Disowned for Voting Republican: Part II

It was a joke. I thought that much was obvious by the tone of the post.

As someone who's a Canadian and with Irish heritage, I found your father-in-law's remarks fascinating. They're reminiscent of old Irish-Catholic arguments to keep Irish Catholics "votin' the right way."

I don't have any family legend to go on, but I imagine they went something like these:

"Think of the bright-eyed Irish children when they see a fellow Irish Catholic in the office. Would you deny them their confidence?"
"Why would you make the Irish boys so sad, which they will be if they see yet another Brit lording it over them?"
"The trouble with you is, you're too trusting. The Brits you see in the Episcopal Church are the same Brits that caused the Great Potato Famine."
"'Corrupt?' Let me assure you that the Prods will cheat you faster than you can say 'where's my wallet?' When you consider how the Brits and Prods cheat decent men every day, a few little fiddles look like nothing. We're way more sinned against than sinning."
"See this sign? It says 'Dogs And Irishmen Not Permitted.' Unless you vote the right way, you're voting for me, us and you to be treated like dogs."
"Granted, he's not a saint. But the Prods always have a hidden agenda. When they say 'reform', they mean getting rid of your fellow Irishmen and throwing them into the flop house. Nothing more."
(etc.)

Do you see the psychological pressure being applied here? The mix of sentimentality and the appeal to group loyalty? If you ever wondered why a bunch of decent people would stick with a political machine, the above list should open your eyes. It was far more than micro-bribery that did the trick.

What many don't understand about machines is, they rise and fall on emotional support. Those pressure tactics, repeated by decent people as they seem decent, reinforce the emotional bond and provide a major psychological deterrent to breaking out.

Your father-in-law's attempt to dissuade you is noticeably revealing. It reveals the mind-set of a decent man who's emotionally tied to a kind of political machine. If you're of the mind, you could ask him to get his friends to "talk sense" into you too. You'll see similar pressure tactics - and some you didn't even know existed.

I definitely agree that the Left has white people cowering in the corner when it comes to race, and that’s a big part of the problem. Just last night, I got into a conversation with a neighbor. It turns out that he’s descended from the Scottish people who were sent over by the British to hold the Ulster Plantation in Ireland for the Crown. I started to talking about the history of that group, and he said something to the effect that they have a lot of answer for in history. That’s so wrong; Scots-Irish have been on the bottom of basically every society that they’ve been a part of, never part of the ruling class, never the beneficiaries of much in the way of privilege or wealth. But here he is apologizing for them as if they were the worst oppressors in history.

Believe it or not, part of it is vanity. If I'm powerful enough to be an oppressor, then I'm powerful. If I feel guilt, then I'm using my power responsibly. If I'm powerful enough to halt climate change by driving a bike, then I'm powerful. If I have "white skin privilege," then I'm of the privileged classes. And so on.

Yes, you’re absolutely right, which is why I tried to emphasize the general point that ethnic group loyalty in politics has shown itself to be a dead end everywhere it’s been tried, even when the group happens to be on the “outs” in whatever sense.

Thanks, and welcome.

Believe it or not, part of it is vanity. If I'm powerful enough to be an oppressor, then I'm powerful. If I feel guilt, then I'm using my power responsibly. If I'm powerful enough to halt climate change by driving a bike, then I'm powerful. If I have "white skin privilege," then I'm of the privileged classes. And so on.

So very true. This is why you tend to find those kinds of white people predominantly amongst the privileged classes. The more working class whites don't generally tend to go un for the whole white guilt thing nearly as much. Which is actually why I found it particularly odd to hear it coming from someone of Scots-Irish descent.