Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fox]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't call for Reid to leave office.

[asylum seeker]

[quote="mises"]

[geldedgoat]

[Fox]

[thecount]

Boy did I miss a lot:

Fox, when I said "your" (pages and pages ago) it was a collective/hypothetical your, similar to the "your Ferrari breaks down, what now?"
It wasn't a personal attack, but rather a posit.

While I would agree that attacking Byrd does not carry any weight regarding the nature of Reid's comments, I would disagree on it's relevance to the discussion.

A key feature of this discussion seems to be the controversial "double standard" that is being argued. I feel that Byrd is the golden exemplar of this double standard, and that such a presentation serves to undermine all of righteous indignation that staunch democrats have when it comes to Trent Lott (or other Republicans) even better than the Reid comments.

If China suddenly issued a scathing verbal attack on "Human Rights Abuses in America," would you assign it much credence, based on what you know of China? If I were trying to dispute claims about Lott, the Byrd comparison would have no place here. But I am not concerned with Lott. I am not defending Lott. I'm attacking the people who are attacking him, not to invalidate their arguments, but to invalidate their authority to make these arguments. Let he who is without a KKK-senate-president cast the first stone.


I am in no way claiming that republicans don't have racists - I AM claiming that democrats have NO moral high ground on this issue at all, and I am pointing out an extremely strong example. When these issues are brought up, the other side crawls out of the woodwork and demands the offender be fired.


At the end of the day, what the issue boils down to is this:
Both sides have representatives who are racists. It happens.
It's how each side reacts to such comments that sets my teeth grinding.

When D's issue racist remarks, republicans cry "double standard"
When R's issue racist remarks, democrats cry "moral corruption" and claim the high ground.

It comes down to a level of scrutiny with a palpable partisan divide.
The whole Bork vs. "Wise Latina" issue.

When the media reports conservatives saying crazy things, it is most often Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson...non-elected figures, treated as if they were heads of the republican party. But we hear crazy things out of Alan Grayson or Byrd or Reid and we subject these comments to even less scrutiny or condemnation, when, as elected officials, it is they and not the world's Limbaughs that should be held up to a higher standard.

[Fox]

I agree with you, the Democrats have no moral high ground. Both parties contain individuals which have at various points made racist remarks (some of whom have gone far beyond mere remarks), and both parties have individuals who could be considered as reasonably free of racism as one could be. I in no way defend or excuse genuinely racist comments made by Democrats.

What Republicans need to consider, however, is why they have this image of "the more racist party." We can agree that as individiuals, Republican politicans aren't necessarily more racist than Democrat politicians, so where did this image come from? The answer, of course, is their policies. For politically driven reasons, Republicans have chosen to pursue policies that are not in the interests of minorities. For politically driven reasons, Democrats have chosen to pursue policies that are in the interest of minorities.

I don't think the reasons are necessarily racist, but the policy proposals look racist, and to the average man, looks are important. As such, the policies that the Republican Party champions have earned them the image of "the more racist party" in the eyes of the common man. They can either live with this, or they can work against it by supporting more minority friendly policies. That's the reality. Maybe it's not fair, but it's life. If I had my way, claims of racism and sexism would be far less abundant in our politics, and reserved for genuinely racist and sexist policies (like segregation or affirmative action). I suspect you feel the same way, at least to some extent. But the population isn't made up of people like us, so what do you propose? So long as Republicans work to disenfranchise minorities, so long as they speak out loudly against Mexican illegal immigrants, so long as they talk about how they want to racially profile Muslim terrorists, they're going to be labelled the racist party, even if these things aren't actually motivated by racism.

[thecount]

I agree with you on everything but Grayson.

I refuse to see how a man fighting against someone's first Amendment right (Langley) is a champion of the people. I cannot believe that someone who has no problem resorting to holocaust comparisons (especially someone with a Jewish background) is not sensationalizing an issue for pure political gain. I sincerely doubt any perceptions of yours that he wishes to work for the people, as he only seems to be working as hard as he can to widen a partisan divide. You seem to agree with me that Republicans and Democrats calling each other names gets nothing done. Well, Grayson has made a name for himself through name-calling. In the Grayson thread, I've identified bad votes, bad comments and bad ACTIONS of his.

If Grayson cared about working toward something meaningful, his words and actions would be dramatically different.

[geldedgoat]