Posted on 12/04/2014 10:40:08 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts every thing you said today.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
And so I will.
Not so long ago, right-wing bloggers blasted me for being a liberal sellout for my fierce defense of Trayvon Martin.
During George Zimmerman’s trial, my email inbox and Twitter feeds were jammed with slurs from conservatives. I thought Zimmerman a thug and I said so. And I didn’t care what my conservative critics said because I knew then, and I know now, that the only offense Trayvon Martin was guilty of was walking through a neighborhood while being black. Liberals were delighted by my “enlightened” views and lavished praise on me for being the one “good” Republican who dared to champion social justice.
It was a political space I had filled before. Despite being a Reagan Republican in college, I also ran a protest campaign to abolish the University of Alabama’s student government because its election process discriminated against black students. With a predictably light touch, my campaign fliers accused the SGA of promoting segregation.
A decade later in Congress, I kept up a 95 percent conservative rating while receiving more minority support than any Republicans I knew in Washington. That support came because I championed causes that other white politicians did not dare to touch. I fought to relocate 300 minority families stuck in an environmentally dangerous area despite the fact that all other white politicians in my region had refused to lift a finger. After all, the conventional wisdom was that it made no sense to burn political capital fighting to help a constituency that was poor and dispossessed of any power. But I was moved to help on this and other issues specifically because others in a position of power would not. It was just the right thing to do.
Over the last seven years, I doubt any conservative on the national stage has spoken out more consistently about the inequities black Americans suffer in our criminal justice system. My columns, op-eds, and books have also urged the Republican Party to reengage minority communities, while being more sensitive to the plight of those who are not wealthy and white.
Despite this public record that has spanned decades, my email inbox and Twitter feed have been jammed this week with hateful screeds calling me a racist for my response to the chaos surrounding Ferguson. Many of the same people who praised me during the Trayvon debate are now suggesting I join the Klan.
I guess I have once again failed to maintain Emerson’s “foolish consistency.” For some reason, I can’t narrow my view of the world to a cartoonish black and white landscape. Too many see the police as always being right while presuming that blacks are always guilty. Too many others presume cops are always oppressive while granting absolution to all oppressed minorities. Unfortunately, I make things too complicated. I actually burden myself with the facts of each case before drawing conclusions. And as Emerson suggested, I will continue to speak “in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts every thing I said today.”
And sure enough, I will contradict tomorrow what I said today. The reason is simple. The facts coming from Staten Island in the case of Eric Garner’s tragic death differ as much from Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson as Mr. Brown’s death differed from Trayvon Martin’s. As I have said for months, I believe New York police officers used excessive force and killed a man for committing a minor offense and the cops involved should be punished.
That may be too much for little minds, little statesmen, and cable news hosts to comprehend, but the facts do not allow me to reach any other conclusion. And while I still have a brain to use, I refuse to place it in a blind trust for any political party or half baked ideology.
Facts are stubborn things, and so am I.
Joe would much rather be astride Mika.
Well, other than that little matter of aggravated assault when he jumped Zimmerman and pounded his head into the concrete.
“...I knew then, and I know now, that the only offense Trayvon Martin was guilty of was walking through a neighborhood while being black.”
Joe Scarborough is falsely denying reality and engaging in a fantasy by denying Trayvon Martin was guilty of the offense of attempted murder, assault, and trespassing with the possible intent of burglary, whereas he would still be alive today had he done nothing but walk through the neighborhood, regardless of his ethnicity.
Joe spent over half the words here explaining what an incorrect tool he was with the Martin/Zimmerman issue, so why would anyone give a care on his opinions on Ferguson or Garner?
And the other half of this bloviating was his “I am too a conservative” baloney.
Lori Klausutis was unavailable for comment.
But we have to apply the soft bigotry of lowered expectations here... the poor lad was forced to do that, we can’t expect anything better out of him.
And then there is:
Joe "I'm A Conservative" Scarborough.
Oh, he “served” in Vietnam, alright, but which side did he serve?
Just because he’s a self-identified conservative, doesn’t mean he can use the conservative locker room.
No need to read further than that. You're not a sellout, Joe, you're an uninformed moron.
I’ve lost all respect, really ALL respect for Mr. Scarborough
During George Zimmerman’s trial, my email inbox and Twitter feeds were jammed with slurs from conservatives. I thought Zimmerman a thug and I said so. And I didn’t care what my conservative critics said because I knew then, and I know now, that the only offense Trayvon Martin was guilty of was walking through a neighborhood while being black.No, his offense was to physically attack someone, then get shot to death when his victim defended himself.
Well, yeah, he keeps coming back to that former Congressman, sometime Republican thing in the article, but to be fair it's not how he actually signed it.
I guess he was pretty much right about the different cases, but it seems like he's milking the controversy to get his name out there. Too much "I" in the article.
FWIW Check out the link: Shakeup at The New Republic: Foer, Wieseltier out; mag moves to N.Y. Rearranging the deckchairs?
You think that Trayvon Martin was shot merely because he was black? Did you see Miss Rachel Jeantel's testimony?
No, but I don’t think it was George Zimmerman’s place to play cop. It was a different case from the Brown case, which was different from the Garner case, and I can understand Scarborough coming to different conclusions about the different cases.
He wasn't playing cop.
A) He wasn’t “on duty” as a neighborhood watchman when he spotted Trayvon Martin, he was on his way to the store in his Honda Ridgeline but, (B) he was appointed by his neighbors to keep watch on their homes as there had been hundreds of crimes in that area in the last several years. Where did you see in the trial that he played cop rather than citizen watchman?
He was wrong on George Zimmerman, he was wrong on Sarah Palin...Scarborough is a loser
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