Are Tommy Christopher’s Wild Accusations of Bad Faith Merely Reckless — or Active Dishonesty?
Imagine that you make the mistake of engaging a leftist with a history of sloppiness and hackery, because he has tricked you by (on very rare occasions) taking reasonable positions.
This leftist starts every conversation by dishonestly accusing you of bad faith and taking things out of context. So you begin this particular conversation by stipulating certain nuances — nuances that very slightly support the leftist’s position — so that he will not accuse you of hiding or ignoring those nuances.
Incredibly, he then responds by accusing you of “bad faith” because you ignored the nuances. Which you didn’t do. You explicitly acknowledged them. Incensed, you point him to the place where you explicitly acknowledged those exact nuances. He acknowledges that he read your previous stipulation, but nevertheless refuses to apologize — leaving the accusation of bad faith out there.
How would you feel? Ready to punch a wall? Ready to punch yourself for being stupid enough to engage this guy?
This is precisely the situation I found myself in today with Tommy Christopher. Tommy Christopher has written high-handed and self-righteous posts denouncing any conservative who says that Derrick Bell was a radical or a racist. Last night on Twitter I sought to counter that view, by establishing two things:
- Derrick Bell argued that the Supreme Court should have upheld Plessy v. Ferguson and its “separate but equal” standard, and this view was radical.
- Derrick Bell said we should “appreciate” Khalid Muhammad, who called for white genocide in South Africa, and this view was radical.
Now, each of these propositions is quite true, but each is also less simplistic than as stated above. For example, while Bell believed in “separate but equal,” this was because he saw the aftermath of Brown as a loss for blacks. And while Bell did say we should appreciate Muhammad, he said so because Muhammad had merely advocated mass violence, rather than engaging in it.
And while I think these nuances do not render Bell’s opinions mainstream, or acceptable, or non-radical, I do agree that the nuances should be acknowledged in any discussion of these particular opinions held by Bell.
Which is why, in my discussions with Tommy, I very forthrightly bent over backwards to acknowledge the nuances.
Each time, Christopher came out of the gate accusing me of bad faith. I have already discussed his evasions on the topic of “separate but equal,” ultimately garnering his view that Bell’s support of “separate but equal” was not “radical.” (Of course, Tommy dishonestly denied that Bell supported “separate but equal” — but he did, Tommy, and all your tap-dancing can’t change that.)
Tonight I want to discuss Tommy’s even more infuriating accusations on the issue of Khalid Muhammad. Because his accusation of bad faith was so blatantly dismissive of the actual facts, I am left trying to see how he could possibly be arguing in good faith — and despite my best efforts, I can’t see any way that he could be.
Now, I discuss the Khalid Muhammad issue here:
John Podhoretz tells us that, in an interview with the New York Observer in October 1994, Bell stated: “We should really appreciate the Louis Farrakhans and the Khalid Muhammads while we’ve got them.” According to Podhoretz, Bell argued that society should be thankful for people like Muhammad, because they merely threatened deadly violence, rather than carrying it out.
When I posed the question to Tommy last night, I knew his defense was going to be: Bell was just saying that violent talk is better than violent action. I happen to think that’s a poor reason not to condemn extremely violent talk, but I acknowledge that was Bell’s position. So to forestall Tommy from claiming I was ignoring or hiding that fact, I explicitly noted that Bell’s “appreciation” stemmed from Muhammad’s being a violent talker rather than a violent actor. And I noted this, not once, not twice, but three times:
I repeated the question today:
And I reminded Tommy that the question had been accompanied by a boatload of caveats, which I did not want to have to repeat:
This is the part that floors me. Tommy then comes on and accuses me of dishonestly, and in bad faith, hiding the fact that Bell was talking about preferring violent talk to violent action — the very thing I had spent so much time acknowledging:
As Charlie Brown used to say:
AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
“Saying people who *talk* crazy shit are better than people who *do* crazy shit” is exactly what I had acknowledged Bell’s argument was. I had acknowledged this repeatedly. And he had accused me of “eliminating” this part of the argument. Which I had not done!
Incredible. I then proceeded to tell him he was full of crap, and started repeating the caveats that I had explicitly included the night before. And remember how I said the last part was what floored me? Wrong; this is the part that really, really floored me. Tommy then proceeded to explicitly acknowledge that he had seen my caveats — the very caveats he had just complained that I had omitted — and did he apologize? Far from it. Instead, he gets angry at me for repeating the very caveats/context that he had falsely accused me of omitting:
So, to sum up:
- Christopher accused me of hiding the fact that Bell was making a distinction between violent rhetoric and violent action;
- I proved that I had acknowledged the fact that Bell was making a distinction between violent rhetoric and violent action;
- Christopher acknowledged seeing that I had acknowledged that Bell was making a distinction between violent rhetoric and violent action;
and
- Instead of apologizing, Christopher tossed out some Clintonian meaningless distinction between “context” and “caveats,” ignoring that the distinction he claimed I had omitted was the very one I had acknowledged.
If you have made your way this far, I think it is beyond question that Tommy Christopher is, at a minimum, completely reckless in the manner in which he tosses accusations of bad faith at conservatives. Indeed, it is difficult for me to read this passage and not conclude that Christopher is being, at a minimum, deliberately slippery . . . if not utterly dishonest on a very deep level.
The only question you might be asking is: Patterico, why are you bothering with this guy? He’s obviously a partisan hack who displays no intellectual honesty whatsoever. Who cares?
Well. Mediaite is a widely read site. He is its White House Correspondent. Christopher’s pack herd partisan hack mentality has been located right there in the White House press room. He has asked questions of our President.
Of course it matters if a guy in the White House Press room is a total hack. And even if they all are, we have to keep calling them out. Otherwise, we legitimize the garbage that comes out of those press conferences, and that appears on large and widely read sites.
Also, I will no doubt have occasion to discuss Tommy Christopher in the future. If I don’t get a clear retraction and apology for his absolutely baseless accusation of bad faith, I will conclude that he is, beyond question, a liar. And when I refer to him as such in the future, I will do so with a link to this post. And you will understand why.
So, although writing this post has been annoying, to put it mildly, it is worth it.
Now when has Christopher shown he made an honest mistake and apologized;
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=20578
narciso (b483e4) — 3/14/2012 @ 6:59 pmI don’t know the context nor have I read this post (I will after this guy shows up to tow my car), but based on past history, you can guess which direction I’m predisposed.
Which is too bad, because I actually like Mediaite.
Random (cd4048) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:08 pmChristopher’s a hack. I’ve posted on Mediaite a few times. He’s generally uninterested in facts and sticks to the story he wants to tell. Kinda like talking about religious freedom and the response being about a “right” to free birth control.
Haimerej (9c54b7) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:08 pmWhy does it have to be either/or?
RomneyBot since 2007 (f81f1b) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:26 pmNever teach a pig to sing, etc….
Soledad's Mustache (d5c4be) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:34 pmmere speech over action, huh, intriguing;
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/common-hater-sean-hannity-defended-ted-nugents-violent-anti-obama-rhetoric/
narciso (b483e4) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:45 pm. if not utterly dishonest on a very deep level.
Ding ding ding!!!!
JD (d246fe) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:46 pmHe’s better than most of them, because at least he engages….
Auntie Fraud (2f38aa) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:49 pmHowever, when he grasped desperately at straws during Weinergate, positing that “5:45 in Seattle” might refer to his favorite team, the Yankees (the Yankees weren’t his favorite team), I knew he was a lib apologist first, journalist second. This stuff just confirms that.
He’s better than most of them, because at least he engages….
Auntie Fraud (2f38aa) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:49 pmHowever, when he grasped desperately at straws during Weinergate, positing that “5:45 in Seattle” might refer to his favorite team, the Yankees (the Yankees weren’t his favorite team), I knew he was a lib apologist first, journalist second. This stuff just confirms that.
His actions during Weinertweets gave a good roadmap for how effin dishonest Tommy Xtopher is.
JD (d246fe) — 3/14/2012 @ 7:56 pmOn the whole, I’m much more interested in the Tommy from Motley Crue than I am this guy.
And I’m not really that interested in Motley Crue (he says as he listens to Hob. XVII:1 being played on the harpsichord).
But I thought that being a hack was a requirement for any self respecting mainstream journalist.
JBS (0c3ef4) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:13 pmDeeply dishonest:
“Tommy Christopher @tommyxtopher
· Close
@Patterico 2. No, he believed that “true sep. but equal” might have been *better than* the results of Brown.
9:08 PM – 13 Mar 12 via TweetDeck · Details
13 Mar Patterico Patterico @Patterico
· Open
@tommyxtopher And he said the Supremes should have upheld Plessy’s “separate but equal” and enforced the “equal” part. Do we agree?”
Huge differences there. Patterico asks if Tommy will agree that Bell rejected Brown. Tommy, in his word parsing says no, Bell rejected the execution of Brown, pretending as if nobody had been talking about the decision in hindsight all along. Deeply dishonest.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:16 pmActually, you guys can listen to it to it
JBS (0c3ef4) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:20 pmhttp://youtu.be/KvdlCwBD5uU
(the semicomical sound effect at the end was intention on the part of Haydn)
* Derrick Bell argued that the Supreme Court should have upheld Plessy v. Ferguson and its “separate but equal” standard, and this view was radical.
But that doesn’t make him a radical – that makes him a sort of neoconservative willing to be very politically incorrect!!
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:22 pmCaveat: Bell was not actually lamenting Brown v Board of Education, just saying a particular kind of alternative ruling that left separate in place but really cracked down on equal maybe would have been better, and I think this idea was not original with him, although I can’t locate a source, but it may have come up during the “No Child Left Behind” debate.
I only found this so far:
Rescuing Education Reform New York Times editorial March 2, 2004:
Fifty years have sped by since the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the practice of confining black children to segregated and often inferior schools violated the Constitution and generally consigned African-Americans to second-class citizenship. Nevertheless, all around the country, poor children are still trapped in failing schools, which poison their futures from the very start.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was intended to fix this problem. It requires the states to adopt high standards for all children and to place a qualified teacher in every classroom by 2006 in exchange for federal dollars. The new law will need tinkering here and there. But its goal and its general road map for getting there are the right ones. For the effort to truly equalize education to succeed, Congress will need to fight off destructive schemes by lobbyists and bureaucrats of both parties who are working hard to undermine the new initiative and to preserve the bad old status quo.
What Bell was saying was that instead of mandating desegregation, it would have been better if the Supreme Court had mandated something like “No Child Left Behind” and litigation had revolved around that.
Also, he wanted to permit a large amount of pro-black discrimination in hiring, which the idea of color-blindedness gets in the way of.
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:23 pm“Tommy Christopher @tommyxtopher
· Open
@Patterico Again, he was saying people who *talk* crazy shit are better than people who *do* crazy shit. Your reading is unfair, bad faith.”
According to Tommy, Bell thought we should appreciate people who talk crazy sh*t like advocating genocide, maybe even give them a hug (I’m improvising a little here), but that doesn’t mean the people talking crazy sh*t are radical.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:24 pmOr that the people saying we should approve and hug the crazt sh*t talkers are radical.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:25 pmHere is Juan Williams in June 2007, responding to what looks like Derrick Bell’s (or somebody else’s) thinking on Brown v. Board of Education:
Don’t Mourn Brown v. Board of Education
…But the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities.
Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity.
And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America’s public schools have been growing more segregated — even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic.
By the early ’90s, support in the federal courts for the central work of Brown — racial integration of public schools — began to rapidly expire. In a series of cases in Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo., frustrated parents, black and white, appealed to federal judges to stop shifting children from school to school like pieces on a game board. The parents wanted better neighborhood schools and a better education for their children, no matter the racial make-up of the school. In their rulings ending court mandates for school integration, the judges, too, spoke of the futility of using schoolchildren to address social ills caused by adults holding fast to patterns of residential segregation by both class and race.
The focus of efforts to improve elementary and secondary schools shifted to magnet schools, to allowing parents the choice to move their children out of failing schools and, most recently, to vouchers and charter schools. The federal No Child Left Behind plan has many critics, but there’s no denying that it is an effective tool for forcing teachers’ unions and school administrators to take responsibility for educating poor and minority students.
It was an idealistic Supreme Court that in 1954 approved of Brown as a race-conscious policy needed to repair the damage of school segregation and protect every child’s 14th-Amendment right to equal treatment under law. In 1971, Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for a unanimous court still embracing Brown, said local school officials could make racial integration a priority even if it did not improve educational outcomes because it helped “to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society.”
But today a high court with a conservative majority concludes that any policy based on race — no matter how well intentioned — is a violation of every child’s 14th-Amendment right to be treated as an individual without regard to race. We’ve come full circle.
In 1990, after months of interviews with Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the lead lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund on the Brown case, I sat in his Supreme Court chambers with a final question. Almost 40 years later, was he satisfied with the outcome of the decision? Outside the courthouse, the failing Washington school system was hypersegregated, with more than 90 percent of its students black and Latino. Schools in the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, were mostly white and producing some of the top students in the nation.
Had Mr. Marshall, the lawyer, made a mistake by insisting on racial integration instead of improvement in the quality of schools for black children?
His response was that seating black children next to white children in school had never been the point. It had been necessary only because all-white school boards were generously financing schools for white children while leaving black students in overcrowded, decrepit buildings with hand-me-down books and underpaid teachers. He had wanted black children to have the right to attend white schools as a point of leverage over the biased spending patterns of the segregationists who ran schools — both in the 17 states where racially separate schools were required by law and in other states where they were a matter of culture.
If black children had the right to be in schools with white children, Justice Marshall reasoned, then school board officials would have no choice but to equalize spending to protect the interests of their white children.
Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards.
And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.
Dealing with racism and the bitter fruit of slavery and “separate but equal” legal segregation was at the heart of the court’s brave decision 53 years ago. With Brown officially relegated to the past, the challenge for brave leaders now is to deliver on the promise of a good education for every child.
Juan Williams, a senior correspondent for NPR and a political analyst for Fox News Channel, is the author of “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America.”
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:37 pmSo tell me Mr.
The Scorpion (8ec442) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:46 pmFrogPatterico, what is it about my nature that you don’t understand?Maybe he’s talking of an anonymous underage “Derrick bell” who has been harassed by the vast right wing conspiracy? Eh?
Ghost (6f9de7) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:51 pmThis sounds like an admission that he has got no facts,and no law to argue so he is pounding on the table.
dunce (15d7dc) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:56 pmOne way of understanding this thing, is that Tommy Christopher understands these caveats, but he doesn’t know the circumstances under which Derrick Bell said that, and that’s what e means by context.
In my dictionary, the word “context” has two meanings:
1. The parts of a sentence, paragraph, discourse, etc. that occur just before and after a specified word or passage, and determine its exact meaning; as, it is unfair to quote that remark out of its context.
2. the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to some happening or personality.
ragrap
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 8:56 pmHe’s BOTH. Libtards go to GREAT LENGTHS to appear logical. It doesn’t work. The tangled web is obvious.
Gus (694db4) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:07 pmIs this not the same Tommy Christopher who had necessitated a “columnist” section at mediaite because they couldn’t, in good faith, refer to him as a “reporter” any more?
Don’t engage him Patterico, he’s greasing for a spot on MSNBC. Or maybe more appearances on Thom Hartmann’s show. You know Thom, of course. He’s the homeopath who accuses conservatives of being unscientific.
Don’t know why anyone reads this fool. It’s perfectly clear that his editor doesn’t.
Uncle Pinky (9ff2f7) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:11 pmI think he’s stupid and lonely
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:28 pmProbably, Tommy sits at his cubicle with his sack lunch and wonders why no one is at home.
Ag80 (b0b671) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:42 pmOK, I’m wanting to agree with you, Patterico, because I thought T.C. was being less honest than you gave him credit for during the A.W. scandal, but so far, I’m not able to.
I think there’s a huge difference between someone who “blows off steam” with violent rhetoric and someone who puts it into action. Indeed, I think most men who aren’t well-educated lawyers or what have you have been really mad and said, “I’m going to XXXXXXX,” whatever XXXXXXX is (insert violent content there). But they don’t really mean it and they don’t do it.
As far as context vs. caveats, I don’t see it as Clintonian parsing. The context T.C. is referring to is growing up as a second class citizen in South Africa, ruled by another race in your ancestral homeland. I’d want to kill my oppressers then too. I think most people would, if I read history correctly, at least until the situation was rectified (but the emotions wouldn’t necessarily be so finely tuned as the strategic plans).
For example, Americans, despite being of mostly the same race and often cultural and legal background as the Brits, got P.O.’d over taxes without representation, etc., and fought for independence, killing many Brits with, I assume, some anger around. Violent action too, not just violent rhetoric.
So if a black man feels really, really mad that what he sees, reasonably, as his people are being ruled by a self-implanted minority, I can understand him using violent rhetoric against them. I can understand him using actual violence against them. That isn’t to say I approve it in that specific case (I’m glad Mandela and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and world moral pressure and economic sanctions led to a more peaceful transition of power), but I can certainly understand why miscellaneous black man Y would say, “Kill all the b-stards.”
That is radical of course, so I agree with you there, but then ruling a people on their ancestral homeland — like Europeans did to native Americans and the Dutch did to black South Africans — is pretty darn radical too. Life is radical, especially this whole conquest thing.
And what with the wars and the killing of them, especially in America as it happens, that’s at least as radical as violent rhetoric going the other way. So I see that as significant context.
Caveat = you acknowledge Bell’s support of Khalid Muhammad takes into account that he used violent rhetoric, not real-world action.
Context = the reasons Muhammad, Bell, and other black people found the situation in South Africa intolerable.
We are biological beings and race is a real concept. While I enjoy knowing people of all races, I think it’s totally natural to object to being ruled by folks who are distantly-related to you, rather than to self-determine. And desire to use violence against those ruling you is radical in the sense that war is, but it’s also perfectly natural and human.
If I’m not understanding what you were getting at, please let me know, but I do think this is what Tommy Christopher was getting at.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:43 pmThe problem is, Random, that is not the context Tommy was referring to, as you can see from the pattern of his tweets. He complained that I had omitted the context and then immediately clarified what he meant by that: that Muhammad had engaged in words not action.
Patterico (feda6b) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:52 pmHe was born in Pittsburgh, not South Africa.
JD (318f81) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:56 pmWell that just makes him as harmless as H. Rap Brown, what ever happened to him, oh wait,
narciso (b483e4) — 3/14/2012 @ 9:59 pmrandom:
So, you’re saying a white man understands the reality of entrenched racism better than someone who actually experiences such.
I bet your cocktail parties are a hoot what with the enjoying all races and such.
Ag80 (b0b671) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:01 pmHm. I’ll reread. But it does go to show how well-meaning sincere people can see things very differently, a fact I too readily forget in the heat of it.
Were I Tommy Christopher, that’s the limited defense of Bell and Muhammed I would have made. It’s based on empathy, not really my own interests or views. In some ways, I think African nations that have the most European adminiatrators do best to this day, a belief I wouldn’t expect all sub-Saharan African descended people to agree with or appreciate.
I’ll try again and see if I get what you’re getting at.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:05 pmIt varies. But empathy can play a major role. And one doesn’t have to feel exactly as another does to get the general idea.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:08 pmRandom – I am shocked, truly shocked that you like Tommy Xtopher. You could knock me over with a feather.
I show Khalid as being born in Houston. All your BS about ranting about minority oppression of blacks in South Africa doesn’t apply, since he’s not South African. Crazy sh*t for an American to say, but he was down with the struggle I guess. The NOI removed him from his position after that speech I believe, but it wasn’t crazy or radical. Bell praised him a year later, after apartheid had already ended in South Africa. Didn’t Khalid later move on to an illustrious career with the New Black Panthers?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:12 pmI mean, it just takes some imagination and anology. Would I want to be ruled by aliens or Chinese or even conquering Bostonians? Nope. Would I feel justified in using force against them to reestablish autonomy? Sure. It isn’t complicated.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:13 pmKhalid born in Houston, Bell in Pittsburgh. But stick to that meme you created.
JD (318f81) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:18 pmI am glad someone is willing to engage these people so I don’t have to.
Mike K (326cba) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:22 pmAfter further re-reading, it is clear that Tommy Xtopher was referring to the socio-economic power structure of sub-Saharan African nations and how their oppression could logically lead tonadmired calls for genocide on other continents, at different times.
JD (318f81) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:24 pmI started this thread by saying I was not convinced of T.C.’s honesty, but once again with you, let’s overlook facts and reality. Likewise, I explained the obvious fact we are biological beings and many people — naturally — identify with people who are closer related to them, i.e., race, family, and extended kin — rather than American political ideology including discounting of biology, preferring to define a people instead by place of birth and/or political system.
But shush you. This is so obvious and I had already said it and I’m not going to spend my night trying to explain something to someone with the nuanced intellectual sophistication of a 5-year old.
Starting an effort to understand people as if they share your default assumptions and definitions is doomed to fail.
Now I’m going to reread this post, finally.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:25 pm“Tommy Christopher has written high-handed and self-righteous posts denouncing any conservative who says that Derrick Bell was a radical or a racist.”
Denounce away. Anyone that advocates discrimination on the basis of race is, by definition, a racist.
And, Bell was a racist…whether leftards like it or not.
As for being radical, well being racist was par for the course for Dems for ages (and still is, they’re just not as extreme about it), so I don’t know if you would really call him a radical. He sounded pretty much like any Souhern Democrat sounded when I was a wee lad.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:29 pmPerhaps Tommy Christopher is off his meds.
Icy (02b509) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:30 pmTommy Christopher is going around claiming that you left out the context, meaning the circumstances under which Derrick Bell made his remarks about appreciating Khalid Muhammad, but without that he can’t offer and opinion about it. He doesn’t know it, but since you have the quote, you have to know it, and he’s sure there’s a reasonable explanation, which you are hiding from him.
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:30 pmThat would make him a suicidal killbot, not dishonest.
JD (318f81) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:31 pmThat’s the way I read his tweets that you posted.
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:33 pm“let’s overlook facts and reality”
Random – Seems like your default setting.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:34 pmThat’s kind of my point, Dave Surls, or one of.
I guess I don’t share the knee-jerk phobia, taboo, and abject horror of taking in to account race or other people doing so. That was the norm for most of history, and is still natural regarless of our enlightened and/or paranoid philosophies. We’re biological critters and I believe race, family ties, etc. are important, if only emotionally to some people. Regardless of whether they “should be”, according to current thinking, they are.
We are biological and not merely political animals.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:36 pmI was born in Houston it was a dark and stormy night
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:37 pm“I started this thread by saying I was not convinced of T.C.’s honesty”
Random – My mistake, I thought you specifically said XTopher. Instead you were inclusive.
“Which is too bad, because I actually like Mediaite.”
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:39 pm42. * [TC says he] can’t offer an opinion [not “and”]
It’s just that he’s sure Derrick Bell couldn’t have been so bad. You didn’t tell him why he’s not so bad.
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:41 pmI mean why does society go friggin’ nuts when some pretty white girl goes missing or commits a crime, especially a sex crime?
Race matters. I love (I’ve always loved as long as I can remember) Martin Luther King’s ideal of judging people based on their character, and I try to; but there are still instinctive reactions to things, and being born in Houston doesn’t afford immunity.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:44 pmTommy Christopher doesn’t know what to think – he may be reasoning though that since Derrick Bell retained respectability till his death it can’t really be like the way you say.
Sammy Finkelman (9c8ec1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:44 pmTo wit, Kosovo.
Or our repeated interventions in European wars.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:45 pmI understand your nature just fine.
My goal is to find another way to cross the stream and make sure you sink without you on my back.
Or me on yours.
Thanks for your comment.
Patterico (feda6b) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:46 pmomg don’t cross the streams
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:46 pmThanks for acknowledging that.
Random (b77c1e) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:47 pmIn my original post on this, I embedded the entire speech. It’s something like an hour and a half long. Context? I got it in astounding quantity, pal.
Patterico (feda6b) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:47 pmI just read the excerpted part above, since this isn’t the issue I feel most passionate about, although I’m a bit interested since I find both Mediaiate and Patterico.com of value. And based on the excerpted portion, it would have been plausible that Christopher meant context in the sense that I originally thought of it (because that’s what I would have meant). Looks like I’ll have to at least skim the larger post. Which is cool.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 10:55 pmI always suspected that Mr P was a cross-streamer.
Henceforth, I will endeavor to treat him as separate but equal.
Icy (02b509) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:07 pmI’m not sure how eager I am to delve into an hour and a half of reading at this hour, so I’ll expound on a thought I just had about America’s modern conception of the lack of importance of race.
In some sense, yes, it’s very American to discount nepotism and also race, but at the same time…
We totally acknowledge the importance and love of family and how a normal compassionate person simply can’t disregard these close ties. See the movie Air Force One as one cultural display of this acknowledgement. Or just think about how much you love your child, sister, father, etc. It becomes clear right away that this genetic relationship is very, very important to you, as is the one you choose with the person whom with you’ll mate to produce your offspring.
This is natural. We all get that.
At the same time, we have or tell each other we should have empathy and concern for fellow human beings, more so than animals, but we have more concern for them than we do simpler animals, or plants, or bacteria.
And it just so happens that is the order in which we share genes in common with them. That is not a coincidence.
In fact, if someone like a leftist radical couldn’t give a damn about people, but wants to save spotted owls or a particular type of slug, we look at them as if there is something wrong with them.
But for non-family humans, we are taught to immediately discount their genetic closeness to us, i.e., their race and sub-group (which isn’t a hard category, but can be graded on a continuum).
Politically this is totally understandable considering America’s history, and I think it’s a lot better than enslaving people myself, and fighting race wars, or what have you.
But.
It’s a learned, not a natural innate, behavior. Naturally, we do feel closest to those who are genetically close to us, whether that’s animals vs. sea weed, or our niece vs. Mrs. Santorum (nice though she may be).
But we’re supposed to shut that off when it comes to race and not care about race. And fine; there may be huge get along advantages to that.
But I also realize it is natural to do otherwise, so if I think about a black guy who, let’s be fair, had his ancestors brought to the United States against their will in chains (and yeah, I know blacks enslaved others, and fought brutal wars, and so on) … well, I can understand — as much as we may wish otherwise — why he would not suppress his natural emotions about prioritizing humans who are closer related to him (i.e., his race) vs. those who aren’t. It’s not really that American, but I don’t know how radical I can see it as, when I see it as instinctive human behavior. But even if so, I still understand it.
It’s a bit of a stream of consciousness here, so I guess I’ll just say that as much as I don’t want to see genocide, I can relate to why a guy might have gotten very angry when he say “his people” (genetically) being ruled and mistreated by another people. Sure, legally he’s an American, and that’s one way of looking at it — the way we’d prefer he did — but genetically he has more in common with South Africans than most people from Austin.
So I mean, what can I say? You can still make strong cases that Bell and Muhammad are radical within the context of normal American thought, but … I find their thought pretty explicable in a broader human context, which … has a genetic/biological basis.
So in a sense I am saying racism is natural. I think that’s true. True and it sucks, but true nonetheless. We’re also a warlike species, and that sucks, we commit murders, and that sucks, etc.
We should educate against it because it leads to a more peaceful world and a better quality of life for people, but we should also understand a little bit about where the black man is coming from.
I can’t believe I typed that, but I guess I did.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:15 pmLet Christopher argue that the history of oppression in South Africa justifies a call for extermination of the women, children, babies, “faggots,” and “lesbians” who resided there.
After all. Who can criticize a call for killing “faggots” and “lesbians” if one suffered under apartheid?
Go ahead, Tommy. Argue that.
Make my day.
Patterico (feda6b) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:15 pm“Tommy Christopher is going around claiming that you left out the context…”‘
What context? The Black Muslims are the scum of the earth, whether their members are currently killing folks (which they have done, btw…read about the Zebra murders, sometime) or not.
Anyone who says we ought to appreciate these assholes is an asshole too, and deserves to be treated accordingly…even, if he’s a dead asshole.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:18 pmI am really amused at all the rationalizations and struggles to explain away the words of Khalid Muhammad in the clip posted at this site. Why do people need any second thoughts or excuses not to condemn the words? Are they praiseworthy instead?
Since Bell praised both Khalid and Calypso Louis, and the clip in question was just a snippet in the body of work of both men, perhaps a deeper examination is required. I am pretty certain strong stomachs are required and many more excuses and much more back filling will be required on the part of Bell’s apologists to defend his calling these to racist idiots heroes.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:27 pmI certainly oppose such calls as I agree they are radical in a bad way, but still think the calls are much, much less serious than actual violent action.
I mean, the Bible says to stone gays and people who pick up sticks on the Sabbath, and I oppose this. But … I acknowledge there is a huge difference between Christians who tell me the Bible is literally true vs. those (are there any?? not for a long time I don’t think) Jews or Christians who stone people.
LIKEWISE, I have Muslim friends who tell me Mohammed was a great man — and he had sex with a 9 year old girl who had no choice but to marry him … at 6.
I find this morally reprehensible and despicable. Truly awful. To a massive degree. And highly radical.
But … there is a big distinction between Mohammed doing that, and someone telling me Mohammed (or Moses) is a great guy.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:27 pm“After all. Who can criticize a call for killing “faggots” and “lesbians” if one suffered under apartheid?”
Patterico – They don’t have any of them in Iran under the Religion of Peace. They are drug smugglers and other enemies of the people, but they kill them anyway. The left doesn’t pay any attention because that would be Islamophobic.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:30 pmMy genetics include being part Irish, and I read a lot of Irish myths as a kid. I remember thinking the Irish should drive the Brits out (and I see the Brits as a huge ally, or did, until their pro-Muslim immigration civilizational suicide program) … and feeling that way. That it was their land, etc., and that somehow that is important.
Why? I don’t know. I just think it’s natural to have these sorts of feelings about our kin.
But I didn’t donate any money to the IRA so I never paid for a bomb or a rocket launcher — yet am I to be condemned forever for stating that, yes, I’d still like to see Irish rule?
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:33 pm“It’s just that he’s sure Derrick Bell couldn’t have been so bad.”
Guess that depends on how you feel about guys who advocate that states should pass laws telling kids what schools they can or can’t go to, based on the color of their skin (while forcing their parents to pay taxes), and also how you feel about incompetent academics who run interference for scum like the Black Muslims.
Personally I wouldn’t let a piece of crap like Bell, or David Duke (same thing, just dressed up in whiteface) set foot on my property, but I tend to be fussy about that sort of stuff.
Probably ’cause I’m old to remember stuff like Jim Crow and the Zebra murders.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:34 pmDave Surls,
I think there are fundamental differences between Bell and Duke, although who’s morally superior, if any, and if that even has any meaning, I’ll leave up to the reader.
For one, I don’t think Bell was arguing blacks are superior … but rather that they should segregate and chart their own destiny. In fact, he explicitly said “separate but equal”. If you know where he argued for black superiority, let me know, but I haven’t heard it alleged.
Duke more clearly argued for white superiority, at least in the intellectual sphere.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:38 pmI’m going to watch a movie. I may or may not tackle the long conversation tomorrow. If I do, I’ll comment. If not, you may go on thinking you are right. 😛
(Just a joke. You may actually be right.)
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:42 pm‘In fact, he explicitly said “separate but equal”‘
Yeah, that’s what the Jim Crow boys used to say too. As a matter of fact, they’re the ones who invented it (duh).
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:47 pmWell, fair enough, Dave Surls. I’m certainly not advocating turning over political power to people who advocate genocide. Just understanding why an an officially racist country’s oppressed racial majority might attract over-the-top violent rhetorical support from people outside the country who oppose what’s going on there.
I mean, if natives in Mexico or Canada or not-yet-American states vocally said that they think white people should be killed during the height of the Indian wars, I wouldn’t endorse their policy, but neither would I feel all butthurt about it. I’d get why they could feel that way.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:50 pmTotally! And when Hitler called for the eradication of the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, why, that was totally less serious than if he had actually killed a bunch of them!
So: when he gave those speeches? I think the right thing to do would be to APPRECIATE him.
Because hey. He didn’t kill ’em.
Yet.
As I say in my post: Godwin would forgive me for the analogy.
Patterico (feda6b) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:52 pmI guess, to be perfectly frank, I view it more as a Jew from England calling for extermination of the Nazis in 1934, more than I look at it that way. It isn’t like the White South African regime was innocent in its treatments of kafirs.
Random (38d59c) — 3/14/2012 @ 11:57 pmKill the Nazi faggots and lesbians, right? I mean, who could denounce that?!
Patterico (8e0c05) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:12 amWTF has the LIBTARD or DEMOTARD Party become.
Threatening to XY or Z. Or to KY or Z, is defended and lauded as good. And the logic is, that the LIBTARD threatening, DIDN’T ACTUALLY FOLLOW THRU with THE THREAT.
Have I missed a “NUANCED” point?
Gus (694db4) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:15 amRemember, hostile rhetoric is only bad if it’s the Right Wing doing it. And by “hostile rhetoric” I mean, saying anything the Progressives don’t want to hear.
Steve B (b0ac79) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:15 amMan, I can’t wait for someone to quote *that* out of context…
Patterico (8e0c05) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:19 amIt’s objectionable (at least if you replace the word “Nazi” with “German”).
But, again, not hard to understand the emotion behind it.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:24 amAnyway, it is ironic that you’re now defending Nazis from being rhetorically attacked using violent language by a Jew.
The analogy isn’t perfect, but let’s not overlook we’re talking about the South African Apartheid regime, not Sweden; and we’re talking about a guy who used violent rhetoric, not started World War 2 — or even punched a white man that I know about.
I don’t truck with what he said, but I really think there’s a big difference between saying that about a nation practicing official racism vs. “whites” in general.
But it was despicable. Sure.
Also harmless, as it happened, unlike what the Apartheid regime was doing.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:31 amPut it this way. I wouldn’t support Muhammad for any office with political power after saying all that, but not supporting the guy who knows the guy who likes Muhammad … well maybe I wouldn’t, but it’s nothing like the first-hand connection with domestic terrorists that the voters didn’t seem to give a crap about.
I hope I’m wrong. I want Obama to lose. If the American electorate suddenly see this as Obama influenced by and liking radicals, awesome.
But I think it’s too far removed and not serious enough. Mr. ghostwriter Ayers, on the other hand, well that speaks to me. How the voters processed and accepted Obama’s connection to a guy who bombed the Pentagon, whose wife served time for her part in the shoot-out deaths of 2 Chicago police officers to fund a terrorist organization … well that has always mystified me.
But acknowledging it as a fact, I find it hard to see how this Bell connection is going to hurt him. Although I personally acknowledge Obama must have thought something of Bell to consider him required reading or a suitable alternative to studying Dred Scott directly.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:58 am‘The “Zebra” murders were a string of racially motivated murders, committed by three African American men who were later convicted, that took place in San Francisco, California, from October 1973 to April 1974.’
‘During 1973 and 1974, fourteen execution style murders and eight assaults occurred in San Francisco, whose police named the case “Zebra” after the special police radio band they assigned for the investigation. Twenty-two crimes in a six-month spree apparently involved white victims of the three black suspects…’
‘…Mayor Alioto announced the news of the raids and announced that the killings were perpetrated by the Death Angels. Black Muslim leader John Muhammad, the minister of Mosque #26 in San Francisco, denied the allegations of a Black Muslim conspiracy to kill whites. The Nation of Islam paid for attorneys for all of the perpetrators convicted, bar Jessie Lee Cooks, who admitted his crimes and pled guilty.[6]’
‘However, there was enough evidence to prove the case against the “Death Angels.” The trial started on March 3, 1975. Efforts by the defense to discredit Harris were to no avail, as he spilled all of the grisly details over 12 days of testimony.’–wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_murders
Harmless?
Yeah, their ultra-racist rhetoric, and genocide-preaching is just good clean fun. Ain’t nobody ever going to REALLY get hurt.
And, we really ought to appreciate those Black Muslims more.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:59 am“How the voters processed and accepted Obama’s connection to a guy who bombed the Pentagon, whose wife served time for her part in the shoot-out deaths of 2 Chicago police officers to fund a terrorist organization … well that has always mystified me.”
Why would that mysitfy anyone? In 1860 the Dems turned traitor en masse and made war on their own country in an attempt to retain their slaves. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the ensuing war. and, that’s just the WORST thing they’ve done.
What possible objection would Dems have to consorting with backstabbing garbage like Ayers or Dohrn?
Birds of a feather.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:21 amAlright, I’m far from a historian on Mr. Bell’s Muhammed, but the way I read this:
… is that Muhammed’s genocidal rant in response to the South African Apartheid regime came in 1993 or 1994. Therefore, he is not responsible for murders committed by “Black Muslims” in America in 1973 and 1974.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:21 am“… is that Muhammed’s genocidal rant in response to the South African Apartheid regime came in 1993 or 1994.”
Yeah, that’s a great point, except the Black Muslims have been spewing their insane race hatred ever since the 1930s, and Black Muslims have been acting on it too.
It ain’t all just talk.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:28 amPeople have been killing each other for a long time. I will acknowledge that Islam is a belief system that lends itself to killing and that, on average, sub-Saharan descended people commit violent crimes at a higher rate that Caucasians, who themselves commit violent crimes at a higher rate than far-east Asians (Mongoloid peoples).
None of which makes Muhammed responsible for murders made by black Muslims (not all of whom commit crimes by any means) 20 years earlier in a different country with a far different situation than he was even talking about.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:34 amHave I missed a “NUANCED” point?
Comment by Gus — 3/15/2012 @ 12:15 am
— When it comes to nuanced points, you are batting a thousand, buddy.
Icy (02b509) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:49 amI’m not suggesting that a speech made in the 1990s was responsible for murders carried out in the 1970s (obviously).
I’m just laughing at the idea that we ought to appreciate Black Muslims, because they just talk about violence and don’t employ it.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:52 am“It isn’t like the White South African regime was innocent in its treatments of kafirs.”
No doubt.
One of the things I most love about lefties is that in their addled minds because arpatheid was bad, anyone who was against it, therefore must be good.
That kind of simplistic “thinking” no doubt accounts for their undying devotion to an ass like Derrick Bell.
I’m just kidding about the love thing, though.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 2:13 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1N2k0-F1pU&feature=youtu.be&t=9s
I thought Bell was a proudly self described radical. I’m very amused to see how far the left must go in their hackery. I overestimated them because they got Obama elected in the first place, but they are headed for a trainwreck in November, aren’t they? They are so far from reality on Obama right now it’s actually getting funny.
It’s cool that Patterico considers Tommy a friend, but I do not understand why he takes Tommy seriously as a pundit.
Dustin (401f3a) — 3/15/2012 @ 4:21 amChristopher is using the term “bad faith” the same way a child cups his hands over his ears and yells “I can’t hear you! Num num num num!”
CrustyB (8402be) — 3/15/2012 @ 5:19 amThat is a nice elaborate defense you created for Tommy Xtopher.
JD (d246fe) — 3/15/2012 @ 5:36 amWell it could just be an elaborate pose like Vanilla Ice’s ‘Rob van Winkle’ but I don’t think so,
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:06 amthen again the notion of a spoiled utilities scion
like Bill Ayers being a revolutionary, is kind of
a stretch as well,
Actually I find the greatest flaw in conservative argument is ignoring the facts.
tadcf (6f3ab1) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:15 amRegardless they are taking the argument clinic, to all new levels, and mind you, this will not stop them from bringing up the same lies that Ted Kennedy
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:16 am(and John Podesta) told about Bork 25 years ago. in order to get the squish Kennedy.
I think Sowell, really sums what Bell had become at the end;
http://www.creators.com/print/conservative/thomas-sowell/racial-quota-fallout.html
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:23 amApparently the left has changed it’s collective mind about *any* uncivil language being inexcusable because it’s the catalyst for inciting mayhem and violence. Cuz, you know I remember that being a huge issue back when we had that little national misunderstanding about putting certain legislative districts “in the crosshairs” in order to metaphorically concentrate on winning elections in those districts.
And that was hardly a case of “‘blows off steam’ with violent rhetoric as (opposed to) someone who puts it into action” , like a commenter above calls the murderous and hate filled language that Tommy and Pat are discussing.
Hypocrites.
elissa (481b91) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:24 amThey deny their own ‘excited utterances’ and then they make up a narrative about the other, re spitting, and or ‘kill em’
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:28 amBELL was talking in bad faith. That is to say, he he made a veiled threat of violence to come.
“Appreciate the genocidal rhetoric….WHILE IT LASTS”
…was my take-away.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:35 amrhetoric becomes personnel then policy;
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/14/Cassandra%20Butts%20Obama%20Advisor%20Bell%20Devotee%20Packing%20the%20Bench
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:42 amWhat facts have been ignored, “tadcf”
JD (d246fe) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:43 amtadcf,
If you want to argue substance, you may. Contentless insults will get you viewed as a troll and you will be treated accordingly.
JD asked you a question.
Patterico (97e6dc) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:51 amThe parsing or whatnot on either side is just dancing around Bell’s actual message about violence to come (IMO, anyway.)
Sarahw (b0e533) — 3/15/2012 @ 7:26 amSarahW, that is a stronger point, I feel, than did Obama like a guy who liked a guy who said hateful things that he didn’t act upon against a people whose regime did X, Y, and Z hateful things againat deemed racially inferiorior people who weren’t allowed any political say in government in their own ancestral homeland (yeah, I know there were a few internal semi-autonomous regions that received mediocre resources, but I mean overtly and in general).
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 8:06 amWhereas your mind has this really deep black Muslim = bad formula going on.
Be that as it may, and I see your point, no one here is saying Muhammad was a saint. And Stalin wasn’t a peach.
You’re the one who is lost in really simplistic thinking.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 8:10 amHow about Colin Ferguson, remember him, one never knows when ‘excited utterance’ becomes direct action,
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 8:12 amRandom,
You’re grasping at straws here. You may “understand” why black people like bell appreciate violent rhetoric, but that doesn’t mean you should accept and excuse it. I understand most pedophiles were victims of child molestation. That doesn’t make what they do okay. It doesn’t give them an excuse.
The best you can do here is, “okay, now I see how you became such a messed up individual.” To take your observation and turn it into “but blah blah blah occupation blah blah blah oppression blah blah blah so it can be excused” is logical fallacy.
We uderstand cancer. Doesn’t mean we should appreciate it.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 3/15/2012 @ 8:53 amBeing an actual pedophile, a sexual harmer of innocent children, does not equal saying some violent things, then not acting on them, in regards to a truly unjust situation. This is total fail on your part, Ghost.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 9:38 amGhost – Random is obviously a big proponent of moral relativism, one of the favorite tools in the left’s toolbox. He’s moved the goalposts all over the field in trying to justify Derrick Bell calling Khalid Muhammad a hero and rationalizing Khalid’s comments in the Kean College video. Apparently crazy, violent, abhorrent rhetoric is just fine with Random as long as it is in the service of the right cause, although he did concede at one point that it was despicable, 95% of his time is spent defending it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/15/2012 @ 9:47 amI’m just glad that the children and the women and the faggots and the lesbians weren’t all killed, you guys.
Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b) — 3/15/2012 @ 9:51 amPious Agnostic – Tragedy averted is always a good thing, plus the black folks weren’t sold to space aliens, so the South Africans have that going for them too.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/15/2012 @ 9:58 amIf some American soldier or ethnic Chinese said, “Kill all the Japs,” and then didn’t unlawfully kill any, I wouldn’t condemn that person forever. Rebuke more likely, and I’m sure that sort of rhetoric was used.
I certainly wouldn’t condemn everyone who appreciated that soldier or Chinese, and I would consider condemning those who liked the person who appreciated the person through guilt by association once-removed really weak sauce.
Random (38d59c) — 3/15/2012 @ 10:24 amhttp://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/03/15/murder-incorporated-bruce-springsteen-goes-all-in-with-ows/
narciso (186b54) — 3/15/2012 @ 11:28 amBell was a promoter of a racist theory for most of his professional life. He praised a bigot who advocated violence.
In my opinion, Obama supported Bell and this explains why Obama wants to transform our country and has engaged in many reckless decisions that show disregard for our country.
Obama must not be reelected.
Dustin (401f3a) — 3/15/2012 @ 11:34 am“Whereas your mind has this really deep black Muslim = bad formula going on.”
Nah, I always call guys I love “ultra-racist scum of the earth”.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 11:38 amActually I find the greatest flaw in conservative argument is ignoring the facts.
Comment by tadcf — 3/15/2012 @ 6:15 am
— Your existence, unfortunately, is a fact. And now we shall ignore it.
Icy (02b509) — 3/15/2012 @ 11:59 am“Actually I find the greatest flaw in conservative argument is ignoring the facts.”
Talk about projection.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 12:03 pm104. Comment by Ghost — 3/15/2012 @ 8:53 am
We uderstand cancer. Doesn’t mean we should appreciate it.
Actually we don’t understand cancer. Ask anyone ‘Why does cancer kill?’
You’ll be hard pressed to get an answer that makes sense and confroms wioth the facts.
They’ve pretty much given up tryiong to answer that question.
It’s not physically occupying space, with a few possible exceptions.
My answer: In most cases, it is because the liver or the kidneys, probvably the liver, is overwhelemed from processing the byproducts of cell division. Women who are pregnant suffer from the same symptoms but to much lesser degree. Burn victims die because the body can’t handle it. Also poeople who have starved and then eat food they are not used to. This whole subjkect has not been studied very well.
About Derrick Bell: The point here really is, he was lying. There was not somebody worse than Khalid Muhammad on the horizon.
Bell was networking, as was Obama. But what a vile netwiok!
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:13 pm“I think Sowell, really sums what Bell had become at the end”
You know Thomas Sowell is a genius, because he’s saying exactly what I’m saying.
😉
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:25 pm“Of course it matters if a guy in the White House Press room is a total hack…”
Well, the Washington press corps is essentially an arm of the Democrat Party, and has been for longer than I’ve been alive (which is a long while).
Expecting them not to be hacks is expecting the impossible.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/15/2012 @ 1:36 pmBeing an actual pedophile, a sexual harmer of innocent children, does not equal saying some violent things, then not acting on them, in regards to a truly unjust situation. This is total fail on your part, Ghost.
Comment by Random — 3/15/2012 @ 9:38 am
“kill the faggots and the lesbians.” What horrible injustices were the gays committing against black Muslims? So in your mind, Manson and Hitler weren’t “as bad” because they just used violet rhetoric? They never acted on their words, they just encouraged others to. Bin Laden didn’t fly the planes into the towers, he was just using violent language in the face of a truly unjust situation. Anwar al-alwaki or whatever never killed anyone either. Did I find your moral equivelance yet?
Some pedophiles never act on their impulses. I don’t appreciate them either.
Don’t pretend that bell and his views were normal, or even to be expected. They were hateful and radical, and he appreciates violent rhetoric.
Can’t use David duke because he’s not exactly the same type of racist as bell.
So, Professor Neville McWhiterson of Prestigeous University says, “statistically white people are being bred out. We need to fight back against the Hispanic uprising, and I absolutely appreciate the words of the brave men at StormFront.”
And then Mitt Romney was seen on video saying, “young people, open your hearts and minds to the words of Neville McWhiterson,” and that’s not a problem?
After the American revolution, was there a genocide of British loyalists? No, because advocating genocide of even the most ruthless oppressors is evil. Because genocide is evil. Stop equivocating and admit that. Hence, it’s a big freaking problem that this guy was given tenure, let alone that the president admired him. It’s a problem that our president finds genocidal madmen admirable.
Clear enough for you?
Ghost (6f9de7) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:12 pmYes, he’s a misdirection willing to excuse the most execrable comments, the bigger issue is how many
go along with the lie, even when contrary documentary evidence is available;
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74094.html
narciso (6b94ef) — 3/15/2012 @ 6:16 pmSammy,
Maybe cancer was the wrong example. So, I’ll use my own: I understand celiac sprue. I understand that if I ingest 3 molecules or more of wheat, barley, rye, or oats, I will be in extreme pain for 4-8 days and one step closer to death’s door. I don’t appreciate it one bit.
Seriously, it blows.
I understand why Khalid hates white people, and I understand why he wanted a genocide. Had bell said something like “it’s important to understand these men and why they feel that way,” then yes, nothing to see here, move along. But he didn’t. He appreciates them and what they do for the black struggle.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 3/15/2012 @ 7:30 pmI could be mistaken, but if you replace the “re-” with a “di-“, that sentence would improve in accuracy greatly.
Smock Puppet, 10 Dan Snark Master (8e2a3d) — 3/15/2012 @ 8:50 pmDr Ray Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.
Icy (02b509) — 3/15/2012 @ 9:46 pmWalter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes it’s true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.
Walter Peck: Jeez!
[Charges at Venkman]
Mayor: Break it up! Hey, break this up! Break it up!
Walter Peck: All right, all right, all right!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, that’s what I heard!
Rape is a horror. Being falsely accused of rape leads to tragedy. And letting either of those go unpunished is a sin. Always has been, always will be. That’s why this: http://www.joelengel.com/about/
Joel Engel (104e96) — 3/17/2012 @ 5:36 pmTommy’s latest scribble and bits:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/daily-caller-links-president-obamas-trayvon-martin-remarks-to-black-panthers/
Daily Caller Links President Obama’s Trayvon Martin Remarks To ‘Black Panthers’
by Tommy Christopher | 5:34 pm, March 23rd, 2012
In Tommy’s reply to a commenter I took the occasion to call out his “Bad Faith”.
Dear Tommy:
I’ve written headlines before and it seems there are a limited number of characters that are available for use in the headline software, kind of like Twitter. But in the text of the article, the actual group’s name is used. I call BS and Bad Faith.
You then spend an eternity describing the difference between the Black Panthers and The New Black Panthers. The former was an African-American revolutionary leftist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, while the latter is an African-American revolutionary leftist organization active in the United States currently.
Bad Faith Tommy.
PS. I read a comment on an internet blog where a guy said that “someone should beat the crap out of you for being a partisan hack who displays no intellectual honesty whatsoever.” I was going to call out his sick subtext, but since the commenter merely threatened violence, rather than carrying it out, I instead decided to be thankful for commenters like him while I’ve still got the chance.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
poor sinner (6beb0c) — 3/23/2012 @ 7:22 pm