I tip my hat to liberals when it comes to improving race relations. You people try hard to make the world a better place. True, you frequently function as if you were operating on only half the available brain cells so far as consequences and subtle permutations go, but at least you try.

Congratulations.

But then again, you are frequently your own worst enemy when it comes to advancing racial dialog in this nation because you are so utterly sensitive to every possible racial nuance, and so terrified at giving offense, that you effectively shut down any possibility of growth. The irony is that due to your overprotective and politically correct attitudes you effectively slow down healthy race relationship growth.

You are like an enraged mother bear with her cub. Don't even think about it. That cub is utterly off limits and is perpetually perfect in every way . . . GROWL!

Your constant attitude is that if the current discussion is not already PC approved then the initiator MUST be a racist. It's simply inconceivable that it is someone of good intentions or that he could possibly be looking at things from a different and wholly legitimate angle simply because he's not terrified of making a stupid mistake.

I've noticed the same thing about Jewish and Israeli issues on these boards. A poster might as well just shred his reputation and then spit on the remnants as post anything that hasn't already been PC vetted and approved. As touchy as the subject of general racial minority relations is on these boards, and though I've rather bravely ventured into them this week, I'd rather gnaw off my own hand than to venture a thoughtful opinion on American and Israeli issues that doesn't already adhere perfectly to established and sanctioned Fray opinion.

I understand why you liberals are the way you are on these issues but you well-meaning jackasses aren't doing anyone any favors with this attitude. You aren't protecting anyone. You certainly aren't clarifying issues -- though evidently you think you are. All you are doing is impressing other frightened little rabbits with the fact that you are an ardent defender of the eternally downtrodden; and thought need not apply.

I'm not naive enough to imagine for one heartbeat that this missive of mine will cause any of you knee-jerk reactionaries to alter your habits, because it's just too easy and enticingly comfortable to settle down into such a pattern of prickly protectionism in this regard. I wrote and posted this for my own satisfaction and because I pretty much despise most people with your sort of aggressively blind mentality.

In simplest terms posting this makes me feel better. It's only a plus that it happens to be the honest and factual truth.

They don't seem all that concerned, however, about the downtrodden masses who cannot vote in an American election.

Ie: I've never heard a single one of them express any joy over the fact that hundreds of thousands of women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer being tortured, raped and murdered by Saddam's henchmen and by the Taliban.

Jack

just as conservatives have theirs. I have yet to hear conservatives lament because Iraq has been turned into a lethal hell on Earth and that thousands of Iraq [if not also Afghanistan] women and children are currently having their family members slaughtered and are being repressed and perhaps even raped and murdered by death squads operating under unofficial Iraq government sanctions since the Bush Administration decided to practice neo-imperialism.

It's a funny old world that way, isn't it?

The premise was valid but the management was incompetent.

Jack

We tried to tell you that in 2000 and 2004, but you just kept screaming "Dubya!" so you couldn't hear.

Not true, although I have always believed the premise for the war was and is valid, I was disturbed and infuriated by the poor management of it and by Bush's proclivity to run a politically correct war.

I thought early on that he was making a mess out of it but I kept hoping it would get better. You folks criticised because you wanted us to lose the war...thinking it would assure a Kerry victory in 2004.

We will win it but it has been a costly victory. History may prove the validity of what we did in Iraq but that remains to be seen.

Jack

There are some moments when conservatives are absolutely PRECIOUS.

As a parent of a toddler, I now have an even deeper understanding of these times. The child speaks freely, engulfed fully in his fantasy world, while the parents exchange glances and grin.

When Cons complain about political correctness, this phenomena is particularly acute.

There is no politcal tribe more obsessively consumed by enforcing THIER OWN mores on everyone else than American conservatives. To them, all language, every extrapolated symbol, and every single fleeting piece of information is processed through a rigid screen of ideological filters and the slightest deviation - by friend or foe - is met with terribible outrage, denouncement, and retribution. Violators of conservative PC are not only denounced, they are nullified.

This Obama preacher flap is a fine example, whereby Obama is judged not by his words, but by the words of an associate of his, and by the degree of his effort to denounce the words of someone else. That is the very definition of PC.

The precious part is, of course, when they drag a mellon case over, climb up on it, and complain about the projected PC proclivities of liberals.

Absolutely precious.

rendition regarding the conservative rendition of Political Correctness and then stretched it to encompass YOUR prejudices concerning Obama's efforts to escape the consequences of his twenty years worth of endorsement through silence.

Please have enough courtesy to accept that some of us are at least as intelligent and perceptive as you are and recognize bullshit when it is present WITHOUT having to step in it.

I'm not really interested in defending or persecuting Obama in this thread as the mass media is already doing it's usual schizoid job of that themselves. They will presently inform us by majority opinion of just what we should be thinking in regards to Obama and his SPEECH and his innocence or guilt.

Doesn't the anticipation just make you breathless?

Of course conservatives are the greatest experts of forcing the entire world into a rigidly politically correct mold and then decrying that they haven't done anything of the kind and that only liberals do that. Rather sadly, liberals [who damn well should know better] practice PC in rather different but nearly as pervasive ways.

The entire goal of both factions is to shut down real dialog in absolute terms. In such cases neither side is interested in real thought and certainly NOT in independent thought.

Consider my odd nic; really consider it. There's nothing accidental about its selection.

If we want to really advance racial thought and habits in this nation then we must allow for the utterance of non PC thought on the Left and the Right and from the Center without automatically attacking that person and proclaiming that we have found a racist or some other brand of sinner.

People need to back off and let thoughtful people muse and toss out ideas without leaping forward to bite them in the throat, but that's not going to happen as long as PC is the operative term for all ideological sides.

they're using mellon crates now? How times change.

You've got some pretty elegant and precise literary chops. I'd advise you about something I wish I had known when I first showed up here and that is don't get too angry with the residents. I channel my anger now, when I have any and as well as I can manage, at the subject puppets of my post.

These can be mean streets here and it isn't good to alienate folks. That happens by natural selection anyway. I've found that it is possible to have a friendly standing with people of every political stripe. I don't have much in common with One Eyed Jasper, Inkberrow and several others but there is a mutual regard that has tremendous value... at least to me. First Hawk has the capacity to reach across the aisle as well.

I hope you don't think I'm interfering but I would like to spare you what I created for myself by being volatile and scatter shooting. When I first arrived here I had a lot of internet immaturity and some of the oppositions I created may well remain to the present day. Some are natural antipathies and those are to be expected. Some of them are in remission now but I note a particular burbling from a particular corner that indicates in may be losing its restraint. In the past I would never have seen it and there is no way to head it off at the pass. But being contained can allow you to be prepared for the dustup as it's takes two to tangle.

You've got great potential as a writer and there is no better place to develop that than here because there are some razor sharp minds around here and due to cyber-telepathy we can know what others are thinking and be improved by it immensely just by being in the neighborhood. I know it sounds science fiction but I've been feeling it for so long that I don't even question it any more. It would be a shame to create adversities unnecessarily. They will come on their own despite our best intentions.

Keep up the good work and don't lose the fire either. Passion makes any post a better read than some of the bloodless and tepid things we sometimes get here.

When confronted by Sarvis you retreat to the weakest of arguments; they all do it. As we all know, we are not dealing with a level playing field here as we are constantly bombarded with double standards. And that goes to the heart of Sarvis' point.

Compare and contrast the coverage of Obama/Wright and McCain/Hagge. While there is a difference in the closeness of the relationship McCain still has a relationship with Hagge. Likewise, McCain's huge gaffe, regarding al Qaeda/Iran displays a lack of depth not seen since Gerald Ford's infamous declaration in debate that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union, got scant coverage.

Obviously "they all do it" but one cannot claim that 3=7 and that is about how lopsided this is.

Now let’s see how many “liberals” admit to it.

I, being mostly conservative (on a lot of things not all), admit that we too can display real prejudices. But do we stifle dialogue on important matters? Not as often I really don’t think. (spare me the counter punch using O’Reilly or Hannity as an example)

The race issues are a good example of the problems you cite. No one dares speak about anything that the blacks in America may have brought upon themselves to some degree because, like you say, we are now racist or even evil. It’s a tactic used by liberals at least as much as conservatives use it.

Why even Bill Cosby was pilloried for daring to say something about personal responsibility within his own race. What a shame. Little wonder we are degenerating as a society.

Your cartoonish delusion about the nature of other people, or your preening self-regard? Too close to call.

Obama is not being judged by the words of an associate of his. He is being judged for enlisting, as a spiritual advisor and mentor for twenty years, a man whose philosophy is centrally based on paranoid, racist ideology. If the guy actually WAS part of Obama's family, rather than someone with which Obama voluntarily formed a teacher/student relationship, this wouldn't be an issue.

See if some crazy bastard is your relative, you aren't blamed for it because it's an accident of birth. You don't have to take action and put yourself in a particular building specifically designed for you to sit and be filled with the crazy bullshit if the guy's a real relative. However, if you do take action for twenty years to put yourself in a building specifically for the purpose of being subjected to the crazy bullshit then you need to account for your actions. Even if you're a black guy.

.. that Rev Wright has been spewing this stuff prominently and consistenty for 20 years.