Posted on 08/10/2011 5:26:50 AM PDT by bestintxas
One of my closest friends, "Gail," lives in a pristine suburb in northern New Jersey. It's one of those leafy bedroom communities where residents drive their Lexus SUVs to the railroad station each morning to catch the train to Manhattan.
After 9/11, Gail told me that eerily, several vehicles were left abandoned in the parking lot for weeks. Their drivers never returned home that day to retrieve them.
But, in general, not much goes on in her sleepy, idyllic town. The residents rave about shopping sprees to Loehmanns and sprints to Whole Foods for organic strawberries. There is no crime to speak of; the local paper blares news about a recent traffic accident or the opening of a Trader Joe's. So when Gail told me what happened to her son, I was absolutely dumbfounded.
As for Gail, like my former self, she's a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party. This isn't surprising given that she's a born-and-raised East Coast Jew. But, unlike the former me, Gail is a liberal, not a self-proclaimed progressive/leftist.
While many conservatives merge liberalism and leftism, there are huge differences between the two camps. Liberals, like Gail, want a kinder and gentler America. They choose safe, suburban suburbs, with schools that (as of yet) do not radicalize their children. While it's the rare liberal who would display a flag on July 4, he still cares about this country, supports Israel, and is wary of radical Islam.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Yeah, he’s sowing the seed of hate alright.
We all hate Obama.
“While many conservatives merge liberalism and leftism, there are huge differences between the two camps. Liberals, like Gail, want a kinder and gentler America. They choose safe, suburban suburbs, with schools that (as of yet) do not radicalize their children. While it’s the rare liberal who would display a flag on July 4, he still cares about this country, supports Israel, and is wary of radical Islam”
“Liberals”. Oh, you mean ENABLERS.
I think Robin is a former liberal, slowly awakening to reality. Her conversion is, obviously not yet complete.
Liberal are the enablers of socialism and the abetters of evil.
If you get away from the damned turnpike there are some very fine places in New Jersey.
Robin of Berkeley’s articles are usually better than this. I think this one is foolish because she’s trying to be compassionate and understanding toward her friend ... but there’s no way to be understanding toward a person whose “crisis” is, “I thought I’d safely insulated myself from the bad consequences I’m happy for other people to experience - but I was wrong!” without sounding very, very dopey.
I wonder where son Justin’s father is, and what he thinks the politics that made his son a victim of a racist beating that will go unpunished.
Yes, she's only been at it a few years. But what's wrong with Dennis Prager, then? Can former liberals never get over wanting the libs to be the Good Guys?
New Jersey is the garden state, you know.
From the last part of the article:
“”It’s a sickness called hatred, Gail. Most black people are good, law-abiding, moral people. Obama comes from a far-left fringe group of militants who hate America and want to drag us down. Those same people have degraded and exploited poor black kids for years. These radicals use them as their foot soldiers. Obama would never get his own hands dirty.”
This is why we are seeing “flash mobs” all over the country! They see themselves as getting what’s “theirs”.
After the 2008 election, I noticed something disturbing. Some in the black community became emboldened and just as arrogant as “The Won”. It wasn’t just myself, a friend who works in a large hospital noticed the change among some of her co-workers and told me about it. Discrimination isn’t so high among white’s, but it’s rampant in the black community. Deep down inside, they see Obummers election as their chance to “get some”, no matter what the cost to this nation. I hold the Democratic Party solely responsible for feeding into this for decades.
That’s what I have observed, for what it’s worth.
I’ll second that!
North West New Jersey (where I live) is particularly nice, rural and Republican.
I know.
The little’ winky/smiley-faced’ icon at the end of my post was there to indicate I was joking/teasing. My father is from northern New Jersey, and most of his side of my family still reside there.
Are you sure you're from Berserkely, Robin? If you are, then you should be aware that Gov. Moonbeam just recently signed SB48 which requires Government schools to teach young, impressionable minds about the wonderful things people who engaged in homosexual acts have done for society.
Not that there haven't been Sodomites who haven't contributed to society but why is it necessary to teach kindergartners about their sexual practices?
Mayby not, some people wake up. Look at how many democrats thru it all in, & changed parties because of Jimmy Carter. They still talk about it.
zer0 and crew are making the case for change
Hoping zer0 gets a primary challenge and rips the party in half
I wonder what Gail is going to think when she sees American cities not far from her have riots, looting and buildings start burning similar to what we see happening in London?
Robin from Berkeley always makes me wonder how such a smart lady could take so long to see the light. We left Bezerkeley after my husband was threatened by a black minister at a school board meeting in 1968. That wasn’t the direct cause, but it certainly figured in the equation.
When a member of the school board (who is responsible for the safety of my children during the school day) stands up and shouts and points at my husband: “If we don’t pass this rule (on busing) it won’t be ‘Burn, baby, burn’, it will be “Bleed, baby, bleed’!” “Burn, baby, burn” was the rallying cry of the Black Panthers at the time, in case you don’t remember that far back. Nobody moves to restrain him. No other school board member expresses a word of caution.
We knew right then that we did not want to raise our children there.
That was the Rev. Hazziah Williams, in case anyone wants to check the record.
I’m not so sure you’ve framed her thinking correctly. There are different kinds of liberals. Some are consciously hypocritical, wanting for themselves what they would deny to others. The professional union thugs of Madison, WI, come to mind. But my experience with most liberals is that the problem runs to a different level.
How can I put this?
I think it is that they are simply so well insulated from other people’s realities that they do not and cannot believe their political habits are hurting anyone else, and would be mortified at the suggestion. No, you see, it is they who are the true champions of the downtrodden. By voting against vouchers, they are protecting children from the evil chaos that exists outside the safe walls of state run education. They live in nice, safe neighborhoods because seeking safety for their children proves they are good, responsible parents and citizens, and of course they will buy into any program that promises to make things better elsewhere, willing to do their part in the natural societal evolution that will eventually make everything better for everyone everywhere, God bless them one and all.
Then something like this happens, and the justifying illusion of progress is shattered. Reality sets in, and they finally give grudging credence to at least some of the concerns of their conservative friends. They might even go out and buy a gun. But a worldview you’ve worn your whole life is hard to give up, even if it isn’t truthful. There is still beauty in the dream. Utopia is a wonderful place, if you can get there.
And in the end, that’s the difference between a conservative and a liberal. A conservative has awakened from those childhood fantasies and knows that utopia can’t be had this side of Heaven, so until then they’d better work hard, play fair, and carry a gun. A liberal is a liberal either because they haven’t awakened yet and are still stumbling about in their dream state, or they are wide awake and cynically and intentionally using their liberalism as a false front for raw power-mongering. Most liberals I know fall into the former category. I fear the “liberal” in the White House” falls into the latter.
The scary thing is: the statistics of around 30% out-of-wedlock births by blacks that drove his conclusion in the 60s have now been met and exceeded by whites; while blacks now rack up 70 percent out-of-wedlock births.
Which would demonstrate that at times it’s impossible to be too pessimistic.
What is dismaying is that this is now accepted as the norm by most of the populace, black and white.
What sort of society is it that produces a fatherless underclass of distorted personalities? One that is indifferent to the consequences of their acts like the young black man who fathered five children by three women and he wasn’t old enough to vote yet.
I see the point you’re making, and I agree that not all liberals are consciously hypocritical.
However, from the point of view of the article, it’s almost as difficult to defend a person’s being so completely divorced from reality that she will congratulate herself for supporting policies that demonstrably do immense harm, until the day the harm flings itself through her rose-colored windows.
To not see what is really happening “out there,” to such an extent, takes a great deal of effort at self-delusion ... and being kind about that kind of neurotic behavior makes the writer sound very silly. That’s why readers are having trouble distinguishing Robin (who usually makes pretty good sense) from her subject.
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