“Progressives” in a Nutshell

One of my favorite reads, IMAO, threw out this statement in a random thoughts post:

There is never going to be respect for the Muslim world when they’re the children we can’t upset and we’re the adults expected to know better. Why can’t Muslims in the Middle East ever be like, “Don’t worry, that’s just those silly Christians. They don’t know any better.”?

The reason I bring this up is that it completely encompasses the liberal thinking in our nation today.  When someone treats a black man like crap for doing something stupid, he’s racist.  Really, though, he’s just being treated like an individual who did something stupid.  It’s like someone is saying, “hey, they’re black.  They don’t know any better.”

It’s not just with black and white people.  It’s everything else.  “They’re treating Hillary like crap.  It must be because they hate powerful women.”  Or they just think she’s being an idiot.  Isn’t treating someone with kid gloves and patronizing them basically saying they are not worth as much as a white male?  It’s awful. 

Perhaps worse than an annoying liberal saying these things is when someone does it to their own kind.  Jesse Jackson leads the league in this.  He acts as if black people need hand-holding, free handouts, and a leader.  I would argue to Jesse that I, unlike him, think that black people are just as capable and just as smart as anyone else, so they shouldn’t get any special treatment.  Who’s the racist person here?

All I’m saying is that in a free, capitalist society, there is no room for racism.  It’s stupid and doesn’t make any sense.  Differentiating between people based on the color of their skin would harm you or your business.  If you passed up on the best workers because of something so trivial, you’d be out of business or have crappy relationships for the rest of your life.

No Room for Racism

On this historic day, I can’t help but be annoyed at all of the talking heads on television, whether it’s on CNN or an NBA telecast, talking about how amazing it is that a black man can be elected President of the United States.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m OK with people who’d been discriminated against in the past being extremely proud that this country no longer cares about the color of a person’s skin, but rather the content of his character, but I’m not entirely convinced that that’s true. 

I think that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be slightly disappointed in us, despite the great strides we’ve made in the time since his passing.  The problems we have now with race, though different than they were then, still have the same fundamental flaw:  We care.  It’s not that we wouldn’t want a black man to do this job or that; it’s that we even notice.  We get all excited about the first black coach to win the Super Bowl or the first black president.  Maybe this is just me, but I wasn’t taught that black people were less able to do these things in the first place.  I remember growing up being told that people all look different but that’s it. 

Honestly, if I wasn’t taught that black people were different and needed help from the government by the media, I don’t think I’d notice.  Isn’t that what the Dr. King was dreaming about?  There were people who voted both for and against Barack Obama because of the color of his skin.  Both of those groups are just as responsible for racism.  No, it’s not reverse racism on one side, it’s still just as racist against people to patronize any group. 

Every time someone gets on television talking about the first black man to do this or how impressive the number of black coaches is in some sport it comes accross as arrogant to me.  I always think the guy is almost saying, “Amazing.  A black man is doing the same job as a regular person.”   Isn’t that almost more insulting than some backwards KKK member?  At least we know those guys are crazy.  We’re giving racial differentiating credibility.

See, in a truly capitalist society, there’s no room for differentiating between races.  There’s no “teams” to root for, no sides to take.  If we lived for ourselves and we needed a job accomplished or a service done for us, we’d only choose someone based on their abilities and character.  It would be detrimental to us to consider race, because we might choose someone not as qualified to do something and it would set us back. 

I understand the historical significance of a black man taking the office of president.  I just don’t like that people were taking sides either way based on just that fact.