THE CAR DOESN’T WORK, IT MUST BE THE COLOR

As a result of my last Blog post, Common Sense, I entered into a discussion with an intelligent liberal (no, this is not, according to some Conservative thinking, an oxymoron) family member. During this discussion the concept of Conservatives not wanting the President to succeed because the President is black, reared its ugly head.  When ever I hear this racist canard from Liberals, I am left pretty much speechless. It would appear that anyone not liking the spectacularly successful policies this President has proposed (not implemented, but proposed), and not wanting the President of the other party (opposite philosophy) to succeed, could only feel like this because he is black, completely ignoring the fact that every other President, all white, have also had their very vocal detractors, and I don’t remember ever hearing the word racist used. When the Revs. Jackson and Sharpton took off after President Bush, did I miss the racist claims? Or, can only whites be racist? If, God forbid, Hillary Clinton becomes President, will she have the built in excuse of sexism, waiting to bail her out of any lack of success? As a white man am I ever going to be able to blame a President again?

As much as I despise using racism as an excuse for a lack of success, in the case of President Obama I do, in some small way, understand it. We have a President who has a certain personality, and I’ll leave it up to the reader to fill in what you think the scientific term for this personality might be. President Obama’s speech after the death of Bin Laden was crammed to capacity with the word “I”.  When things don’t go quite as well, the “I” seems to be replaced with, “ Republicans” “Tea Party”, “the generic Washington establishment ” (as if he lives in Bigbutt, Montana and watches all of this unfold on Twitter). This is not the type of personality whose underlings (and when you are President, that’s pretty much everybody) wish to convey the bad news that something he wishes to have happen, is not happening.  So, it’s time to open up the blame bag and see who’s ripe for attack this time. How could the Republicans, Tea Party and the generic Washington establishment be against a plan so skillfully and brilliantly thought out, it must be because they are—here it comes—Racist.

The reason this bothers me so was brought out in my Blog post entailed, background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Profiling: The New Dirty Word. The African-American race has been kept where it is on the American social strata because the likes of the aforementioned Jackson and Sharpton. They, and those like them, have succeeded in making victims of the entire race. When you are a victim, you have no control over your circumstances, you are in the control of “the Man,” and until the man lets you up you have little chance of success.  In the plantation days the man was actually a man, today the “man” who cares for all needs is the government.

In a classic newspaper article written by Charles Reese, he made the observation that all the good and bad in this country is the result of the actions of 545 men and women (100 senators, 435 congressman, 1 president, 9 Supreme Court judges) If they want something to happen it will happen, if they don’t it won’t.  In order for racism to actually affect the policies of the land, many of the 545  (46 of which are Black) would have to be voting against a policy which they feel would benefit the country, but they would not support it because the President is black. Sorry, I maybe naive, but I just can’t buy that.

I really don’t believe crying racism and treating the most powerful African-American in the world as a common victim is the way we want to go. It is indeed racism if we do not treat President Obama like every other President before him. 

COMMON SENSE by Thomas Payne

As I have said in a previous Blog, I really don’t know all the ins and outs of Obamacare, or the government budgeting process, or exactly how bills are passed. I have a life that fills in my time, but these issues are important, and do affect me. So, I do just like I do for things in life like computer repair, plumbing, expressing dog’s anal glands, etc. All of those issues are important in my life, but maybe a bit too complicated for me to really know enough to not to find myself in trouble.  Therefore, I get myself “people” to handle those issues for me.  The same is true for politics. I get people to do the research for me. “people” are the likes of Rush, Hannity. Beck and Levin. Why do I use those folks as my people and not Maddow, Mathews, Schultz or Toure? Because I have listened to all of the above, and the people I have chosen make common sense to me; they describe life the way I have experienced it. The others? Not so much.

I have used the words “common sense,” but sense, as we all know, is anything but “common.” We may even find in our short time here together that some of you won’t agree with what I would call Common Sense (CS), and that is probably why we have such division in this country. Let’s just try out a few things.

Obamacare--We had a health care system that had many flaws that did need to be addressed. Common Sense (CS) tells me the government should have taken each problem area and addressed each individually, but the administration decided to address about every possible issue in the medical world, short of expressing anal glands,  in a seven foot high stack of regulations that CS tells me no one person, nor gaggle of persons, could really understand.  CS tells me that when you introduce 40 million new people into the system with the same number (or less) of doctors, most people would not find that helpful. CS tells me that the way the rate structure is designed will eventually produce a single payer, socialized medical system, just as President Obama has been quoted as wanting (part of “fundamentally transforming the country”).  Once the government has total control of the health system and the money set aside (I’m sure in a lock box like Social Security) for them to distribute, CS tells me here comes the “Death Panels.”  Of course they would not be called that, and will be vehemently denied, but “something” has to say how the health care money will be spent—what criteria will they use?  CS tells me it will be some combination of age and expense. Ninety –five year olds with new pace makers will be a thing of the past, which is OK unless you happen to be a ninety-five year old who needs a pace maker..

Gun Control—CS tells me if laws are passed restricting the amount or types of guns one can have, only those people who obey laws will be affected and they are not the ones we should be worried about.

Global warming—Of course it is/will warm. Then it is/will warm again. The earth’s climate has been changing since the earth was invented. CS tells me that humans contributed to the climate changes, but I’m hard pressed to believe that humans caused climate change which has been going on before humans existed. What caused it before and why is that not the cause of it now?

President Obama— CS tells me a young man with virtually no management experience, other than managing a few members of his Senate staff, (and that was for only about 140 days most of which were spent campaigning), a man with little or no budgeting experience who has spent most of his formative years outside of mainland USA, was, surprisingly, not ready to “supervise” 300 million people with a “budget” in the trillions.  I think I hit that one right on the head.

Negations/Compromise—Republicans would sign a bill putting the government back to work if the administration will agree to delay Obamacare for one year and require Congress and the administration to abide by the same healthcare the peeps are being required to live (and die) by. The President said he would only sign the bill if it were “clean” (no Obamacare attachment). So, if either side gives in the government goes back to work. Neither side gives in. CS tells me both sides therefore are to “blame” for the government not working. Pointing fingers at the “other” side is just for the benefit of the low information voter.

There is a distinct possibility I may be wrong on some of the above issues, but for me they are just common sense conclusions arrived at through my life experiences and reinforced by my people. Since we have not all shared the same experiences, or have the same people, we tend to view things in life through the bottom of different beer mugs. Maybe we can never convince others of the error of their ways, but hopefully we can work on ourselves to better understand how anybody “could ever think that way.”