Obamarama

When the Obama action figure come out, here’s where to get it.
http://www.talkingpresidents.com/products-af-bush.shtml

Here’s somebody who points out the ups and downs of polical action figures.
http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=201

And here are a few more ideas for the kids,
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0612080163dec08,0,1124213.column?coll=chi-ed_opinion_columnists-utl

Excellent comments. I agree that the Wonk’s path is the most likely. That’s a shame; I’d rather see Obama stand up for bold policy on principle and leave the details aside.

Blacks commit daily atrocities against one another and white people in America. Black leaders for a long time have blamed whitey, poverty, and everything but something deeply evil in the culture of black America and the souls of black Americans.

America, frankly, would be a much more civilized, safe, wealthy, and orderly place, but for its minorities. This is the elephant in the room. And when an atrocity like the Knoxville double murder/rape comes up, or the umpteenth black athlete rapes a white co-ed, or some other predicable-as-clockwork black misbehavior shows up on the scene, we’ll realize that Obama, like all liberals but especially minorities, does not view this as a major problem and is not willing to call out blacks for their bad behavior because his first loyalty is to them and not the broader, white-majority community.

Roach -
“… something deeply evil in the culture of black America and the souls of black Americans.”

I can see having issue with a given culture, especially when there are numbers that can be viewed as indicting that culture. However, I believe most people who allow logic to influence their opinions, whether founded in a secular or religious paradigm, would find the claim that an entire race has “something deeply evil” in their souls to be ignorant at best. I’m not a Jesse Jackson fan, but I don’t care much for David Duke either.

Perhaps I should have said “some” or a “significant portion of” black Americans. That said, the high rate of violence–not fully explained by IQ, poverty, and other differences–suggests literally something evil, a higher rate of sociopathic personality disorder. Whatever it is, the lives of white Americans are made worse by the presence of criminally inclined blacks and their pro-criminal culture. Obama has not said anything about this. Neither have most Republicans. Neither do most whites, cowed as the are by accusations of racism. But they all know it; that’s why they move away from blacks as fast as possible when they begin to degrade their neighborhoods and schools.

Whatever it is, the lives of white Americans are made worse by the presence of criminally inclined blacks and their pro-criminal culture.

I would suggest a tour of the Rust Belt. There are numerous neighborhoods in my area that are predominantly white and absolutely riddled by crime, committed by its own residents.

I’d like to hear your reply to bjanaszek’s suggestion.

Also, If I understand you correctly, you believe that the depravity among some people isn’t an inherited mindset and environment that produces wrong actions. Instead it’s a simple view that certain people are just born morally inferior, some to such an extent that they could be called inherently evil.

I don’t believe it myself, and I think it’s a dangerous belief that has supported atrocities throughout history. I question if you’ve thought through to the logical end of this philosophy. If a group of people can’t be helped, what else is to be done with them? Containment, destruction, deportation? Beliefs lead to action. What actions would you suggest to rectify the problem you observe, that there is “something deeply evil in the culture of black America and the souls of black Americans”?

There are many possible explanations, including legacy of slavery, internalization of racism, matrifocal family structure, the demoralizing effects of the welfare state, and genetic adaptation to agricultural systems based on female labor (not so adaptive in an industrial society), just for starters.

Where political correctness comes in is a taboo on acknowledging the fact of high rates among American blacks for crime and many other forms of social pathology. Note: I speak of rates and statistics, not something that applies to every individual.

All, Jew, Greek, black and white, have fallen short of the glory of God, of course, and I have a log in my own eye.

The serious problems among blacks in this country, however, won’t improve at all if we and they deny their existence.

I think Grumpy Old Man pretty much hits all the points as to why the black population is cursed with such a high degree of social pathologies–or evils, in Roach’s so un-pc term–but let me polish his final point. That blacks are largely a permanent underclass suits a great many people quite well: the entire political class and their civil service minions. The fact that blacks are also to a great extent a permanent criminal class also suits law enforcement, for whom it provides excuses for ever larger budgets, and the new for-profit prison industry. ( These reasons alone are why the War on Drugs and the War on Terror will never end until the Empire implodes ).

Now, of course, we are engaged in the noble endeavor of importing a whole ‘nother underclass, for precisely the same reasons.

Two tribes of the underclass at each others’ throats suits Big Law Enforcement just fine.

Not to mention our leaders’ favorite mantra, they’ll “do jobs Americans won’t do”. The unspoken part is, for wages regular Americans can’t live on.

Mr. Janaszek:
I would file those Rust Belt neighborhoods under “the exceptions that prove the rule.” A very small percentage of white neighborhoods are slums chiefly inhabited by an underclass of violent, licentious, drug-and-welfare dependents. Of those, few if any match the intensity of violence seen in black neighborhoods from coast to coast. This is an uncomfortable fact, one from which properly-socialized whites recoil, but which is true nonetheless, and which is not ameliorated in the least by our typical strategies of equivocation, obfuscation, and cognitive dissonance. Quite the opposite: a refusal to face and name this problem feeds it. All the cheap, glib theorizing about white guilt, and all the endless excuses for, and minimization of, black atrocities, pushes blacks and whites further away from peaceful coexistence. It feeds black resentment and evasion of responsibility, while paralyzing and stultifying whites.

If I may presume to speak for Mr. Roach, I don’t think he was claiming that black people have defective souls by nature. I do think it is a bit unconvincing to claim that while the culture is depraved, as so much of it obviously is, the souls that steep in it are unaffected (and this includes a whole generation of white and “Hispanic” hip-hop fans) by it, and it is mere coincidence that the evils, or as liberals refer to them, “social pathologies” we see afflict them so. What’s the difference? Surely paternal neglect, welfare, illegitimacy, and abuse at the hands of one’s mother’s boyfriends are corrupting, are they not? So, too, presumably, is the steady diet of pre-fab excuses and craven apologies for centuries-old sins offered by the self-abasing white majority.

cyrus, I appreciate your comments, and I agree with you. Very few white have every experienced the sort of culture being discussed. It is worth noting (as someone who lived for 20-odd years in “the ghetto”) that for every cracked-out welfare mom, gang-banger, or abusive boyfriend, there are two other families trying their hardest to raise a good family and change the neighborhood from the inside. The criminal culture is not simply black culture–it is a sub-culture, though one with significant power.

What do the Christians among us think the response should be? Grumpy Old Man says:

The serious problems among blacks in this country, however, won’t improve at all if we and they deny their existence.

Isn’t this the role of the Church? Doesn’t Christ call us (and by us, I mean us, not the State) to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned? Seems we have our work cut out for us.

Grumpy Old Man’s short list of possible explanations is an effective one I believe, and he’s dead on in saying problems won’t be solved by denying their existence.

It seems we all agree that these (and most) problems are exacerbated by our lovely Empire, which feeds itself on discord.

Cyrus - I definitely agree that being steeped in evil will poison a soul, and I hope you do speak correctly for Roach in saying that it’s the culture that’s depraved, and not some kind of inherent malfunction. I’m hoping Mr. Roach will take the responsibility in the future to be more precise with his words and stop shooting from the hip with loose and inflammatory rhetoric. Best not carry a shotgun when a rifle is called for, especially when you are frustrated to begin with. To that end, I am glad to see Roach, or anybody, actually have some emotion invested in their thoughts. I can think of few things more aggravating than being lukewarm.

bjanaszek - I agree completely that we (not the State) have the opportunity and obligation to serve others (I don’t remember seeing the phrase “social safety net” in the New Testament). I believe that the Gospel, as demonstrated and taught by Jesus The Christ, is the only solution to the world’s problems, and that to the extent we are part of His work, following correct principles and acknowledging our own weakness, we are part of the answer.

Let’s be clear, there is something evil in all of our souls. It’s called Original Sin and it has associated with it concupiscence.

That said, I was suggesting something black-specific. I was saying their culture, habits, and general trends as a people are self-destructive and destructive of the broader white-majority community. I was also saying they’re different from and worse than general white behaviors. But I was also suggesting from genetics and many observations that blacks have less capacity for self-control, their mean behaviors across the board are worse, that this is visible at a young age, and thus the white majority, to preserve their way of life and their flourishing, must be willing to recognize this and create appropriate institutions to address it. These would include everything from special black schools, higher rates of discipline for black students, different standards of discipline for black young people, black colleges, segregation in prisons, much higher rates of black imprisonment, racial profiling, and, most important of all, simply a willingness to say “We will control blacks when they get out of control. We will not pretend they’re not out of control, and we will not expectt Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and other ‘black leaders’ to do it for us.”

As for my tone, I have made a personal decision to use the same tone, including the same hyperbole and generalizations, in this as I do in discussions of other issues including “the nature of Arabs” or “the stupidities of liberals.” In other words, I’ve made a personal commitment not to over-edit things that touch on race out of fear of the dreaded accusation of racism. Racism is irrational hatred of another race, which I most certainly do not harbor; it is quite distinct from rational attention to their differences. The sad thing of our denial of racial differences as a society is that it has done more to degrade the lives and harm the safety of blacks than anone else. In the name of an extreme and rationalist message of racial equality, the ability of the races to live together in harmony, mutual productivity, and a sense of shared American identity has been lost. And now it’s being made worse as we let in millions of Mexicans to “get it right” this time in comparison to the supposed evils of our earlier treatment of blacks.

So I did read you right the first time. You mention a few actions you’d suggest we take, such as special schools. What organizations do you feel are best suited to pursuing these objectives, or whose public policies do you see as being correct? Are there people in America, or elsewhere, taking actions you see as effective?