Do you believe the average person thinks "the Negro" is in dire straights because they haven't learned how to "pick cotton" and that they may have been better off as slaves? Seriously? If this is what the average conservative thinks, and I am quite certain it is not, then we are never going to make any political headway.
We are all busy, so that understanding can only be achieved by a small minority of policy wonks.
Correct, which is precisely why, especially considering the information age we live in, the average person does not make for a good political candidate (unless they are exceptionally charismatic with no history of boneheaded statements). It's why conservatives need to stop rallying around people like Herman Cain for President when there was never any chance he could win a general election. It's why this fantasy of Ben Carson for President is silly.
Yeah, yeah, I know we'd all like the notion of the citizen legislator envisioned by the founders, but it simply isn't a legitimate political reality. No matter that people always say they want a regular person to run, in the end they generally vote for the more polished candidate- ie, a skilled politician who typically worked their way up from the local level to something higher and a demonstrated record of being able win elections.
How do you handle this personally? Your tongue must be raw from 'clamping down' if you take your own advice
Personally I don't think "the Negro" is suffering because they didn't learn to pick cotton and might have been better off as slaves. That's a pretty dumb thing to say, no matter what broader point Bundy was attempting to make.
So I think that Bundy did us all a favor by saying what he did
Bundy's comments single handedly set back the land rights movement for perhaps years. Something like this at the Bundy ranch, while not the perfect symbol, seemed poised to generate more such fights against the government with a public that seemed at least somewhat sympathetic to Bundy as a figure head. His idiotic comments destroyed all that. Now it will take another flareup to generate the critical mass necessary to propel this fight into something bigger and more significant.
I just don't understand how so many well meaning conservatives can't see this. It's truly baffling. We have GOT to do a better job of vetting our candidates and closely scrutinizing people like Bundy before we rally around them and associate conservatives with someone who might be a political ticking time bomb set to splash egg on the face of every conservative that stuck their neck out to support him.
“Personally I don’t think “the Negro” is suffering because they didn’t learn to pick cotton and might have been better off as slaves. That’s a pretty dumb thing to say, no matter what broader point Bundy was attempting to make.”
I don’t know if Bundy intended it this way but I took “picking cotton” as a metaphor for work in general, not as literally dragging a sack down the rows. Am I giving him to much credit here?