And pray tell us what it means to you.
Like most Americans, I have a choice of voting for a more or less consistent political philosophy or doing so to make myself feel good about myself. For now, Republicans come closest to having that which resembles mine, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that Republicans have taught me some very important lessons about political philosophy. But none of their candidates or office holders, outside of Duncan Hunter, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Jon Kyl have given me anything approaching inspiration. I view most partisans as civilians. Nuff said.
Hitch has something snide to say of defenders of the Tea Party for whom he has discovered a trail of literature of ignominious descent. There's something of this kind of civilian populism to be regretted - rather like the foolishness of viruses and botnets that infect millions of Windows PCs of the improperly defended masses. But I'm rather stuck in that corner that says, we cannot go and re-engineer a better public. We've got what we've got. If there is something good to say about useful idiots of the Tea Party it is, by and large, their anti-incumbent bent; something I've always said. Nor have I ever thought of them as more than an unruly crowd bearing torches and pitchforks. It still remains to be seen whether or not Steele's GOP apparatus can tame them or the candidates they and other Republicans sent to Washington this midterm.
That said, the new Congress has done in short order two things I would have them do, which is to undo the repeal of DADT and keep the Bush Tax Cut. I further expect them to give Obamacare hell. I don't expect Obama or this Congress to do anything particularly smart about economic reform, which is too bad. I suppose we'll have to wait for Mitt Romney 2 to hear anything intelligent. But that leaves in place the big bad spectre of racial this and racial that in American politics, or rather in the meta-politics. I realize that in my upper middle class fantasy world, there isn't much racial hurly burly, but somewhere knees must be doing something more than jerking. Somebody needs to explain it to me in terms of a legislative agenda.
Counting noses is symbolic. Allen West is symbolic. But he's also a real person with real strengths. Here's something interesting that John McWhorter wrote that passed under my nose this week:
"The black conservative is responsible for making people question an idea that racism must be extinct before black people can overcome. Understanding that our goal is to thrive despite racism rather than fetishizing it is, in fact, the central ideological plank of people deemed 'black conservatives.' This is a coherent position, but that can be hard to perceive, given the way that race has been discussed in our land over the past 40 years or so. There are two places to go. Some black conservatives believe that black uplift can happen in the logical sense only with a revolution in black family mores, and that short of this, nothing can or will change. I find that view unduly pessimistic, and yet sound."
There is the paradox here which I think I explained well in the Intellectual One Drop Rule. The short description is that it is essentially a racial reduction of African Americans to think they are politically beholden to African Americans. It defies the definition of individual liberty and it incorporates what Toni Morrison calls the problem of the rescued.
'The problem of internalizing the master's tongue is the problem of the rescued. Unlike the problems of survivors who may be lucky, fated, etc. the rescued have the problem of debt. If the rescuer gives you back your life, he shares in that life. But if as in Friday's case, if the rescuer saves your life by taking you away from the dangers, the complications, the confusion of home, he may very well expect the debt to be paid in full.' -- Toni Morrision, 1992
Unlike Morrison I don't believe the debt to language is anywhere so profound as political quid pro quo. In fact it's rather ironic that Morrison herself has become required reading to a greater extent than blacks have been required to vote Republican. But such matters beg questions about what is considered in the best interests of blacks as part of that group they supposedly represent.
Getting down to cases. Here is Christopher Hitchens:
Most epochs are defined by one or another anxiety. More important, though, is the form which that anxiety takes. Millions of Americans are currently worried about two things that are, in their minds, emotionally related. The first of these is the prospect that white people will no longer be the majority in this country, and the second is that the United States will be just one among many world powers. This is by no means purely a “racial” matter. (In my experience, black Americans are quite concerned that “Hispanic” immigration will relegate them, too.) Having an honest and open discussion about all this is not just a high priority. It’s more like a matter of social and political survival. But the Beck-Skousen faction want to make such a debate impossible. They need and want to sublimate the anxiety into hysteria and paranoia. The president is a Kenyan. The president is a secret Muslim. The president (why not?—after all, every little bit helps) is the unacknowledged love child of Malcolm X. And this is their response to the election of an extremely moderate half-African American candidate, who speaks better English than most and who has a model family. Revolted by this development, huge numbers of white people choose to demonstrate their independence and superiority by putting themselves eagerly at the disposal of a tear-stained semi-literate shock jock, and by repeating his list of lies and defamations. But, of course, there’s nothing racial in their attitude …
Is it like that?
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