Posted on 09/16/2009 9:54:31 AM PDT by nickcarraway
When a President's prime-time speech is interrupted by a congressman with the accusation of "You lie!" that is something to talk about. But it is hard to decide who is stricken with a more severe American pathology: the ideologues who can't stop themselves from text-messaging or shouting insults at the President while he's talking to them or the demagogues who can't stop crying racism simply because not every citizen is enamored with America's first black President.
There is grandstanding and tomfoolery on both sides: The tea party crowd protests with signs that depict President Obama as Hitler, and the left quickly plays the race card - saying that such protest is "hate speech" and is directed at Obama only because of his skin color.
As any history student or veteran of the civil rights movement knows, Presidents (all of them white) have always been targets of epithets and subjects of caricature. Some were accused of "murder" and "racist" genocide - including the man from Missouri who dropped two A-bombs, and FDR who authorized the internment of innocent Japanese Americans into concentration camps. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a former segregationist who was adored by many blacks for his anti-segregationist policies as President, was driven into political exile over his insistence on waging and "winning" an unpopular war against the Vietnamese. And, lest we forget, Richard Nixon was oftentimes depicted with a short mustache. George W. Bush, too, was drawn as a monkey and as worse by protesters and artists.
We are a country with a vicious, personal political streak. That's who we are.
It is wrong to believe that in 21st century America, Barack Obama, simply because his skin color is darker than that of other Presidents, can or should be spared similar harsh treatment - including slurs, discourtesy and unwarranted comparisons with Adolf Hitler. Obama isn't the first and he won't be the last President to be hated by angry parts of America - on the left and right.
Perhaps his election ushered in a postracial period of good feelings, but a postracial America never envisioned a silencing of old-fashioned protests or any permanent era of civility. That's not the American way. In our free country, we simultaneously decry and feel pangs of guilt and shame and conscience - or don't - but we always tolerate "hate" and political speech that we don't like and the grotesque signs that depict our Presidents as buffoons, jackasses, apes and even murderers. Our American President does not merit the protections or courtesies and bows accorded a king.
In truth, the protesters on the right who think of Obama as a radical and foreigner and those on the left who treat him as some kind of saint or savior are brothers and sisters under the skin. They're both wrong.
Obama's address on health care reform is a case in point of both sides being wrong.
To my ears, Obama's speech before Congress was a bundle of contradictions - one big, fat lie. I did not buy his claim that real health care reform, the kind we on the left can believe in, won't add a "dime" or even a penny to our out-of-control federal deficit. Nor did I hear anything credible from him about controlling the skyrocketing costs of Medicare and Medicaid. The promises he listed simply did not add up. I said to myself - not being on the floor of Congress at the time - "you lie." That heretical thought did not make me a "racist." Nor did the expression of the idea make Joe Wilson a "racist."
Wilson was, to be sure, boorishly rude, the kind of rudeness we have witnessed in town hall meetings from the left and the right. And Wilson broke with the decorum of Congress. But it is not because he hails from the South or was once a member of the Sons of the Confederacy or directed his outburst at America's first black President that his utterance can be deemed "racist." He surely did not say or intend the N-word or "boy." Those who claim he did are either fantasizing or engaging in racial histrionics.
Indeed, I think those who so cavalierly play the race card are actually insulting Obama. When Obama's supporters feverishly play the race card they know exactly what they're doing - they are trying to stop the conversation. But Obama says he wants to encourage dialogue, so the racialists who back him do him no favor.
America's racist past cannot be denied, but the kind of real racism that was once popularly supported is finished, for good. As Obama himself says, there is now no black race or white race. In any serious discussion about health care coverage, we are therefore obliged to face this hard truth: We don't withhold a blood transfusion from anyone who needs it, whether or not they can pay, whether or not they're black or white or legal or illegal.
The only issue is who pays: Who pays the bill to keep us from contracting communicable diseases from one another and for ensuring our well-being and personal security from a catastrophic wipeout if our insurance doesn't kick in or if coverage is denied?
These are fair questions, not racial in cast.
Someone once asked, "Can't we all just get along?"
Maybe not. But can't we disagree with the President and oppose what he has to say as a "lie" without interrupting him while he is speaking?
By the same token, can't those who object to Obamacare and an Obama Nation be recognized as wholly within their rights to speak up and to ridicule the man who temporarily occupies the White House, without having to genuflect and bow before the President?
As a liberal, I must ask: Why can't liberals who support Obama make an intelligent argument without accusing those who disagree with us of racism, and sideswiping other liberals who, like me, when I heard Obama's speech, reflexively agreed with Wilson's sentiment - to wit, "Mr. President, you lie!"?
Meyers is executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition.
“As a liberal, I must ask: Why can’t liberals who support Obama make an intelligent argument without accusing those who disagree with us of racism, and sideswiping other liberals who, like me, when I heard Obama’s speech, reflexively agreed with Wilson’s sentiment - to wit, “Mr. President, you lie!”? “
That is a powerful sentence.
Excellent!
Racism on both sides, eh?
Big difference between a guy in a crowd with a sign and a former President of the United States, Congressmen, Representatives, etc.
I’m sick of the “both sides are acting badly” argument.
Democrat leadership has consistently shown they are valueless, biased and in need of quite a few hours of intense therapy.
Sorry, I’m not accepting ANY comparison of what the tea party folks do and what the left does. The president lied. He didn’t lie because of his race. He lied because he is a liar. He hangs with liars. There is not talent there. NONE.
The left has lost any capability for rational thought. Perhaps they might like to read some history...if they can indeed read considering the joke of an education which the majority of them appear to have received.
OMG - a thinking liberal - and a non-totalitarian one... Thank God.
“The promises he listed simply did not add up. I said to myself - not being on the floor of Congress at the time - “you lie.” That heretical thought did not make me a “racist.” Nor did the expression of the idea make Joe Wilson a “racist.” “
Sanity from the left. Are pigs flying outside my office?
I realize that I am in a small minority on this website holding this heretical position.
Evidently everyone who disagrees with conservatism (however poorly defined) is an evil, amoral (or immoral) enemy that is completely incapable of rational thought.
Trying to work with some liberals on a case-by-case basis where we happen to agree is supposedly a fool's errand.
We conservatives are not like the Taliban so we will not demand that all our enemies be eliminated or relegated to some second class status. But somehow we are supposed to believe that any conversation with liberals is a total waste of time, and that they are all out to undermine our way of life. How anyone can hold those two positions simultaneously mystifies me, but it is evidently something that most Freepers are able to do.
Thanks for posting this.
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“As a liberal, I must ask: Why can’t liberals who support Obama make an intelligent argument without accusing those who disagree with us of racism, and sideswiping other liberals who, like me, when I heard Obama’s speech, reflexively agreed with Wilson’s sentiment - to wit, “Mr. President, you lie!”?”
The answer is simple - THEY DON’T HAVE AN INTELLIGENT ARGUMENT!!
Michael Meyers is a superior person.
Um, note to Mr. Meyers: He's lying about that too. The radical racial slurs are exactly what Obama wants. He wants anything that will help him acquire power.
liberal/intelligent.
Oxymoron!
Your right on with your post
I believe in a color blind standard - I can't stand most liberals - whatever their color. And I like most conservatives - whatever their color.
And the thuggy "race card" is easier.
In Iran the thugs use the "Allah card" - if you disagree with one of the goons running Iran - they say you're disagreeing with Allah.
Odd how evil people are cut from the same cloth.
Beginning by refusing to use the word itself, in polite company, and instead calling it "the R word", and treating it as offensive as it is...
And when the talking heads on TV start referring to it as "the R word", we will know that we've suceeded.
Amen.
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