6 Comments Add your own

• 1. John Foust  |  September 15th, 2009 at 10:47 pm

  

  I’d tend to agree with him if his statement didn’t say “an overwhelming portion”. Certainly some of it comes from what he’s talking about.

  Don’t we see more racist comments appear on right-wing blogs than on left-wing blogs? They may be repudiated (sometimes) by the blog hosts, but something brought them to the right-wing blog and something made them think their comments would be well-received.

  Then there’s the anti-intellectualism promoted by many right-wingers. It may be less popular and less common to spout racist opinions, but many today are willing to tout the superiority of a lack of educational accomplishment, eagerly ridiculing the deep thinking that results from higher education.

• 2. Debunked  |  September 16th, 2009 at 8:59 am

  

  Shouting “You lie!” isn’t a disagreement. It is a prepositional statement that can either be true or false. There is no middle ground.

  And, according to factcheck.org:

  Claim: Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

  The claim is false. Thus, Wilson’s statement was fallacious. I am not going to claim the statement was racist nor will I say that disagreeing with the president is racist.

  But the act of shouting down the president and calling him a liar while he is addressing the congress definitely breaks decorum. Thus, there must be some part of him that felt what he did as acceptable.

• 3. Debunked  |  September 16th, 2009 at 9:23 am

  

  Whoops. Prepositional should be propositional if any grammar people out there are confused. Bloody vowels.

• 4. Elliot  |  September 16th, 2009 at 9:41 am

  

  Interesting conversation.

  I agree, John, that some of the dislike of the President is almost certainly motivated by racism. My concern is the attempt to paint any disagreement as racism. On the other hand, I would probably take issue with your suggestion that the Right is more racist. I think you clearly see more anti-black, anti-hispanic racism voiced on the Right, but there is plenty of racism and intolerance on the Left. There is often racism between African-Americans and Hispanics and African-Americans and Asian-Americans. In the end, it was the African-American vote that denied gay people marriage rights both here in Wisconsin and in California.

  And Debunked, I wasn’t really speaking about the Congressman. I think what he did was rude and out of line. Although, I have a hard time drawing much of a distinction between what he did and the boos and hisses that Democratic Congressman aimed at President Bush during his addresses.

• 5. John Foust  |  September 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am

  

  Elliot, so you’re saying racism is everywhere, just like Jimmy. :-)

  Carter didn’t say everyone who disagreed with Obama must be racist. He said many who are opposing Obama are motivated by animosity towards blacks.

  Republicans and Democrats booed Clinton, too. The most wrong claim in that brouhaha is that it was unprecedented. Wilson’s shout was perhaps more direct and more isolated from the rest of the flock, which makes it stand out.

• 6. Dan  |  September 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

  

  “Don’t we see more racist comments appear on right-wing blogs than on left-wing blogs? ”
  No
  There are also a lot of left wing trolls who visit right wing blogs and put in racist comments to make the blog look bad.
  It may be less popular and less common to spout racist opinions, but many today are willing to tout the superiority of a lack of educational accomplishment, eagerly ridiculing the deep thinking that results from higher education.
  Huh? Doesn’t make sense.

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