Please Don’t Judge Us On The Content Of Our Character
Jan 18th, 2010 | 18 responses
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech in August 1963. This 17-minute movingly religious address was given in front of the Lincoln Memorial to the hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the National Mall in Washington DC. He stated his hope that someday his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but on the “content of their character.” His short life and exemplary deeds left a mixed and incomplete legacy for the 21st Century.
This speech was a zenith in the history of great American public addresses. It incorporated all the liberal views of our secular humanist founders along with our nation’s parallel Judeo-Christian heritage and beliefs. It never ceases to make many people all emotional when they hear it, including this writer. So many things have changed over the past 50 years and yet so many things have not.
In 1968, Both Dr. King and Sen. Robert Kennedy were assassinated in probably the most tragic period in 20th Century American history. By the end of their short lives, they both had aligned themselves with the “Poor People’s Campaign” wherein the focus of Liberals was to focus on social justice for all people (whether they were Black, White or Hispanic) suffering from persistent poverty and economic depravation. That dream was not meant to be. Instead we turned quickly to President Nixon and conservatives finally consolidated their national power and worldview by the 1980’s and 1990’s. Poor people of all races would never be much of a concern for those who controlled the U.S. and it still it is not a priority for the U.S. in 2010.
Yet our nation’s poor, uneducated, and jobless has continued to grow at an alarming rate. Even middle-class America has lived through a decade with no income growth, no employment growth in the overall economy, and further economic damage done by the recent and continuing Great Recession. Over 30% of American families now subsist at below twice the meager Federal Poverty Level established back during the 1960’s. Childhood poverty among whites is growing quickly and it still far higher among black and Latino children at levels not seen since for decades. Over 30 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed. Income and wealth disparity is now at levels exceeding the 1920’s and continues to grow to the detriment of the long-term well-being of our entire nation. We cannot long tolerate this growing “ball and chain” to remain a competitive economic, political, social and military superpower for long into the 21st Century.
Too many American conservatives and Republicans have grown increasingly angry at the poor, blaming government spending and those people themselves as the exclusive causes of such systemic poverty. They conveniently forget they played a major role over the past 30 years by demonizing government, appointing incompetents or rigid ideologues to government positions in charge of protecting consumers, deregulating and not supervising businesses and financial institutions, cutting worthwhile anti-poverty programs and overall public works projects, encouraging rampant illegal immigration through a policy of benign neglect, and encouraging outsourcing of good-paying manufacturing and service jobs overseas.
The Right has also congregated around a nasty, self-righteous, bigoted, angry born-again fundamentalist evangelical Christianity (BAFEC) that espouses empty morality that forgives every public sin by business and individuals against fellow humans but is foolishly preoccupied by the private “sins” of abortion, sexual orientation, and sex in general. These BAFECs falsely wrapped themselves in the American Flag and determined that God was a card-carrying Republican. This was and is the height of arrogant ignorance and sanctimonious hypocrisy.
This BAFEC religion is effectively a complete perversion of our common Jewish and Christian moral traditions that promote both the need for ethical personal behavior coupled with a strong component of social and economic justice. I cannot respect any person or group that espouses such a worldview in which you have created a “god” in your own warped self-image. Until you “convert” to some other religion you are not entitled to any place of trust or power in my country and I will continually oppose every moronic utterance you make in the public sphere.
Our country has descended into a self-made hell of narcissism, greed, short-sightedness, arrogant ignorance, and an utter lack of a common civility or responsibility for our shared future. It’s every person for himself in getting as many material things as quickly as possible and the interests of other people and our society be damned. We are ruled by the sociopaths who generally control many of our largest and most powerful business, political and social institutions. Finally, our own laziness, ignorance, shallowness and self-centered population has merely tolerated this worsening situation by not participating in civil society or by voting in the worst possible leaders and representatives.
Simply because conservatives and Republicans constantly repeat the same lies, falsehoods, stupidity and vitriol, does not make those views correct. I have been sickened to my stomach for the past 30 years hearing that government is the problem, can’t work, and that we must only cut taxes and let free enterprise run unimpeded for prosperity and righteousness to bless our country. Any person, including some right-wing-nut TMV commentators that continue to engage in such mindless blather contrary to the facts and reality are lucky not to be standing next to me or I would happily knock out all your front teeth.
Conservative and Republicans falsely and arrogantly deny that anything they have done over the past 30 years was wrong. Instead, they now are pushing to blame everything they did onto Liberals, Progressives, Democrats and the current Administration. They are empowered by too many of the U.S. electorate who are shockingly ignorant of history and economics, childishly impatient and self-centered, are ideological and religious tools, and woefully ignorant about too many things in life.
In today’s world, we should be happy that we are still not judged by the content of our character. Too many of us are shallow, narcissistic, greedy, arrogant, ignorant, bigoted, biased, lazy, partisan, rigid holders of discredited ideologies, and sanctimonious hypocrites. Many who rise to power in business, finance, government and religion are actually sociopaths – the most dangerous people on earth because they utterly lack consciences, empathy or consideration for others. They use others for personal gain and many of the rest of us willingly let them do that.
If we were really judged by our inner characters, most of us would come up very short on the basis of even fundamental ethical humanistic principles, and woefully short in the eyes of God. I would objectively note that those who fall shortest in ethical and moral behavior are found principally among Conservatives and Republicans. Some Democrats and Liberals have sold their souls to the wealthy oligarchy that runs this country. Some on the Left can be ridiculed for some loony and extreme proposals and policies but most are generally blameless for the deep political, economic and social messes we find ourselves in 2010 since they have been effectively out of power and influence since 1968. Those who object to this correct assessment have been drinking too much FOX and conservative media “Koolaid.”
I do not support all Democratic proposals for solutions to our many national problems, but we have to start somewhere when the Republican Right is completely devoid of any meritorious ideas. I further understand that an honest, open-minded, balanced, and creative approach will be needed over the next decade to correct the many problems caused solely by Conservative and Republican ideology. The endless vitriol being screamed from the Right about socialism and anti-capitalism is pure false scare-mongering when very little has changed substantively since the last national elections and most is the direct residual effects of their own prior bad policies.
As long as a minority in our Federal system and in many State Legislatures can effectively dictate all fiscal and public policy, then Republicans are still solely to blame for everything even if Democrats have slight majorities. All super-majority requirements to raise taxes are intrinsically unconstitutional and contrary to democratic notions of “one-man one-vote.” They essentially render all elections inconsequential and perpetuate minority and oligarchy control over the majority.
We don’t require parallel and consistent super-majorities to lower taxes or create new spending programs. We only expect to elect office-holders by 50% plus one vote, otherwise we might never elect anyone to public office if they had to get more than 60 to 67 percent of the total vote cast. Anyone who continues to demand such a perverted public fiscal requirement is a nasty, anti-democratic, partisan control-freak that can’t accept losing. I have no respect for such arguments and those individuals who make them.
It is not the role of moderates or independents to blame everyone equally or to argue that all ideas are of equal merit. It is the role of moderates to dispassionately allocate blame and responsibility where it properly belongs, and to promote the best solutions to problems, whether they contain “conservative” or “liberal” origins or something completely novel.
It is intellectually dishonest and ethically wrong to tolerate or perpetuate a broken political and economic system simply because it worked a long time ago but it now only protects the selfish interests of the most partisan and the wealthiest among us. A good moderate or independent ignores ideological labels completely and judges ideas and policies on their objective merits. For still too many in our polarized society, “us” versus “them.” is paramount. For an intelligent and conscientious moderate, the most important pronoun is “we.”
Marc Pascal, happily ranting in Phoenix, AZ
18 Responses to “Please Don’t Judge Us On The Content Of Our Character”
Unless you grow up you will all go the way of California – the state that wanted democrat spending and republican taxes. Didn't go too well.
I think the upper classes and government allies are right where they want you. You hurt and wound one another at the ballot and in the polity while they get insanely rich. This isn't going to change unless you change in a way I don't think you can. You are too big and diverse a democracy at this point and neither side has a reason to take a first step of deescalation.
The fact that millions have deluded themselves into thinking that the the tea party is a grassroots, fair-minded, “genuinely American” and liberty-seeking movement that is a break from the business as usual is tragic. The tea party is just another dog eating different dogs, another tribe on the map that only looks out for the petty and short-sighted demands of its own.
The problem in America is that the rich have stolen much of your democratic power, but in return they give you *too much* democratic power over matters you shouldn't be able to vote about anyhow.
Government wasting your money on poorly thought-out projects and abandoning meritocracy and future solvency? Hey, at least you get to fell all mighty and just when you keep those awful homos down! God's chosen! People comma we the!
The same people who played you for chumps last decade are no more accountable today, and considering how eagerly you set upon the distractions and low quibbles they and the old media toss your way I don't really care what happens to you in the future. When I look at the biggest and oldest democracy in the world I start thinking that post-modern nihilism is exactly where it is at. In a world where a person can vote away the axiomatic rights of another and call it a triumph of liberty, or defend waterboarding as bravery, nothing has any meaning anymore.
Marc,
Look here. It's an on-copy of part of a book I got long ago. The foolish belief in government as a surrogate parent, or surrogate for the family, is nothing new, and neither has been the realization that this is flawed as well as impossible to attain.
http://books.google.com/books?id=gxYdofJnAmkC&p…
More info here.
http://www.amazon.com/Tragedies-Our-Own-Making-…
Ahh, up to the usual tricks, I see. It is apparent that this author has conveniently ignored the fact that the Left, from FDR to LBJ to President Obama, as well as their allies on the right in Ike and Nixon, have created a system of dependence and entitlement so great as to create a permanent underclass in the poor, that can be exploited for populist, and leftist, purposes.
The greed of the right has been the factor that kept the economy moving. The acquisitive nature of America is what keeps us going steadily on. Low taxes ensure that the market moves more efficiently. Small government keeps the sovereignty in the hands of the People, and out of the hands of the elite.
What the left has done is create a system whereby people think that they are owed everything, including support in retirement, free health care, free education, free everything. All the right has sought to do is check that entitlement mentality that is ruining the United States. Clearly, this author fails to recognize that fact.
PJB Fan: You might find the links to “Tragedies of Our Own Making” worth a review. This was written by a Democrat circa early 1990s, prior to (note) the 1994 elections, after which even the Dems began facing some reality, at least paying lip service to it (not much more).
Yes, the complex of dependency that accompanies the entitlements (the most effective means of buying votes) is the most tangible feature of what has evolved since the 1930s here. (More broadly also is a revolution against federalism, with centralization of governance in Washington, replacement of private activity by the public sector, and development of the concept of government not primarily as a government but as a service agency, provider, and political weapon not limited to the judiciary.)
As well, it might be well to remember that the facts I pointed out regarding the entitlement society were foretold by a very wise Democrat by the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom LBJ kicked to the curb for saying so.
Looks like some people here don't know the difference between entitlement and a civilized society. Marc pretty well nailed it, and I'm sorry to say Axel did too. Sorry only because Axel seems to have a bleak view of our ability to smarten up fast enough to reverse our national celebration of ignorance and our acquiescence of greed as an acceptable standard. It's a pity the confused purveyors of the rotten goods that have gotten us where we are today seem to be still so infatuated with them. Meanwhile the frustrated common folks know something is terribly wrong but don't know quite how to put their finger on it, which makes them easy fodder for fools like Beck, Limbaugh, et al. Good luck to us, we need it, but what we need more is higher expectations for ourselves.
That’s dumb because it works well in Europe and their people have a higher standard of living than we do.
People like you need to start thinking about our people more and about yourselves less. Its not difficult to do if you simply stop being afraid to do it.
Standards of Living using GNP per capita – the most widely accepted index for a country's financial success:
1.Luxembourg … $56,380
2.Norway … $51,810
3.Switzerland … $49,600
4.United States … $41,440
5.Denmark … $40,750
6.Iceland … $37,920
7.Japan … $37,050
8.Sweden … $35,840
9.Ireland … $34,310
10.United Kingdom … $33,630
What about this makes you feel that Europe is better off than America, or has a higher standard of living?
Once again, you speak that which you do not know.
“Looks like some people here don't know the difference between entitlement and a civilized society.”
Oh, the irony of this.
* * *
“People like you need to start thinking about our people more and about yourselves less.”
Where's that love? I've not only been accurate about the facts. I've also spent a lot of time looking at and asking about other nations like Europe, the typical basis for comparison. (Not the stupid “other democracies” and “civilized” junk, but the real facts there and experiences. That includes friends and relatives of the libs I work with, one of whom was the source about the example I've provided before, that shocks some Europeans — encountering an old person working as a greeter at Wal-Mart. That also includes listening to the rare moments of value on far-lefty talk shows — even Barney Frank, for all his extremism and worse with his goals as a member of Congress, had something worth noting as I heard him last night: He says, at any rate, that based on actual experience, as a patient — which, after all, counts for a great deal — the happiest patients or “consumers” of health care, according to our friend Mr. Frank, are 100% government health care beneficiaries, namely VA “customers.” As he put it, these most-satisfied Americans “lie on a VA bed, in a VA facility, treated by a VA doctor, and a VA nurse sticks a needle in your butt. The government owns the syringe and the needle, too.”
The point here is that I and others like me make the effort to learn and know the facts, and we're the ones most willing to look at, and the most fair and accurate (I could have said fair and balanced, but that would make you ill — heh, you'd truly feel unloved) when looking at, the other side of contentious political, economic, and social issues.
“Standards of Living using GNP per capita”
Tweaking it for purchasing-power parity, if necessary, probably wouldn't change the ranking appreciably.
Europe is not a paradise compared to here. It is similar to us in some ways (expected within the OECD) and different in numerous ways. It is more bureaucratic and authoritarian and collectivist than the USA is. It has a larger role for government, not only the scope and size of the modern welfare state (which faces more serious problems and failures than we will experience here; the model can't be sustained). It features smaller cars and homes (not all of what Americans want is wasteful or gluttonous, despite leftist myths about this), much higher taxes, and other economic constraints that make its economy often inferior to ours. (We provided defense during the Cold War while it spent on social programs and other priorities, conveniently.) It features, outside the UK, a nearly complete dependence of retirees (retiring too young, as in the USA and UK) on government for retirement income (again, part of an unsustainable model that will suffer much more than we already will here).
Put plainly, Europe was inferior to the USA, in ashes after World War II, and as Japan did, often without notice by Americans, methodically revived and improved its standard of living year after year until it is now at parity with and in some areas arguably superior to ours. (The same thing is true for China, little by little, as well as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong before integration into China; this is what eastern Europe would like to attain, and it's what kind-hearted people want for Latin America, and hopefully when it's possible for the other parts of the world.)
Europe is a source of heritage for us (with “social programs” and big government, a good thing, otherwise evil Western according to PC dogma — hypocrites!) but it is also obviously different from us; it is not the benchmark of normality by which we, the USA, are or should be judged, or the model to which we “should” conform. We are not collectivists and not yet completely a submissive Herd who ignorantly or naively or subserviently worships government and bureaucrats and defers to them in knowledge, wisdom, and authority reflexively. (Those who demand we do this should go there, instead.) We are not cradle-to-grave-security-minded children, submitting to a paternalistic (or maternalistic, to honor equality) authority (which the smarter among us know isn't guaranteed to be benevolent, and is smothering even if it is, otherwise). “Statism” is term and concept 100% compatible with Europe and its culture and history, but is clumsy and “incomplete” as a term to apply in the USA. At least, so far, despite where the wishes of some would us to, here.
“Daniel Patrick Moynihan”
He also is someone who I remember being recounted as being appalled by the radicalism of liberalism in the late 1960s. Not that it made him no longer be a liberal, but he was no radical.
Am I the only one who thinks it's ironic for the author of this article to complain about how the right blames all the nation's problems on the left? I'm no defender of the religious right, but this article was laughably biased, especially the “objective” part about how most of the nation's immoral people are conservative. And to keep me from dissenting, he tells me that if I dare disagree, I must OBVIOUSLY be watching too much Fox News (which, interestingly enough is not even included in the cable package I subscribe to). Those who think the religious right have a monopoly on self-righteous ignorance/arrogance need only read this article to see the error of that belief.
For the record, I happen to agree with many of the points made, but the tone of this article is in my opinion unacceptable coming from someone who's lecturing us about how we shouldn't succumb to the “us vs. them” mentality and how we should ignore ideological labels. It's exactly this kind of ranting that causes the problems we see today in our political discourse.
No, you're not the only one. There's a lot of this stuff coming from all sides. I especially loved this one:
As long as a minority in our Federal system and in many State Legislatures can effectively dictate all fiscal and public policy, then Republicans are still solely to blame for everything even if Democrats have slight majorities.
How could anyone argue with that?
“coming from someone who's lecturing us about how we shouldn't succumb to the “us vs. them” mentality and how we should ignore ideological labels”
What he wrote was just like something Neal Boortz did many years ago (I avoid him, but always remember this piece of irony), and Boortz was far more sophisticated (though that was not the intention):
“Liberals are collectivists. They always view and classify and define everything in terms of groups. Conservatives do not. They always look at, or in terms of, the individual …”
I won't pretend racism is gone. As long as there human beings, there will be irrational hatred and bigotry. Education and media exposure have eradicated much of it, though. And many of the things Martin Luther King dreamed of in his landmark speech–desegregated hotels and lunch counters, freedom to vote, fair housing and job discrimination laws–have actually come to pass. True, schools remain sadly segregated. But a lot of progress has been made, we even elected Obama, which could not have happened without white votes.
In that speech, MLK dreamed of the day when blacks would be judged by the content of their characters and implored them not to drink from the cup of bitterness and hatred. And there, is the real shocking story of the last 40 years, because so very many blacks–whether through bitterness or lack of character, would do poorly under that scrutiny. Too many have abandoned the American Dream their grandparents worked so hard for. They overwhelmingly have babies out of wedlock and as teens, drop out of school, join gangs, murder each other, celebrate their violence, homophobia and misogyny in song and ritual, walk away from parenting responsibilities–all in numbers far too big for this charge to be dismissed as bigotry. The character of so many, many blacks is in serious doubt. MLK would weep and be ashamed.
Addendum:
This, as stated above, is a far bigger problem than white racism today.
Doesn’t take in Healthcare and free higher education. Not to mention much earlier retirement age, I think Germany is age 58. Other data as well…but you’ll have to do the looking, I’m not your teacher.
You data is incomplete.
“You data is incomplete.”
How so? It's from the US Government, not a GOP thinktank (as you presume everything that doesn't back up your retarded comments does).