Thursday, September 17, 2009

This Is Very Sad

I want very much to like and respect former President Jimmy Carter, but it seems that every time he opens his mouth he says something irresponsible. This is no exception:

Like so many others who are calling any criticism of President Obama a sign of racism, Mr. Carter offers not a shred of evidence that any of Mr. Obama's critics are motivated by race let alone that the "overwhelming" number are. The charge of racism is an admission that the left has no argument. There's nothing they can say in defense of the current administration's headlong rush to bankrupt the nation and to move us toward an ever-expanding role for government in our lives, so they accuse anyone who doesn't want to go along for the ride of being a racist. They offer no evidence, no support of the accusation, they just state it as an axiomatic truth.

Liberals accept as an article of their faith that America is a deeply racist nation. If you ask them to show you an example of racism in America today they're hard put to come up with one, but that doesn't diminish the strength of their conviction. Their dogmatic certainty is just as rock solid and just as purblind as that of any stereotypical fundamentalist. Given their assumption that America is still living in the 1930s, and given their utter incomprehension that anyone could possibly oppose liberal policies on their merits, it seems obvious to them that opposition to Mr. Obama could not possibly be based on anything but his skin color.

Now, I don't have any doubt that there's racism in this country. After all, one could go here,for example, and see a school bus full of white kids hooting and hollering as a couple of their friends beat up just about the only black kid on the bus (or maybe it was the other way around, I forget), but to accuse the President's political opponents of being racially motivated without adducing even a shred of empirical evidence for the charge beyond, maybe, a couple of ambiguous signs in a protest march is not only vile, it's stupid.

RLC