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'We Don't Live in That World Anymore'
Townhall.com ^ | July 5, 2013 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 07/05/2013 5:30:27 AM PDT by Kaslin

Harry Anderson, a magician and comic (made famous by his stint as the judge on the old sitcom "Night Court"), used to have a routine where he'd promise to juggle George Washington's ax. I'm quoting from memory here, but he'd say something like: "I have here George Washington's original ax -- the one he used to chop down the cherry tree." He'd wait a beat, and then add: "Of course, a few years ago the blade broke and had to be replaced. And about a decade before that it got a new handle. But in spirit this is George's ax."

Maybe that's a weird way to get into it, but that bit keeps coming to mind as I listen to pundits, reporters, politicians and activists try to compare every cause under the sun to Jim Crow, slavery and the black experience in America generally.

For instance, in the debate over gay marriage, one commentator after another likens arguments against same-sex marriage to arguments against interracial marriage. They said blacks and whites couldn't marry and now they say men and men can't marry!

Gay marriage is not my chief worry by any means, but this is nonsense on stilts. Indeed, one can be entirely in favor of same-sex marriage and still reject the comparison. For starters, if denying the right to marry is all it takes to be akin to anti-miscegenation laws, then that door is open to virtually any prohibition on marriage. "They said blacks and whites couldn't marry and now they say brother and sister can't marry!" Or, "They said blacks and whites couldn't marry and now they say the defensive line of the Dallas Cowboys can't marry!"

Of course there are important differences between an incestuous or a polygamous marriage and a loving committed relationship between two homosexuals. Indeed, it's instructive that many gay rights activists take offense whenever opponents say that legalizing gay marriage will lead to polygamy, incest or bestiality. They insist such comparisons are ridiculous. And they're right! But it's also ridiculous to equate Jim Crow prohibitions on interracial marriage to prohibitions on gay marriage.

If you can't see the problem, it's this: the whole point of the civil rights movement is that skin color is superficial. Sex -- i.e. male, female -- is actually a real and deep biological difference. You could look it up.

But such distinctions are meaningless in an era when both the handle and the ax of Jim Crow were replaced decades ago. All that's left is parody. Just this week Princeton's Cornel West -- a proud man of the left -- despaired that under Obama "we black folk are just being pushed to the back of the bus."

What bus are you talking about, professor?

When Republicans tried to filibuster the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lamented, "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

That's true! But ... so what? How, exactly is opposition to an evermore disastrous healthcare reform bill akin to denying the humanity of African-American citizens? Is any filibuster threat now tainted by Dixiecrat opposition to civil rights?

The Washington Post reported this week that civil rights activists in Florida are dismayed that the George Zimmerman murder trial in Florida isn't racially divisive enough. "It makes you feel kind of angry and kind of bad that race is not a part of this," Rev. Harrold C. Daniels, told the Post. "It's a missed opportunity."

The "problem," as even the Martin family's attorney concedes, is that there's just not much evidence that Zimmerman was motivated by racial animus. You'd think that would be good news. But it's not because so many people invested in the idea that "Trayvon Martin is Emmett Till!" in the words of one demagogic radio host, and countless other commentators.

When the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Voting Rights Act needed to take into account that blacks now vote more than whites in jurisdictions that are presumed to be racist, many responded as if the Supreme Court reinstated Jim Crow. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry cried out on Twitter "Damn, that citizenship thing was so great for awhile."

Slavery and Jim Crow were horrible injustices and the civil rights movement was a shining moral triumph. But the light of that movement shouldn't be used to blind us to important distinctions, chief among them: We don't live in that world anymore.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: abortion; deathpanels; gaymarriage; georgezimmerman; jimcrow; melissaharrisperry; obamacare; supremecourt; world; zerocare

1 posted on 07/05/2013 5:30:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
The cynic in me says that as long as there is money to be made being a "victim", fueled by the white guilt complex that has been instilled in white children since first grade, we will always live in "that" world.

Unless we fight back by countering those ridiculous assumptions and arguments

2 posted on 07/05/2013 5:39:52 AM PDT by Sir_Humphrey (Is it too late to save the country?)
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To: Kaslin
Anti sodomite marriage laws are designerd to not put an official imprimater on same sex ... sex.

NO ONE thinks about 'marriage' as an institution ... no one.

Marriage is a license to have sex, and I don't give a rat's ass for whatever lengthy essay one might pen or point me to.

When I married, I wanted legal sex with that girl.

The love part is/was just a (true) vehicle to KEEP that relationship from being scandalous and confrontational.

Indeed .. the morning we came back to church after our honeymoon, older and wiser folks recognized a deep satisfaction we could't hide if we wanted to.


Same sex 'marriage' is a ruse to cover for SEX with a member of the same sex ... and GOD calls that abomination.

Forget the visitation rights, and insurance clauses and all the rest of that mumbo jumbo ... God condemns same sex sex.

THAT ends it for me.

3 posted on 07/05/2013 5:45:09 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: Kaslin
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

-- L.P. Hartley in the book "The Go-Between"


4 posted on 07/05/2013 5:58:20 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Welcome to Obama-Land - EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY)
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To: knarf

Well more than just sex, but at least potential family and all that goes with it as well. Sex is supposed to be God’s way of saying “Good job, folks!” when they obey the command to be fruitful and fill the earth. Spiritual it represents a blending of the two persons, as it were to spiritually put Adam’s rib back into Adam. Because of the spiritual blending aspect of sex, the devil can hijack that feature to get people to blend with his spirit instead, while also getting a perceived boost to an inadequate sense of self gender confidence. It works fiendishly well on fallen sinners. Sodomy is, after all, a violent act, and have you met anyone so insidiously vicious as the “pride” people?


5 posted on 07/05/2013 6:00:57 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: Kaslin

I think that G.W. axe joke was the saturday night live juggler’s.


6 posted on 07/05/2013 6:05:22 AM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: HiTech RedNeck
You're actually making my point.

We SAY we want family until that first colicky baby keeps me awake half the night and I gott'a go to work at 5 AM.

I was in no way considering a spiritual bonding while contemplating (I wish this reception was OVAH !!) our first moments (hours!) alone together. I was rehearsing every erogenous zone I could remember reading about and what they were supposed to do.

I was anticipating a mellow alcohol glow before our consumation, I fantasized her nakedness.

In short ... I wanted sex with her ... we'll talk about all the rest ... later.

7 posted on 07/05/2013 6:11:30 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: knarf

Hey, that’s why God made it so nice! (Good going, champ, by the way. Same for the wife.)

You might not be thinking of spirituality, but it is ultimately spiritual. It really pulls you out of yourself doesn’t it. When in the throes of the ecstasy a pit bull could be biting your foot off and you’d hardly care.


8 posted on 07/05/2013 6:15:02 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: Kaslin
"They said blacks and whites couldn't marry and now they say the defensive line of the Dallas Cowboys can't marry!"

Maybe they would be better defenders of the End Zone.............

9 posted on 07/05/2013 6:22:42 AM PDT by Red Badger (Want to be surprised? Google your own name......Want to have fun? Google your friend's names........)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
It's 9:20 AM, my wife is looking especially sexy right now and I think I'll return .... um .... later ....

(God BLESS retirement !)

10 posted on 07/05/2013 6:26:48 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: knarf
oops ... sometimes the answer's .. no

/8^)

11 posted on 07/05/2013 6:30:08 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

“When in the throes of the ecstasy a pit bull could be biting your foot off and you’d hardly care.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A nice illustration of a point but not literally true.


12 posted on 07/05/2013 6:36:53 AM PDT by RipSawyer (I was born on Earth, what planet is this?)
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To: Kaslin

There are two sides of this. First, you have the people intelligent enough to know better, who still choose to make those comparisons because they know how politically effective they will be. Then, you have the uncritical thinkers who just swallow the hyperboles without gagging and repeat it ad nauseum. I think, if America weren’t so awash in the latter, the former would find no advantage in this strategy.


13 posted on 07/05/2013 6:46:00 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: knarf

I will quote Jeff Foxworthy: “Getting married for sex is like buying an airline to get free peanuts.” Not very cost effective.


14 posted on 07/05/2013 8:28:09 AM PDT by GeorgeTex (Obama-Four M President (Mendacious Manchurian Muslim Marxist))
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