First off I tend to “debate” like I am wearing brass knuckles and I have a bad habit, as many here would note, of meaning a general “you” and not specifying that only to turn around and apologize afterward.

And all this time I thought it was the metal plate in your head that was setting off the metal detector.

Just kidding and in good nature MSF. =P

and just to confound and annoy as many people as possible: I am a former democrat turned republican who voted FOR Barak Obama who is against Gov't run (regulation is something different) health care, support a womans right to choose — as goes the cliche — is against oppressive taxation is in favor of more regulation of “wall street” believes the individual is more important than the group, supports freedom of speech {don't believe hate speech should be a crime — go ahead, call me a fat wop faggot loving jew — i dont care –, but that laws against harassment should be stringently enforced).

i am overweight. i have italian austrian (jew) czech ancestry, though straight have no issue with homosexuals. I've had (and supported) a female boss — younger than myself, had and supported and argued with a 'black' supervisor, have supervised 'black and hispanic' workers and probably learned more from them than they from me. I do not believe in conspiracy theories but acknowledge group and peer behavior — good and bad.

I'm just disgusted intellectually when people intend to deflect an argument with personal attacks such as but not limited to racism, sexism, pinheadism, and any other popular isms of the day.

Sorry.

Fox isn't typical-lib CNN, much less wacko MSNBC. No Tim Wise, no Keith Olbermann. Not an asylum.

Nor is criticism of the New York state government in Albany, etc., “racist” [sic].

It's just the handiest excuse to mischarcterize the public (as well as the GOP) right now by the resentful, given how the lib Dems have alienated the public and engineered their own destruction in overreaching on health care. (Hopefully this causes Senate second-guessing of the idiotic House climate legislation, etc., too, and other House excesses.)

When they're not attacking Limbaugh, Beck, whichever righty celeb is next, etc., it's “racism” [sic].

Anything but admitting they're wrong and that they're failing. That's expecting too much of them.

He forgot to mention all those winged unicorns … as well as all the liberals and extremists clamoring about racism where none exists.

Both sides race bait to some extent but the right is winning awards for it at this time and are saying and doing things that pre-Obama would have been tagged racist without question and then hiding behind “but the president is black”, not that they voted for him but the president being black fixes all of our past racial sins didnt ya know. By that calculation I never want to hear about anti-christian or anti-fundie talk because W. was president so no bias can exist anywhere in this country.

When this debate began I sided with those that felt the racists were a minority, now I am becoming more and more comfortable painting the entire party with a very bright red bigot brush. Why? The strategies and talking points chosen remind me of the cries of “reverse racism” of the 80's by those that actively ignored actual cases of racism. Carter spoke a bit to bluntly and he also should have used a MUCH smaller brush but I am beginning to be reminded of the type of seething hatred of the right I had in my childhood and this strategy being used to discredit the charges of racism is the only common link since its the same one I have seen my entire life. It goes away and I forget it, while its around I want to hunt down people to pick fist fights with that use it.
To recap the Repubs are not acting as racists, they have a minority of vocal racists in their party that are making them look bad. The reason they are looking bad is that they are courting these votes via race baiting which they and now the congressional black caucus seem to be doing. The difference is that most of those members I feel pity for since they lived through things that messed with the way they view the world, unamerican things, horrible things, things that were done by men that look and sound just like many of those on the right that are actively race baiting. The race baiters in the Repub party do not have this excuse, and they are doing it purely for political gain.

If you see race baiters or racists everywhere please take a moment and think hard about how you feel about people of other races, if your mind jumps to a stereotype of that race you have some work to do. If your mind jumps to how that group has held you or the nation back or you or your people down, you have some work to do. “Those people” who ever they may be are not the problem, we are. Everyone of us that has ever listened to a racist joke without comment and everyone of us that do not vocally tell both sides race baiters to sit down and shut up or in the case of our older americans that cant really help it, just ignore them.

Of course its the voice of an idiot, race baiter.