Monday, September 12, 2016

Life In The Basket Of Deplorables


How many times have I been called a racist? Dozens at least, perhaps hundreds. How about homophobic? Yup, about as many. Islamophobic? Check. Misogynist? Check. Xenophobic? Got it. Let’s see, what’s left? How about bigot? Yeah, that too — all of which puts me right in Hillary’s “basket of deplorables.” I also qualify as one of President Obama’s “bitter clingers” and as a member of that other group Hillary doesn’t like: the so-called “alt-right.” I didn’t know what alt-right was when she said it a few weeks ago but I looked it up and yes, I qualify.
The first time I remember being called racist in print was twenty years ago after I wrote a column supporting the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), otherwise known as Proposition 209. It was a referendum question, which read:

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

The “racist” accusations — and there were three as I recall — were in letters to both papers carrying the column, and they bothered me. I knew there was no basis, but they made me feel bad because racism is an ugly thing and I didn’t want any association with it. I’d been putting my opinions out there for three or four years by that time and I had gotten plenty of flak, but not that kind. Heck, I was writing against racial discrimination. How could that be racist?
Leftist poster from the anti-209 campaign in 1996

Proposition 209 would have made so-called Affirmative Action programs illegal because they give preference to blacks and hispanics over Asians and whites in college admissions, when hiring for teachers, police, firemen, and so forth. That’s racial discrimination, of course, but it’s the kind approved by the left — and leftists attack anyone who points that out. Since they cannot argue using facts, all they have is name-calling. They’ve flung the racist charge so often for so long, it has become a reflex. Columnist Mark Steyn calls it “Democrat Tourette’s Syndrome.” When I realized that, the “racist” charge didn’t phase me anymore. It’s continued use became an indication that I was scoring points against the left.

Though I’ve been a Christian all my life, I’ve always had difficulty with the turn-the-other-cheek thing. My natural tendency when somebody strikes me on either cheek is to strike back at both their cheeks harder and more often — and I don’t really see anything wrong with that. Such was my inclination when letter-writers insulted me with false charges of “racism.” I didn’t strike back though, neither physically nor in writing. I remembered the advice an editor at the Lewiston Sun-Journal gave me years ago: “Don’t respond,” he said. “Most readers will have read both your piece and the letter. Trust them to make up their own minds about who is right or wrong.”
It was good advice and someone should have given it to Maine Governor Paul LePage. He was enraged after a leftist legislator suggested he was racist. Lepage called him and left an obscenity-laced voicemail which the legislator sent to the media. That was dumb — very dumb. It’s one thing to feel like striking back but quite another do actually do it. LePage gave his enemies a club with which they will beat him as long as he’s in office.
Accuser and accused

I voted for LePage twice and I don’t regret it given the choices I had. I intend to vote for Trump too, even though I would have preferred any of the other Republicans who opposed him in the primaries. Against Hillary though? I have to vote for him and I will, but I wouldn’t call myself a “Trump supporter.”
So, even though I don’t support Trump, I still belong in Hillary’s “basket of deplorables.” Here are my bona fides:
I see abortion — the dismembering of babies in their mothers’ wombs — as barbaric, so I’m against “women’s health” and therefore women too according to Democrats who consider pregnancy a disease. So, I’m hopelessly “misogynist.”
I oppose importing tens of thousands of unvetted immigrants from Muslim-terrorist-dominated countries, therefore I’m both “Islamophobic” (unreasonable fear of Islam) and “xenophobic” (unreasonable fear of foreigners).

I consider it unnatural for two women or two men to “marry,” Therefore I’m “homophobic.”
I cling to both my guns and my religion, so I’m a “bitter clinger.”

I believe western civilization superior to other civilizations before or since, and prefer the melting pot model to multiculturalism. Evidently that makes me “alt-right."
I’m a heterosexual white guy who doesn’t believe there’s any such thing as “white privilege.”
All this qualifies me for inclusion in Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” and I move for summary judgement.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gosh, I've never been called xenophobic. The REST of them? Oh sure, hasn't EVERYBODY?
Years ago I HAVE been called Chauvinist, because my penis disqualified me from criticizing Feminist intersectionality theory, but that was by someone who was apparently reeducated to believe Chauvinism meant misogyny.
CaptDMO

Brian said...

Hillary was right that not all Trump supporters are deplorable. Some are simply incredibly ignorant and extremely gullible in believing Trumps constant BS and lies.

Now Trump and Pence are left to defend racists and people who are almost undeniably deplorable. I say "almost" because even Pence and Trump will not admit to the KKK and David Duke as being deplorable. Why so PC all of a sudden? Duke and his kind are deplorable.

Fortunately are country IS great, despite Trumps blatherings, and there are way too many decent folks for the deplorables to win an election.

Anonymous said...

Now I need a T shirt that says "Proud to be a Xenophobic"

No, clearly you need a T shirt that says "Ignorant and proud of it".

Carl said...

Xenophobe

one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin: a person who fears or hates foreigners


Yes, wanting a shirt that proclaims your unduly hate for others is ignorant.

It is also deplorable.

These are the emotions that Trump is counting on, fear and hate. He needs ignorant little hateful chickens to vote for him.



Anonymous said...

Not surprising that Tom is taking to a movement "includes elements of white nationalism,[1][2][6] white supremacism,[3][5][8] antisemitism,[1][2][9] right-wing populism,[6] nativism,[10] and the neoreactionary movement.[11]"

A racist movement?

Indeed, in a 2010 article from the alt-Right publication Radix Journal outlining why an alternative to the Right is needed, opining, "there is the topic of race and, more broadly, IQ and heredity."

"We've known for a while through neuroscience and cross-adoption studies — if common sense wasn't enough — that individuals differ n their inherent capabilities. The races do, too, with whites and Asians on the top and blacks at the bottom," he continued.

From The Christain Post

Can you get more overtly racist than that?

Tom McLaughlin said...

I wonder what percentage of Muslims Hillary would say are in her "basket of deplorables"? Islamic law condemns homosexuals to death. And misogyny? A woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's. A female child can only inherit half of what her male sibling inherits. Women cannot drive or go out of the house except in the company of a male relative.

Finally an anonymouse progressive above seems to understand what racism really is: the belief that one race to be superior/inferior to another. Whoever said that is definitely racist, but the left uses the term so loosely it seems the majority of Americans have become ignorant of what it actually is.

Alt-right is a progressive term meant to substitute for Hillary's old "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy." Most of us conservatives had never heard of it before.

Anonymous said...

I meant to say that you do admit that the Alt Right are racists.

Tom McLaughlin said...

Depends how you define them. I included a link in the article by Milo Yianopoulos. That's how I understand the phrase.

Easy to throw charges of "racism" around when you hide behind "anonymous," huh Anonymouse" You're boring me.

Never heard of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"? See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwtkorQKGFE

Brian said...

"You Can't Whitewash the Alt-Rights Bigotry"

http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/14/you-cant-whitewash-the-alt-rights-bigotry/



"The Racist Moral Rot at the Heart of the Alt-Right"

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433650/alt-rights-racism-moral-rot



Why this need to distance the alt-right, and yourself, from racism? I guess because racists have always been cowards, hiding behind sheets, hiding behind new names. As shown before, Alt-right publications have said things that are the definition of racism.

Therefore, if you associate yourself with that movement knowing these facts, you are, if not a full blown racist, one that supports them. Not much difference.

Anonymous said...

Not sure what your point is with the out-of-the-blue mentioning of Hillary's dopey statement about the right ring conspiring to bring down the Clintons.

Anonymous said...

I've come to the conclusion that new school conservatives look at the individual and liberals look at groups.

When I was in college, I read a case against the Coors Brewing Company from several decades ago. They had been in business for more than 70 years and at one point had exactly one person reach retirement age and retire. Every other person who was approaching retirement was fired foe cause just a few weeks before their retirement vested. Liberals looked at the case and said that it can't be a coincidence. Conservatives looked at the cases one by one by one looking for a smoking gun that wood prove that Coors was deliberately stopping their employees from collecting their retirements.

Most conservatives are against affirmative action. The reason programs like this were put in was because of companies with hundreds or thousands of employees, all of them white even though they were in a city that's population was only 30% white. Liberals looked at the situation and said how can this company be located in a city that has twice as many blacks in it as whites and they cannot find a single black to hire? Conservatives took that as an attack on whites. They asked which white people should they fire?

Conservatives don't get the concept of white privilege. Its not that white people have it easy, its that white people have a small built in advantage. There have been multiple studies where the researchers sent in multiple identical resumes to companies excepts that some of the resumes had white sounding names on them and others had black sounding names. The white names got more calls that the black names did by a wide margin. Have you ever been waiting in line and had the clerk walk right by two black people standing in front of you and ask you if you need help ignoring the two black people standing in front of you? I have, several times. That's white privilege.

If there was a boat with a thousand people on it and space on the life boats for 800 people, liberals would be demanding justice for the 200 drowned people when the boat sinks. Conservatives would look at each of the people one by one and say "How could you not get on a lifeboat, there were 800 spaces. They wouldn't have drown if they had tried harder.

Anonymous said...

One thing that annoy's me about anti-abortion is the number of lies and distortions they tell to make their point. There are legitimate arguments against abortion, you don't need to lie. One of the most popular ones is the one above. The type of late term abortion that you talked about is very rare. Most of the time it is used when the fetus has died and if it is not removed it will kill the mother. It is very rarely used as an actual abortion procedure. But when anti abortion people talk about abortion, this is the example they use.

I'm curious, do you agree with the Catholic Churches position that when a fetus dies inside the mother the moral thing to do is let nature take it course? If the mother dies, so what, it was god's will.

Anonymous said...

Katie xmas, "Now I need a T shirt that says "Proud to be a Xenophobic""
I'm sorry to report that such sentiments, worn on the outermost layer of clothing, are STRICTLY reserved for "students" at colleges that have had proper guidance to successfully un-invite, by "petition or protest", experiential lecturers and speakers that self-identify as contrary to latest tantrums...such that no others may hear.
ALSO SEE: Paid protester, agent provocateur (*sigh* NOT the lingerie), "Useful Idiot".
CaptDMO

JG^&#$(OTG&*%EG said...

Henry halloween, "Now I need a T shirt that says "Proud to be an unintelligible hater"
I'm saddened to say that such announcements, worn on the innermost depths of ones soul, are PURPOSELY reserved for "smart pants" in from of their computers that have had no training to intelligibly DE-CONstruct, via "loudness or stupidity", photo-type numb skulls and "speakers"" that DIS-ASSOCIATE as crybaby contrarians....such that no others can make any sense of it all.
ALSO FOR PERUSAL: corporate mudstirrers, double secret agent alters ("gasp" NOT the jellyfish), "worthless gibberish".
GenWTF