Saturday, August 31, 2013

Idiocracy.

So, during the DNC's multi-million dollar Martin Luther King-themed campaign extravaganza in DC last week, I was listening to NPR like a good SWPL so I could feel Better Than You.

During the proceedings, they cut to a commercial for a show where they would ask some of today's high schoolers, who should get off my lawn are the future of our nation, what the March on Washington meant to them and what it would take to get them to join a modern-day iteration. I nearly drove into a tree when the following emerged from my speakers:
I would join march if it was about this – the judgement of people. Not even about their skin, but just judging them because of the content of their character.
What? What?  (*screeech! crash!*)

That's... that makes no damned sense at all! Of course you judge people by the content of their character! It's easy to do because their character is made manifest in their actions. Watch, it's simple:

"That lady is rescuing a kitten; I judge her to be good. That man is trying to take my wallet; I judge him to be bad. Those kids over there are pushing little old ladies into traffic; I judge them to be really bad and maybe I should stop them."

There's a difference between not being unfairly judgmental and having a complete lack of judgment, honey, and clearly you are incapable of judging the difference between the two, having mistaken the latter for the former.

On a side note, the whole Democrat-party-utterly-partisan MLK extravaganza* was especially surreal to me in that the March on Washington is exactly as far in the past today as the Armistice was from the year I was born, but you didn't see Nixon campaigning in '68 under the slogan "Vote GOP! We Beat The Kaiser!" because maybe they still taught history in schools back then.


*The nation's lone African-American senator was not invited to attend because he was from the wrong party, but a couple of cracker ex-governors of Georgia and Arkansas were, because they were from the right one. What's the difference between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter? Barry's never eaten in a segregated restaurant.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Certainly in today's highly charged partisan atmosphere you didn't think that 'The Won' and his minions were even for a second going to show bipartisanship and reach across the aisle to allow a conservative of any color to speak at their remembrance of the way they want things to be.

Gmac

Drang said...

If you did't already tweet the last sentence of your footnote, you better do so now. Just sayin'.

Scott J said...

Nationally, it's ONE day and ONE event.

I live near Birmingham, AL. They've been doing feature stories every week on my local Fox affiliate.

I eventually said "it's one thing to remember the past but wallowing in it is not the way to move forward".

RandyGC said...

Ouch! That last sentence of the foot note wins the Interwebs for the day, oh hell, for the freaking week!

KM said...

would ask some of today's high schoolers

Anytime you ask a high schooler, be prepared for an incoming fusillade of dumb and naive.
No, not every one of them but a huge amount have been dumbed down to plants with cellphones.

wv- 91 ocoldso - what you get on your lip after school if you aren't careful.

Tam said...

Drang,

"If you did't already tweet the last sentence of your footnote, you better do so now. Just sayin'."

Done! :D

Tam said...

The girl who said that is white. This is a high school in suburban Colorado.

The lower class resents people they see as acting above their station. You can find it in a line-dancing roadhouse as easily as hip-hop night at the local club.

Tam said...

Come to think of it, American culture in general is pretty anti-intellectual, and erudition is mocked as effeminate.

mustanger said...

This is reminding me of the summer of 1988... I was going into the 9th grade and finding out about people who think it's not cool to have a brain. If I hadn't been mostly educated at home, where I learned to understand the written word early, I'd have met 'em a lot sooner. KM's comment about kids being "plants with cell phones"... I think I met some of their parents. No good came of it.

Jeffro said...

When I saw that Travon Martin's parents were included in the festivities and were speakers as well, I more or less tuned out the whole thing. Hypocrisy leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I detest having it shoved down my throat.

Anonymous said...

As to the footnote/tweet, it's funny I'm not too sure it's true.

If there was a hypothetical 2Revs Restaurant in Chitown, I imagine that proprieters Rev. Al and Rev. Jeremiah would have a pretty strict pigment policy, and that BarryO would have no problem with that.

When we consider manifestations of racism today, as evidenced by the Zimmerman trial and Martin's parents featured appearance at this insult to King's memory, it is well to remember that racism is not color specific.

-chaz-

Anonymous said...

"Those kids over there are pushing little old ladies into traffic; I judge them to be really bad and maybe I should stop them."


Rational Self Interest would lead them to do that ..... along with the EBT parasites and the rest of the dependentant classes.... just sayin' .....

fast richard said...

The little girls killed in the Birmingham Church Bombing were invoked in speeches, but their most famous playmate, Condoleezza Rice, was not there. I suppose she would have felt out of place in that collection of con-artists and hucksters.

Anonymous said...

http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/tim-scott-declined-invite-to-attend-march-as-spectator/

Tam said...

From your link: "“There was no effort to get the senator to speak,” added an aide with Scott’s office."

Transparent attempts to cover up a dick move are transparent.

Kristophr said...

It is good that the Democratic Party is celebrating the actions of a dead life long Republican like MLK Jr.

mikee said...

History is a funny thing, what with an anti-segregationist being used to support government supported racial quotas today, and the parents of an attempted murderer speaking at a rally in honor of a non-violent civil rights advocate.

WindRider said...

Tam, I wouldn't be so hard on the high-school girl. "Not even about their skin, but just judging them because of the content of their character" sounds like she is one of the few that actually understands MLK's speech. God knows the Dems and our illustrious Prez, among many others, are sorely lacking the constructive input of anyone judging them on the content of their character. Not to mention that the character-judging part of MLK's speech is almost never mentioned in any article referencing MLK, only the skin color thing.

Anonymous said...

Anymore, racism is like flatulence; them that claim to smell it first are mostly the ones doing it.

RL said...

Reminds me of a time I was having breakfast with a couple hippie girls.

At one point in our conversation -somewhere between kundalini and false consciousness- I used the word "discriminate" in a positive context (as in; Yeah, I discriminate all the time...I prefer the company of good people over Stalinists) and they reacted as if I'd just bitten the head clean off a baby spotted owl and had stuffed it into the blowhole of a dolphin I was roasting alive on a spit.

"You discriminate?!!"
"I thought you were cool man!"


I tried to explain what 'the word' actually -you know- meant, but they couldn't grok the use of "discriminate" outside of the only an old racist white rethuglican would say that context. Not even pointing out that they were discriminating against the word discriminate could dent their resolve.

I actually had to break out a dictionary and show them the definition to prove I wasn't evil incarnate.

Apparently, it had been indiscriminately' (heh) stricken from their dialect of newspeak...Verboten.

Seerak said...

Apparently, it had been indiscriminately' (heh) stricken from their dialect of newspeak...Verboten.

Oh, it isn't "indiscriminate" at all.

Discrimination, in its original meaning, means to be carefully selective — to recognize and choose between “finely distinct” alternatives, e.g. a “discriminating” customer. It means making choices.

Doesn’t it seem odd to you that *this* is the word has come to mean prejudicial choice, and highly evil prejudices at that — such as racism?

Remember that we are talking about the Left here. Fundamentally collectivist, anti-liberty, anti-freedom-of-choice.

That the Left should exploit the known evil of racism to degrade freedom of choice - their *real* enemy - should surprise nobody.