Racially insensitive comment by Bill O’Reilly?

We all make mistakes. And we all say things we regret sometimes. But tonight, many conservatives on Capitol Hill are shocked by a racially insensitive comment that was made by the most powerful figure in cable news — Bill O’Reilly. Lloyd Grove reported this column in his column “The Reliable Source,” which appears in “The Washington Post,” and talked to Joe. LAST SATURDAY, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly was emceeing a benefit for disadvantaged school children in Washington, D.C., something that he should be commended for. But apparently O’Reilly found himself filling time before an African-American boy’s group named “The Best Men” were to come on stage. And he said this to the entire audience, quote, “Does anyone know where The Best Men are? I hope they’re not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps.”

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Did Mr. O’Reilly really make that statement in front of a Washington audience?

LLOYD GROVE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I’m afraid so, Joe. He did. And a lot of people didn’t hear it because it was a noisy room with a bunch of people in it and weren’t paying attention. But those who did are certain he said it. And I talked to Bill yesterday, and he didn’t deny it. He just said any talk about it was foolishness and ridiculous.

SCARBOROUGH: It’s interesting that you said that he just dismissed it and said it was foolish. When Trent Lott got into the mess he got into this past winter for his remarks that he made at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party, Mr. O’Reilly said, “Excusing bad behavior by the powerful is a dangerous game. Trent Lott offended millions of Americans and probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. There comes a point in every person’s life when they either surrender to prejudice and ideology, or they become independent thinkers. It’s easier to surrender. The people of the United States must hold those in power responsible for what they do and say.” Now, isn’t what Bill O’Reilly said the other night about the same as what Trent Lott said in an off-the-cuff remark this past winter?

I wonder why Dennis Hastert, sitting next to Thurmond, or maybe one of those congressmen standing around in the back (especially the tall black man in the second row)didn't say something to him about it

Did you expect Speaker Hastert to call Lott out in the open? Same can be said for the black gentleman.

All in all, it never ceases to amaze me how tone-deaf conservatives can be. Thurmond ran in 1948 as a member of what party? What plank did that party purpose? Lastly, how can one separate this from the man himself had he won the election in '48?

There are myriad issues with which one can praise Sen. Thurmond in his political career. But this wasn't one of them.

The "outrageus comments" were just that: Outrageous. It's not like my concerns are not founded upon history. Yet issuing a statement that the U.S. would have been better off had Thurmond won in '48 as a then unrepentant segregationist is puzzling. Even worse, conservatives who backed up Lott on these statements have proven to be rather alarming to me. Lott's statement, coupled with the grassroots conservatives who stood by his statement is a dagger in the back of we few American black conservatives (like mhking, mafree, Trueblackman, swheats, T Lady, and St. Clair Slim) who desire to move more and more American blacks towards our philosophies. Statements like Lott's unravel our efforts and make the damage harder and harder to recover from.

The backstabbing continues.

And today was a good day...

Lott's statement, coupled with the grassroots conservatives who stood by his statement is a dagger in the back of we few American black conservatives ... who desire to move more and more American blacks towards our philosophies.

Only if you feel the need to seperate black conservatives from conservatives and only if you take his statement to its literal extreme and assume that he specifically meant only the segregationist aspect of Thurmond's platform and further assume, out of context, that Lott's true intent was to send a message about segregation to the world rather than tittilate an old man. Only by ignoring Thurmond's 50+ year history as a legislator and ignoring the countries 50+ year history of change and force his statement into the long gone context of 1948 does it take on the weight you perceive it to. There in the world of "if", "could have", "would have" and "might have" his remarks would be a cesspool of bigotry. Meanwhile, back in the here and now......it's merely a lame perception that liberals hoped would take. It did.

Statements like Lott's unravel our efforts and make the damage harder and harder to recover from.

If your agenda is to convert liberal blacks into conservative blacks rather than promote conservatism for its own sake then you're right.

What Lott said was absolutely stupid.

Yes, it was incredibly stupid. For him not to know, in the here and now, that it would be taken and stretched to its furthest possible logical meaning, pulled out of its context and stripped of its intent in order to reforge it into a tool to vilify him, weaken the Republican majority in Congress and reinforce the artificial divide between individual black self interests and conservative philosophy was very stupid of him.

Good riddance to Lott, a stupid man.

Welcome to the consequences of our actions, the consequences of deferring to liberal character assassination;
Conservatives are more vulnerable to PC blacklisting/blackmailing ("Santorum, you're on deck!").
The Repulican base of voters is less sure there's a difference between "Trent Lotts" and "Robert Byrds".
Some black conservatives have lost sight of their self interests and are more worried about whether white Republicans will embarrass them.
Black liberals think they have won something.

You don't think Political Correctness is something to worry about, eh? I think it's a powerful tool. It accomplished everything I just listed. Hitler used it to consolidate his power quite effectively. It was arguably one of his most effective tools. The Nazi Party made it Politically Incorrect to be a Jew, to do business with a Jew, to help a Jew, to associate with a Jew in any way. This accomplished two things. It made it possible to confiscate all the wealth possessed by Jews and more importantly (to him) it galvanized a sense of nationalism and unity around a perceived sense of racial and moral superiority that he was then able to direct at will towards any aim of his choosing.

As a black conservative you probably have a sharper picture in your mind of the role blacks have in the liberal agenda than I do. Dismiss Political Correctness at your peril. Consider who takes delight in using that tool and what their agenda is.

Whose interests do you really want to protect and promote, rdb3? rdb3's or blacks? I'm sure you have a good idea who rdb3 is, do you know who "blacks" are? What "blacks" are? American blacks, Namibian blacks? City blacks, country blacks? Conservative blacks, liberal blacks? White collar blacks, blue collar blacks, welfare blacks? Rich blacks, poor blacks, good blacks, bad blacks, educated blacks, uneducated blacks, spiritual blacks, hedonist blacks, dark blacks, light blacks, 100% blacks, half blacks, one quarter, three quarter blacks? Blacks who like tofu, line dancing, bungee jumping, car jacking, stock trading, tournament bowling, giant reefers, 3-piece suits, whiskey sours....? Which blacks? Every black?

What are blacks?

Who all, exactly, qualifies as black? More importantly, how many of them do you care about? All of them? Only them? What about white blacks? After all, politically speaking, Bubba's black now. How long before liberal politicians start designating more pasty white white people as black? Liberals have already succeeded in labeling conservatives as black they just don't use that word. Try "homophobe", "Christian fundamentalist", "NRA gun nut", "capitalist pig environment rapers" for a few. Welcome to your new blackness.

If you're worried about whether conservative whites are going to act like people you'd like to know or whether black people you'd like to know are going to ostracize you for your politics or whether black people as a whole are going to open their eyes, see the liberal shackles on their ankles and shake them off then you will be distracted from your most necessary task, preserving and protecting rdb3's individual sovereignty and using it to pursue your liberty and happiness. The more you succeed in that the more those who see themselves in you, in some way, will emulate you. The more you succeed the more we all succeed in securing individual liberty.

In essence, where does your political strength lie? In conservatism or black conservatism? On the battlefield you watch the back of the guy next to you even if the stupid SOB was tapping your wife back home. You deal with that another time, not to your enemies delight. If you want to help "blacks" become sovereign individuals then help conservatives kill liberalism. If we don't then the difference between being black or white will be about as significant as the difference between being the lead mule or the one behind it. That won't really matter to me because they don't harnass dead mules!

Did you expect Speaker Hastert to call Lott out in the open? Same can be said for the black gentleman...certainly not - there was plenty of time between October 2000 (and earlier) and December 2002 for anyone who was genuinely offended and outraged by his comments to collar him in private and read him the riot act - similarly there was plenty of opportunity to exclude him from his leadership position if his colleagues really thought he was being offensive and hurtful - one has to wonder where the real stupidity lies if his fellow senators kept reelecting him their leader knowing that he had been running around for years making such supposedly outrageous comments.
Making a few off-the-cuff remarks at an old man's birthday party to try to humor and flatter him can hardly be described as "issuing a statement" - it was not an attempt to revive Thurmond's presidential bid - segregation is long dead, and Thurmond soon will be. Lott's comments were a schtick - "a riff" as O'Reilly called his remarks in defending them to Russert on Sunday night - but apparently there are some who find O'Reilly's comments offensive too.
Don't get me wrong - being hurt and offended is lots of fun. It immediately puts you on the moral high ground and your opponent at a massive disadvantage. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should be outraged because my motives, essential humanity, and integrity are apparently held with such little respect that I am virtually accused of wanting a return to segregation and of being a backstabber because I try to present what I consider a perfectly legitimate argument that a man was unfairly and foolishly sacrificed to his political opponents by the people who should have been supporting him. I should be outraged, but I'm not - because that would be just more of the PC/Ethnic Extortion/BS that's been going in this country for too long - an attempt to play on peoples' guilt and sympathies to gain advantage that can't be won any other way. I've watched conservatives/republicans twist themselves into pretzels (opps, hope I didn't offend any pretzels out there) for forty years trying to overcome charges of "racism","sexism", and on and on and on - it's a game I won't play - or succumb to.
Maybe O'Reilly forgot how enthusiasticlly he joined the piling on of Lott when it was all the rage, but he was very strong on Sunday night in calling those "witchhunters" who tried to destroy others by reading into their most innocuous and well-intentioned comments the worst and most evil of motives and purposes. I think he had that exactly right......

If he responds it would be interesting to me but not expected or necessary. If he understands what I'm saying and beleives that I mean it there won't be much to discuss. It'll just be a matter of adjusting his own outlook. Easy to say, hard to do.

Too few understand, really viscerally understand, that this struggle between conservative and leftist values and ideals is a desperate war. A non-shooting war...now...in this part of the world...but still serious and deadly.

It is not, as politicians and talking heads portray it, a simple difference of opinion on how best to bring about the American dream. If the Clinton's, Schumer's, Kennedy's, Pelosi's and Daschle's win we will all be slaves for a long long time.

The American Dream will continue on as a video fantasy where we all stand up and cheer during the daily five minutes of patriotism...then back to work for the state.

They won't need gulags and guards with machine guns to enforce compliance. Drugs and class envy are far more effective and subtle ways to control behaviour.

Drugs administered (or withheld) by government employed doctors and shrinks. Behavioural evaluations given and backed by the authority of government employed bureaucrats. Employment, benefits, social class and lifestyle shaped by the most powerful person in your life, your doctor, with strings that go all the way back to the halls of Congress. (~~Universal~~ Government Healthcare.)

Class envy manipulated by giving or withholding benefits and entitlements, manufactured news, accepted national spokesmen for different groups (gives the illusion of independent thought, ala Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader) and institutionalized Political Correctness (hate crimes, drug laws and smoking ordinances for starters) which establishes a means of applying a shaming peer pressure with the weight of law behind it to give it some real leverage.

This country is fractured on numerous lines. Race, economics, region, religion, morals and more. This is not an accident. We are not victims of coicumstance. We are witnesses of power grabbing. The U.S. was founded on the principle of individual sovereignty, power is to be held by "we, the people". Since day one individual sovereignty has been under attack, its power being usurped and accumulated into ever larger concentrations held by ever smaller groups of people.

"We, the people," weren't bestowed with power we were offered the opportunity to take it. Many have believed it was instantly bestowed and can't be taken away and those who wish to accumulate power are more than pleased to encourage that misunderstanding.

None of us can afford to fight for a group. Christian, Buddhist, atheist. Black, white, hispanic. Logger, miner, environmentalist. Or for a specific ideal of life; urban, rural, wilderness. Capitalist, spiritualist, hedonist. All that will accomplish is mutual destruction and further opportunity for the power grabbers.

None of those things represents America by itself. None of those things protects individual sovereignty for all, however much they might fulfill the dream of liberty and happiness for some.

Only the founding principles of self government and individual sovereignty give hope to ALL of those dreams, for this world. (Beyond earthly life is not a political matter, just the struggle to find and understand it is which is still a part of this world.) Only our Constitution gives ratified voice to those principles. Only the unified will of the people brings about manifestation of those principles. Only the principles of individual liberty and sovereignty can serve as a single indivisible rallying point, a point which simultaneously creates a clear demarcation between us and our enemy, tyranny.

To my mind conservative philosophy is the map that shows the path to that higher ground. The map is two dimensional and subject to interpretation both clear and cloudy, both selfish and selfless. The path is rocky, steep and full of twists and turns and the summit will never be reached. There is no summit to this path, on earth, only the path and the accomplishment of the path. Our vehicles are wagons loaded with our dreams and hopes, our lives, powered by our desire to move forward and our will to work together. We aspire to equality of vision, that we might all have a view to moving upwards.

Liberal philosophy is an Etch-A-Sketch map. It is redrawn daily to suit the agenda of the moment. The path is clear, just follow orders. The vehicle is a shovel for every man, powered by a common ideology, hatred and envy of those who aspire to move upwards. It's not supposed to go anywhere it's used to undermine the hill and bring everyone else down to the bottom with you. They aspire to equality of position.

Equality through common poverty. Poverty of mind, heart and pocketbook. When the merit of individual thought is discredited, all values are reduced by moral equivalence to irrelevance and material wealth is evenly distributed we will all be equal...equal in position relative to everyone else.

We won't be equal to animals though. We will be much lower not living up to the potential of what we can be and doing it deliberately.

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