions of dollars we have spent and tremendous progress that has been made in reducing racism as a barrier to success, it is clear that there remains a simmering hatred among a large segment of the population to our current system. It is human nature to form tribal identities and to seek revenge on the groups of others who have done your group an injustice. I go back and forth on the question of whether America’s racial divide can be resolved peacefully. I am not feeling optimistic at the moment.

You want your country back?

First, every government position in America at every level, elected, appointed or hired must have term limits, career limits, age limits, nepotism limits and carpet bagger limits. No more senators for life and no more county clerks for life either.

Second, all voter registrations must expire automatically, all voter registration must be cleared through a central system to ensure the person is real and eligible to vote and only registered in one place (their residence). All voting must be done in person (too sick, too bad) except military and foreign service (not convenient, too bad). All vote tabulation must use paper ballots and must occur on old fashion unit record equipment with external plug-board type programming.

Third, all POS lawyers must be barred from government service wherever possible. There are just too damn many lawyers running things and they are as a class immoral trash. They must be restricted to that part of government service they have already reserved for their crappy profession.

Chases Eagles

As for the Lady Candace video, I think it’s quite a pertinent question – what, indeed, does Black America want, ultimately? Gregory thinks that for many, it’s revenge. I’m rather inclined to agree, but with a couple of provisos and nuances. First, I’m not convinced (yet) that this feeling applies to a majority of the black community. Second, the attitude that I feel comes through in a lot of the commentary from black authors etc. who are pro-BLM is not necessarily revenge as such – that’s more what the rioters are about, I think – but more specifically that a lot of blacks would like to have a situation in which, generally speaking, no white person has power over a black person. That can be police power, or political power, economic power, etc.

Supposing for the moment that this is a correct assessment of the position of a plurality of American blacks (and I’m not necessarily saying that it is, though I think it is for the BLM protesters, at least on a rudimentary level), how that scenario could be realized is obviously a very large question, and in my mind it’s tied up with reparations, etc. It’s a very big picture, but I find that I’ve been forced to start to think through how it could happen.

I could say more, but don’t have time and this isn’t my blog. Anyway, I’m putting forward the formulation indicated above and am interested to see if somebody wants to run with it.