Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ralph Northam And The New Puritans
Townhall.com ^ | February 3, 2019 | Scott Morefield

Posted on 02/03/2019 5:20:18 AM PST by Kaslin

Cleansing ourselves” - a uniquely Puritanical concept. Except, this time ironically coming from a leftist individual who likely eschews most of what would be considered traditional Biblical morality. When every form of perversion becomes acceptable, liberals must signal their ‘virtue’ by righteously condemning what has now become the gravest of sins. And conservatives, fearing the backlash, more often than not join right in. And so the policing of the New Morality becomes even more strict than the old ever was.

Here’s a concept. Even taking into account the Michael Jackson skin darkening episode to which Northam HAS admitted and apologized for - an action Milbank still thinks disqualifies him the same as “sexual assault” and “preying on children” would - what if Ralph Northam is simply someone who made a mistake many years ago and has tried to atone for it, albeit wrong-headedly (because news flash: going liberal is NEVER the way to atone for past racial sins), ever since?When a black-and-white picture that appeared below Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page - of a bowtied man in blackface standing next to a white-robed member of the Ku Klux Klan - starting making the media rounds on Friday, it struck me at first like the most ridiculously cartoonish of fake news. Here was the Democratic governor of Virginia - by all accounts heretofore a good Leftist who openly advocates for every liberal issue under the sun including, of late, borderline infanticide - potentially being caught up in a racial controversy that would make Robert Byrd blush.

It was almost too surreal to be true, too seemingly contrived to not be a made-up meme from the bowels of the right-wing internet. But time told the tale soon enough. Was the picture real? Turns out, it was. Was the picture actually under Northam’s yearbook page? For sure. Was Northam actually in the picture, either in blackface or a KKK robe? Well, that one is a little more up in the air, especially after the Virginia governor’s Saturday press conference denying it. Whether or not Northam’s vehement denials are enough to raise more than a reasonable doubt in the minds of Virginians is yet to be seen, but regardless, the die has been cast. Make no mistake, Ralph Northam’s days as governor of Virginia are quickly coming to an end. 

Now at this point, the ‘narrative’ for me as a non-left-wing columnist might typically be to demonstrate the difference between ‘Good Democrat’ Ralph Northam’s situation and that of, well, pretty much anyone right of center, like Iowa Rep. Steve King. Surely, there is a double-standard, right? They’ve obviously existed in the past. But in this case, while a cynic might say liberals have nothing to gain by replacing Northam with the even more liberal Justin Fairfax, the quick response from Democrats and liberals of every stripe, from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the NAACP, suggests at least an increasing willingness to finally police their own.

So now everyone is being policed, at least when it comes to real or perceived racial sins, no matter how egregious or how far removed from the present. Do you feel safer? I know I do! Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank celebrated this fact in a Saturday column, contending that, while Northam has lived an admirable life of late and likely considers losing it all because of an almost 35-year-old transgression “unfair,” that’s just the way it should be. 

“But some things should disqualify people from public service — a Nazi salute, sexual assault, preying on children and, yes, dressing as a Klansman or in blackface — and it doesn’t matter if it happened 35 years ago,” Milbank wrote.

So, a home invader can be the governor of Virginia, but Northam can’t? To be clear, I am not in any way excusing or condoning the use of blackface in any era. It’s insensitive, horrific, and it should be condemned, but if someone honestly doesn’t see a moral difference between preying on children and a politically-incorrect party-gone-WAAAAAY-wrong, one’s morals are, shall we say, highly suspect.

But these are the New Puritans we’re dealing with here, people for whom real or perceived racial sins - and they get to determine what those are - are the worst sins ever, basically the same as raping a woman or preying on a child. And so, Milbank celebrates the fact that Megyn Kelly lost her job at NBC (does Milbank believe Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Sarah Silverman are also equivalent to child predators? Apparently, some of that old double-standard does exist!) for seemingly defending blackface and laments Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ electoral win despite the fact that he simply said the common phrase “monkey this up.”

Then, he blamed it on Trump, because of course he did. 

“Some might think this all a witch hunt, to use the president’s term of art, but it is, at least in part, a salutary backlash against what Trump represents,” Milbank wrote. “Appalled by his racism, his vulgarity and his appalling treatment of women, we are reacting by holding public officials (and hopefully ourselves) to a higher standard. We are cleansing ourselves for the sins of Trump.”

"Cleansing ourselves” - a uniquely Puritanical concept. Except, this time ironically coming from a leftist individual who likely eschews most of what would be considered traditional Biblical morality. When every form of perversion becomes acceptable, liberals must signal their ‘virtue’ by righteously condemning what has now become the gravest of sins. And conservatives, fearing the backlash, more often than not join right in. And so the policing of the New Morality becomes even more strict than the old ever was.

Here’s a concept. Even taking into account the Michael Jackson skin darkening episode to which Northam HAS admitted and apologized for - an action Milbank still thinks disqualifies him the same as “sexual assault” and “preying on children” would - what if Ralph Northam is simply someone who made a mistake many years ago and has tried to atone for it, albeit wrong-headedly (because news flash: going liberal is NEVER the way to atone for past racial sins), ever since?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: northam
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-65 next last
To: Brilliant

TRue.

The left continually redefines the meaning of words so that they have a fresh cudgel to attack their political opponents


41 posted on 02/03/2019 6:54:47 AM PST by Steven Tyler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Quick get racism back on the front page! We’re losing the narrative! Get me some YEARBOOKS... NOW! Democrat, republican, whatever...I don’t care! Shiny object time!


42 posted on 02/03/2019 6:55:28 AM PST by Phillyred
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

To be clear, I am not in any way excusing or condoning the use of blackface in any era. It’s insensitive, horrific,

No it isnt. It just plain isnt. Even as a kid I thought it too stupid to be funny, you know, like a Jerry Lewis movie, but “horrific”? No.


43 posted on 02/03/2019 6:56:09 AM PST by TalBlack (It's hard to shoot people when they are shooting back at you...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Phillyred

Is there some reason why people keep repeating this line?

You guys know people can converse about more than one thing at a time.....do you?


44 posted on 02/03/2019 7:00:20 AM PST by VanDeKoik
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: VanDeKoik

Most Americans are not political...they react to headlines. The infanticide conversation was taken off the big headlines. Back to racism and get this governor out of there before he starts talking about killing babies again.


45 posted on 02/03/2019 7:12:51 AM PST by Phillyred
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: VanDeKoik
I know right. I keep seeing post after post about oh its a shiny thing from the abortion argument. WTH cares, he can get hit from all sides. The purpose is to get him out, which is the original task after the abortion statement. If this was a Republican, he would be hounded out of office like yesterday. I am enjoying this hypocrite, who ran ads accusing the GOP candidate of racism, get hosted on his own petard.
46 posted on 02/03/2019 7:17:40 AM PST by hotsteppa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; Maris Crane
what if Ralph Northam is simply someone who made a mistake many years ago and has tried to atone for it, albeit wrong-headedly (because news flash: going liberal is NEVER the way to atone for past racial sins), ever since?

Northam is racist scum.

Shameful anti-Gillespie campaign ad by Latino Victory Fund
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=SHZvVsGGY-U

47 posted on 02/03/2019 7:22:36 AM PST by an amused spectator (Mitt Romney, Chuck Schumer's p*ssboy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
Northam defends the infanticide of the Democratic Party and the Party wants him removed from office...for a 35 year old blackface prank.

Can you see what is wrong with this picture? Can you see the sleight of hand?

Killing babies? No problem.

Allegedly (i.e. unproven as yet) appearing in blackface as a teenage? Burn him at the stake.

48 posted on 02/03/2019 7:23:36 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: an amused spectator
Northam is racist scum.

Northam is a baby killer. That's infinitely worse than being a racist.

49 posted on 02/03/2019 7:28:25 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: TigerClaws

This bud’s for you MF’s!


50 posted on 02/03/2019 7:34:03 AM PST by Dr. Ursus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SoFloFreeper

I could not read the article.

The blackface is a diversion To follow it is stupid

He described killing a baby by means that are legal but subject to better scrutiny by we the people who refuse to use our power to look at it and stop it but have the power to stop it if we look at it as this dupe of a governor invited us to do

As soon as this came out some operative scrambled to find anything on this guy to get him off the stage and permanently.

We must talk about the innocent lives left to die after they’ve been mutilated at the demand of their own parents.

We are allowing it by allowing it to be legal

By talking about blackface costumes in a decades old picture. A non issue

Are we the people in charge? Or not?

Let’s consider the issue and not allow the media to change the subject

legal infanticide is the issue not a thirty year old photo


51 posted on 02/03/2019 7:34:23 AM PST by stanne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: hotsteppa

Is prefer he stay around. Keep the Lt gov there who is a leftist loon


52 posted on 02/03/2019 7:38:27 AM PST by TigerClaws
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: DJ Frisat

Sen Byrd was pro abortion That is the difference.

To pretend this is about anything other than getting this guy to be quiet about killing babies is ignorant


53 posted on 02/03/2019 7:38:45 AM PST by stanne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Phillyred

“Most Americans are not political...they react to headlines. The infanticide conversation was taken off the big headlines. Back to racism and get this governor out of there before he starts talking about killing babies again”

Why is anyone on this forum talking about this yearbook photo?


54 posted on 02/03/2019 7:43:39 AM PST by stanne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: stanne

We want to know....... is the person in the KKK robes his wife?


55 posted on 02/03/2019 7:46:02 AM PST by bert ( (KE. N.P. N.C. +12) Honduras must be invaded to protect America from invasion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: bert

Just imagine 56 million babies in this country alone have been killed by their own parents son after birth lift to die suffering reaching for their parents


56 posted on 02/03/2019 7:48:45 AM PST by stanne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
...I'm tired of the virtue signalling....

Ditto here. The reactions of people in their feigned indignity is sickening. People have their "breath taken away" or are "brought to tears." This thought policing is dangerous stuff.

57 posted on 02/03/2019 7:56:37 AM PST by gloryblaze
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
>> I don't care about blackface at all. <<<

To paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd, blackface gate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth...
58 posted on 02/03/2019 7:58:30 AM PST by Kid Shelleen ((Beat your plowshares into swords. Let the weak say I am strong))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

59 posted on 02/03/2019 7:58:40 AM PST by HotHunt (Reagan was good but TRUMP IS GREAT!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

The guy in photo in post 3 is not Northam. It’s a classmate and that photo is from some class group of which Northam was the president.

The KKK outfit person is much shorter than the guy in black face. I’m thinking that might actually have been his date, a female.

We need Northam to stay where he is. Then over the next weeks and months we dig up the michael Jackson picture of Northam. Maybe there’s video. He continues to stick his foot in his mouth.


60 posted on 02/03/2019 8:20:03 AM PST by TigerClaws
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-65 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson