Learning from HP
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Maybe I just miss my Fascist friend as he’s traveling in the motherland, in the heart of the wonderous cactus juice, tequila. But the truth is, I’ve learned a thing or two from Thomas Sowell‘s biggest fan. Not about poltics or economics – that’s for me to do the teaching Right now I’m reading the much talked about issue of Time which declared George Bush person of the year. In it is an article by Joe Klein titled The Bennetton-Ad Presidency which celebrates the diversity within Bush’s cabinet. I think this is a good point and one that doesn’t get brought up nearly enough. I recently read an interview with Tavis Smiley of NPR’s popular Tavis Smiley Show. He explained that he will be leaving NPR, in part, because of the many complaints of listeners who don’t like the way he speaks and laughs (like a normal, young black man). Anyway, one of the questions was if Bush’s cabinet or NPR was more diverse and Smiley says hands down it’s Bush’s cabinet. So, here is a passage from Klein’s article:
Now, if HP were to read this, I can already guarantee you it would infuriate him. Because the premise is that minorities succeed because liberals make it easier for them. I think it’s exactly this condescending attitude which is driving so many minorities to the GOP. Because most minorities proudly work themselves through the system without taking any handouts and then read articles like this which completely discount their incredible accheivments as “benefits of Democratic policy.” But it also puts minorities against minorities because liberals see conservatives like Hispanic Pundit as turning their backs on their own people; holding everyone to their own high standards to make a point. We need to continue progressive social programs to ensure social/economic mobility and integrate our giant melting pot. But we (and I mean specifically Democrats) need to lose this racist idea that minorities succeed because of our policy. A couple months ago two local grad students and I headed out to Joshua Tree to do some rock climbing. One went to Brown and the other UCSD and they both now go to one of the best Grad Schools in the world, researching things that most rural Republicans have never even heard of. We are all, of course, liberals. It was a crazy day and snow ended up falling as low as the 215 in Riverside. Obviously, we didn’t get any climbing in, but we figured some eggs and hashbrowns at a local diner would be second best. If one picture could sum up the reason why George Bush was re-elected to the rest of the world, which still can’t comprehend such a thing, it would be a picture of this diner. Wrangler jeans, big belt buckles, friendly, sassy waitresses in white aprons with big hair. This was the heartland. The diner filled up with skinny, old white men who looked like they were leftovers from the 1849 Gold Rush. Native Americans with silky long black hair shuffled in. And so did big families of Mexican Americans, their overweight kids running to the video games like penguins. But they were all Republicans. Guaranteed. Then there was us. Three White 20-somethings in fleeces and North Face jackets and stylish beanies. As soon as we opened the door our mouths dropped in awe. “Holy shit, this place is amazing,” I said. We couldn’t get enough of it. But then I realized we were completely trivializing a lifestyle that is everything these people have ever known. They were all polite to us despite out geeky enthusiasm, but I’m sure in their heads they were all thinking, damn college liberals. It was my first ever real awareness that there is in fact some truth to the “liberal elite” stereotype and that in small way it even fit me too. I felt it again … more so … two weekends ago in Cambridge. There was such a stuffy intellectual arrogance in the crisp cool air, that I was sure I looked like the visiting Republican from the South. I was reminded – as I first experienced in Cape Cod three years ago – that despite our common blueness, the East and West coasts each have our distinct brands of liberalism. I would say that West Coast liberalism is much more egalitarian and populist, but really maybe the only difference is that we wear sandles. Either way, I have definitely learned a thing or two from HP already. And, though he would never admit it, I think he’s widened his perspective too. In fact, the last time we went out for beers before he took off for Mexico, he admitted that he would probably be much more liberal if he didn’t believe in an absolute morality. That recognition is a good start and if I can convince him to do some more traveling, I think we’ll see some changes in perspective over the years at HispanicPundit.com. |
– but about the cultural differences between liberals and conservatives.20 Comments
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[Grant] Gobierno Abierto América Latina
This blog post is a summary of a $25,000 grant from Omidyar Network to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness to support the convening of Latin American transparency networks in Mexico City on March 20, 2012 to discuss the opportunities, challenges,
[Grant] Gobierno Abierto América Latina
This blog post is a summary of a $25,000 grant from Omidyar Network to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness to support the convening of Latin American transparency networks in Mexico City on March 20, 2012 to discuss the opportunities, challenges,
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I hesitantly decided to become involved in philanthropy because I believe that civil society has an important role to play in bringing about a more sustainable, just, and well governed 21st century society. Businesses and governments have their fundamental roles
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Niños Incomodos and Video for Advocacy in Mexico
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Helping Politicians Keep Their Promises
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[Report] Parliamentary Power to the People
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[Report] Parliamentary Power to the People
Brazil-based transparency and freedom of information scholar Greg Michener has authored the first major report on the use of online platforms to understand and monitor parliaments in Latin America. Commissioned by the Open Society Foundations, “Parliamentary Power to the People,”
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Back to My Printing Press
I started blogging at el-oso.net in December 2003. I didn’t expect it to last long; mostly I wanted to keep a travel diary for a road trip around Mexico, and I figured, why not keep it on the Internet? Several
Back to My Printing Press
I started blogging at el-oso.net in December 2003. I didn’t expect it to last long; mostly I wanted to keep a travel diary for a road trip around Mexico, and I figured, why not keep it on the Internet? Several
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The Carlsbad Marathon
It was about five o’clock in the morning when Cindylu, with her sweet little voice — all chamomile and honey — says, “Oso, you should probably put some vaseline in your butt crack.” That’s when I knew I was in
The Carlsbad Marathon
It was about five o’clock in the morning when Cindylu, with her sweet little voice — all chamomile and honey — says, “Oso, you should probably put some vaseline in your butt crack.” That’s when I knew I was in
I enjoy Bush’s “diversity”. It demonstrates that Bush does not just play lip-service to the idea of diversity in his cabinet.
I do believe, however, that there is a need for both parties. The democrats and republicans are both needed. It helps with balance. I think it is healthy to a point. I think it becomes dangerous when you go to the extreme.
That’s what I think at this particular point in time.
Savvy?
HP says he is a conservative because he believes in absolute morality? How odd. That’s why I’m a liberal. I believe those of us who are well-off have an absolute moral obligation to help out the less fortunate, and the powerful have a moral obligation to avoid persecuting the weak, as well as—where possible—stopping the less powerful from persecuting the weak.
I believe those of us who are well-off have an absolute moral obligation to help out the less fortunate, and the powerful have a moral obligation to avoid persecuting the weak, as well as—where possible—stopping the less powerful from persecuting the weak.
–Mitch
The unborn could be viewed as those who are “less fortunate” and the “powerful” can be viewed upon as those who have the power to decide for “themselves” and choose their own destinies and the destinies of others. Que si?
Anyway….here we go again, did I open pandora’s box?
DD, I think I’ve said everything I have to say about the abortion issue, here and elsewhere.
HP, there is a great deal of diversity of thought within the liberal community as well as within the conservative community. I have no doubt you can find many articles by self-described liberals supporting your view—but they do not represent me, or my beliefs, or the beliefs of anyone I know, or anyond I support.
Likewise, I could dredge up all sorts of bonehead quotes from Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and the ilk, to describe why I’ll never be a conservative. But those people are fools, and not representative of the best conservative thought.
However, they may well be representative of the thinking of the national Republican party….
DD, I think I’ve said everything I have to say
about the abortion issue, here and elsewhere.
–Mitch
All right…..es ok.
You may be right, HP.
I’ve been thinking over the last few days—not for the first time—that labels like “liberal” and “conservative” obscure more than they hide.
What do you, Anne Coulter and Pat Buchanan have in common? And yet you’re all conservatives.
And I’m thorougly disgusted with both the Democrats and Republican parties at this point.
Whoops, I should have said “obscure more than they reveal.”
Proofreading. I’ve heard of it.
And I don’t think it’s at all bigoted to suggest that Condi Rice and Colin Powell were appointed to their current positions based on race.
I think it’s wrong, mind you, but I don’t think it’s bigoted. I don’t know much about Rice’s background. Sure, there’s no evidence to suggest she’s competent to be Secretary of State, but then again there’s no evidence to suggest that George W. Bush are fit to hold their offices, and they’re white males.
And Colin Powell before her had an excellent record as commander of the allied forces during the first Iraq war. He got to be secretary of state on his accomplishments alone.
I read a wonderful, cynical political column years ago by a black journalist. I think it might have been William Rasberry. The column came out right after O.J. Simpson was acquited.
The column started out making the assertion that the real breakthrough for blacks wasn’t when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball. The real breakthrough was years later, near the end of Robinson’s career. Robinson was tagged out in a late World Series game. And yet the umpire called Robinson as safe.
The columnist’s point: That moment proved that a popular black player, just like a popular white player, could now benefit from a bad call by an umpire.
Likewise (said the columnist) the O.J. Simpson verdict proved that, now, a wealthy black murderer could buy an acquital, just alike a wealthy white murderer.
I told you the column was cynical.
And another typo: I meant to say that there’s no evidence that either Bush or Rummy are competent to hold their positions….
Hey Mitch,
Only got a few minutes…The blog I linked to did much more than call into question Condi Rice, or a specific minorities qualifications (Which I agree is not bigoted). TCF starts his blog off with this,
Notice the emphasis, this is much more than a specific candidate. This is a wide generalization encompassing all ´minority race Republican´s´. He only used Alberto Gonzales and Condi Rice as examples of this wide generalization. It was his wide generalization I was using as an example here…not him calling into question a specific candidates qualifications.
With that said, I am not basing my views on this one isolated case. It is a fact that liberals in general, follow race specific solutions, and hold minorities at a (lower) standard than whites. It is also a fact that they largely credit their efforts with minority success.
And conservatives, in general, think that racism and bigotry are solved problems, and the poor are where they are because they deserve to be. They made “bad choices.”
From my perspective as a liberal, I respond: Yeah, they sure did make bad choices. They chose the wrong parents.
Mainline liberal thinking at least acknowledges there’s a problem. The conservative party line is that the problem largely doesn’t exist, if it does exist, it’s the liberal’s fault, and the free market will solve everything.
The free market did a lousy job of solving the problems of poverty and bigotry until the New Deal—if we roll back the provisions of the New Deal and the following 70 years of history, why should we think society would be any more equitable this time around than it was before?
I told y’all HP wouldn’t admit it. Just kidding. Much food for thought here, not enough minutes in the day.
Here’s why I’ll never be a conservative. HP, you may not agree with the prosecutor in this decision, but he plays for your team.
–Mitch
Mitch, you can’t be a conservative because of the judge’s decision? Or because of the prosecutor’s role?
I read the link, and I’m trying to figure you out.
Am I missing something? I’m not trying to be a smartass here, I am just trying to figure your comments.
No time to respond to all the good points and questions raised here.
I’m now kind of suspicious of the article. The beginning of the article–especially the first paragraph—are not supported by the facts as they are laid out in the rest of the article.
It appears, if you read all the way to the end, that the judge and prosecutor were not trying to prevent the woman from getting a divorce. Rather, they were following a law that required a 90-day waiting period before granting a woman’s divorce request, if the woman is pregnant, to give her husband a chance to contest it.
I ran the article by a friend in another discussion group—like HP, he’s a conservative, and my friend is a lawyer, too. He responded: “I think it is a fair example of a species of conservative judicial temperament, the kind that ignores the consequences of dated legal doctrines — and is aggressively devoted to upholding precendent, no matter what. ‘Let justice be done even if the heavens fall.’”
“I’ve little patience for this sort of thing. Pragmatic jurisprudence is about knowing when the law is being an ass and not being afraid to junk old law. But I am at my least conservative when it comes to jurisprudence.”
In my observation, the central tenet of American conservatism is the desire to return America to a Golden Age that existed in some time before liberals came and mucked things up.
The characterstics of this Golden Age, in the mind of its believers:
– Women were subservient to men.
– Teen-agers were chaste, and—when they weren’t—they were held in opprobrium, which was good for the commonweal, because it kept the majority of teens in line.
– People got by on their own merit and hard work. The poor were that way because they didn’t work hard enough. They deserved it.
– And, most importantly, American was a Christian nation that respected Christian values.
None of these may be your beliefs, but they’re the beliefs of our President, his supporters, and Congressional leadership.
Of course, this Golden Age never existed. If you look at the time before liberalism gained power—which I’d place at when FDR gained office–you see an era when WASP men were kings, women were beaten and didn’t have the vote, and the rich were free to abuse the poor with little constraint.
The Golden Age of America was the latter half of the 20th Century, a time when strong government and a strong private sector were occasionally partners, and occasionally balanced each other. And liberals had a lot to do with creating that state.
HP: The stories of those two women who regret their abortions is heartbreaking—and there’s a special circle of Hell reserved for family members and boyfriends who intimidate a 17-year-old girl into having an abortion.
Pro-choice isn’t a euphemism for me. Forced abortion is plain wrong.
Still, your anecdotes do not serve as arguments to ban abortion because it is wrong. Rather, it serves as an argument to ban abortion because women don’t know what was good for them. Conservatives of the Clinton era had a phrase to describe that kind of thinking: “The nanny state.” And that’s one of the chief reasons that I’ll never be a conservative.
I grew up with conservatives warning about the Nanny State created by liberals, and then, when the conservatives finally reach a point where they control two out of three branches of federal government—and are gaining control of the third—what do the conservatives do? Why, they want to regulate my sexual behavior, they want to tell me who I can marry. They hire people to search me and pat me down when I wish to travel across geographical distances. They want to keep a database that contains the credit history, criminal record, and other background information about any American that flies on an airline. They want to be able to demand to know what books I read and what videos I watch, and they want to forbid librarians from letting me know that they’ve inquired. They want to suspend the right to trial by jury and the right to counsel. If I had children, they’d be filling my children’s heads with lies about evolution and how to avoid getting pregnant.
And, of course, conservatives have been beating up liberals for decades about fiscal responsibility, but now that the conservatives have complete control of the federal pursestrings, they’ve run up a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars, while cutting taxes.
Of course, the punchline of this story is that the leaders of this country really aren’t conservatives. They’re radicals, determined to impose their national agenda for drastic change on the country. I’d gladly have voted for a real conservative for president in the 2004 election.
Hmmm. We have a waiting period here in Kansas. I think it is somewhat of a good thing. When people file for divorce…the journal entry decree of divorce usually requires a waiting period.
However, here in this state, one can get a doctor’s note/letter to expedite the divorce process. In some cases, if one has a doctor’s note/letter telling the judge that his/her patient is suffering mental stress……then the judge will usually sign the divorce documents.
I wonder if this gal could have done the same thing.
Let me tell ya…..there are some stupid judges/lawyers out there. Believe me, I know.
But I have to remember that they are human and make mistakes.
I suppose I just don’t understand why the lady did not go through with the divorce, you know? Also, most states have a “protection from abuse” type of assistance. This case seemed to happen recently enough that I wonder why this gal didn’t file a “protection from abuse” type of case against this man.
I also wonder about the woman’s lawyer……
Geez’ I’m wondering to much. Happy New Year everyone!
I think it´s fair to say that both liberals and conservatives try to control some part of your life. Liberals will try to control how to spend your money, based on their morality, conservatives will try to control your behavior, based on what their morality is. Both claim a higher moral to do what they think is right.
Conservatives are trying to control how I spend my money far more than the liberals are. Or, rather, the people running the U.S. today are doing so, and they call themselves conservatives.
More than that, by cutting taxes while running up massive deficits, they’re controlling how my nieces and nephew (aged 15 years, 3 years, and 18-month-old twins) will spend their money, and how their children will spend it too.
HP, whenever we’ve discussed issues, you’ve always expressed an anti perspective. Anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-liberal. I know pretty much what you’re against. But what are you in favor of? What are some of the social changes you’d like to see, the changes in government policy? Do you support the Bush administration, or oppose it? Are you in favor of the war in Iraq, or against it?
Another observation: You state that liberals are patronizing minorities, treating them as children, when liberals say that minorities owe their advances to liberals.
But your statement is patronizing in its own way, because it neglects the fact that many of those liberals are, themselves, minorities. What individual has the most responsibility for the advancement of blacks since the 1960s? Martin Luther King.
You state that Bill Clinton, in particular, patronized black people in the manner in which he addressed them. And yet Clinton got strong support from blacks, both in the overall population and from the leadership; I think it was Maya Angelou who pronounced Clinton the first black president. I trust that blacks know their own self-interest, and know who’s patronizing them and shucking and jiving them—to suggest that we know better than they do what’s good for them is, well, patronizing.
Liberal philosophy works best when enlightened members of the majority, minorities and the poor work together and advance themselves. And oppression works best when minority groups turn on each other.
You state that Bill Clinton, in particular, patronized black people in the manner in which he addressed them. And yet Clinton got strong support from blacks……
-Mitch
The number one reason that the minority population supports the democratic party is owed to ‘affirmative action’.
I believe there is a shift taking place.
Affirmative Action was necessary in order for diversity to take place, in my humble opinion. I have to be honest, a good thing that Kennedy did in years past, was helping out MLK when he was in jail.
Btw, I think we have completely drifted from the original message of this particular blog, so I will let you have the last word, and let the current topic die.