Bomber Kills 17 in Iraqi Market

Oliver Willis is a blogger from the Washington, DC, area, who describes himself as  a liberal bomb thrower since 2000. OK, I can accept that!

However, it seems that Mr. Willis, a very partisan Democrat (who maintains a red, white and …

As a candidate, Mr Rendell promised to raise the state income tax, in exchange for property tax cuts. Well, he kept the first part of his promise: the state income tax rose from 2.8% to 3.07%, but property taxes, well, he came up with Act 72, an idiotic trade-off proposal which would have restricted the ability of local school districts to raise property taxes more than 1% above inflation (not a property tax cut, you’ll notice), in exchange for gambling revenues, if the school districts opted in; very few did.

The Governor, formerly the Mayor of Philadelphia, has been blatantly favorable to his home city — at the expense of other Pennsylvanians. Rather than let SEPTA, the mass transit system for the Philly metro area, do something drastic like raise fares, Mr Rendell took a distribution from federal highway money and simply a huge chunk to SEPTA, a very disproportionate share populationwise, in a state with some of the worst roads in the nation.

I’d guess right now that Mr Swann will win.

Again, I’ll put the Democratic record on black politicians up against the GOP record any day.

So now your copout is that Sowell is a bad writer? Fine, Jay. If you don’t want dirty your hands defending Sowell’s misogyny I can undertsand that.

On the other hand, maybe Sowell doesn’t like abortions either but he’s perfectly willing to allow women to have them legally. Good for him.

(And you go right ahead investing in Lynn Swann, Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele – I know we re supposed to be dumb, but we see right through it).

We understand your frustration, Mr Willis: the GOP is going to nominate three reasonably conservative black candidates for governor this year, and darn if they all don’t have a decent chance of winning.

What will it say to other blacks that the ones who have actually been elected to positions of real responsibility aren’t toeing the liberal line?

Our frustrated host also asked:

Think that there may be some correleation between the number of black elected officials who are Democrats versus Republicans?

Well, yeah. But perhaps you might ask yourself a question: how many of the blacks in the House Black Caucus were first elected to represent majority white districts? Of course, you already know the answer: zero. And who were the last two blacks first elected to the House to represent majority white districts? They would be J C Watts and Gary Franks, both of whom are Republicans.

The real difference that has you so frustrated is that while white Democrats only elect white candidates to represent them, white Republicans have actually been willing to elect black candidates to represent them on occasion.

Unless memory fails me, there has been one, and only one, elected black governor since the end of Reconstruction, Douglas Wilder of Virginia. Yeah, he was a Democrat, but what he was was a moderate Democrat, not a wild-eyed liberal. I remember: I was living in Virginia at the time — and I voted for him.

But, gosh, wouldn’t you think that the great Party of Jefferson, which has laid claim to the loyalty of 90% of the black vote, and has since the Voting Rights Act, would have managed more than one single elected black governor, out of fifty separate states, each holding gubernatorial elections every four years (and, in a couple of cases, every two years)?

There have been about 380 separate gubernatorial elections since the Voting Rights Act was passed, and the Democrats have, in all of that time, elected one black governor. Of course, it’s also true that the Democrats have not even nominated many black candidates for governor. What will it say if the Republicans, who normally have the loyalty of about 10% of black voters, double or triple your record this November?

The freedom of Steele and Sowell to be the handkerchief head mouthpieces of a reactionary white ruling class was won by working class domestics and laborers, most of whom were black, that fought along side of Dr. and Mrs. King. Steele and Sowell will defend to the death the single largest transfer of wealth in the history of our democracy to the wealthiest among us. The rarified air up there isn’t very integrated. Ain’t but a handful of negroes in those circles. Steele, Sowell, and their kindred are beneath contempt.

Stop it. For the last 5-10 entries you’ve been saying he believes “women shouldn’t be allowed” to join the military and that he believes women shouldn’t be able to choose what they want to do and that he’s a misogynist. Now all of a sudden you basically say he believes what he wrote! Well gee fucking whiz! I can read that.

What we don’t know, is WHY he wrote that. And that is where you’ve been allowing your prejudices have you writing the nonsense you’ve been writing. I really wish you would pay attention. The statement is too vague to defend or to bash. I’ve given you a perfect example which you’ve chosen to ignore twice now. “I believe that access to Internet pornography is too readily available, especially to kids. There’s better things for kids to be able to look at on the Internet.” Now, what conclusions do you reach from that statement?

2,400 bodies in Iraq; 1,000 bodies in Louisiana; Record deficits and a loss of moral leadership says that proclivity is based on factual evidence.

I’ll chalk that up to one of the dumbest things you’ve ever written. As though any of that has to do with conservatism. Cripes, what a really, really, really dumb thing to say.

There is a world of difference between blacks who believe in conservatism and those who shill to make a buck. I don’t doubt people like TD Jakes have a fundamental disagreement on why we’re here and what we should do while we’re here, but the fact of the matter is – he is in the distinct minority among black conservatives. The vast majority fully understand that the bulk of conservative policies are either designed to hurt or will hurt those not among the upper rich, and disproportionately blacks. The Republican party, after the civil war, was the party of black Americans. At some point that changed, about when the Birch/Goldwater/Reagan types took over. Think the two might be connected? Think that there may be some correleation between the number of black elected officials who are Democrats versus Republicans? Just maybe (And you go right ahead investing in Lynn Swann, Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele – I know we’re supposed to be dumb, but we see right through it).

Given your proclivity to assume the worst of conservatives
2,400 bodies in Iraq; 1,000 bodies in Louisiana; Record deficits and a loss of moral leadership says that proclivity is based on factual evidence.

I know exactly what he believes, Jay. He doesn’t like women becoming soldiers because it somehow interferes with their being mothers. Read it again Jay:

 I do not like to see the future mothers of America becoming soldiers. There are plenty of men who are capable of becoming soldiers and who are not capable of becoming mothers.

Now are you going to defend this guy’s statement or are you just going to keep dodging the issue?

Tell you what Frame, once you find out what he actually believes instead of just assuming you know what he believes, then ask me the question. Until then, the lesson I’m trying to teach you is this: Stop fucking making assumptions!

Hell, you know the old saying. Stop making assumptions because it makes an ASS of U and ME.

Again, if I wrote somewhere, “I don’t like the fact that Internet porn is so readily available.” What would you assume from that statement? Given your proclivity to assume the worst of conservatives, you’d rail that I believed we needed to do away with Internet porn and that I’m opposed to free speech.

I have a comment awaiting moderation but let me just say this. What? Sowell stated that he does not like to see women become soldiers because all women are potential mothers. That is an absolutely idiotic and mysoginistic belief because it based on the position that women’s lives should be limited by their biology. Now do you want to defend that belief or not?

It’s a broad statement. How can you possibly reach a conclusion based on something like that? You’re claiming he mischaracterized a position you assume he has which is that women “shouldn’t be allowed” to serve in the military even though there’s nothing he wrote that would justify you reaching such a conclusion except for your propensity to automatically assume the worst because he’s a conservative.

First of all, let s keep in mind that women are human beings with free will who can choose whether or not they want to become mothers.

So what? Who’s arguing otherwise?

So limiting a woman s professional options because she simply has the potential to become a mother is to deny her some opportunities based on an option she may never want to exercise. I guess it doesn tmater to Sowell that a woman might choose to be a soldier over being a mother. He just doesn t think they should have that choice.

There you go again. Show me where in that sentence you gleaned his position is that women shouldn’t have such a choice. Please. Explain to the rest of the class how you equate, “I do not like to see the future mothers of America becoming soldiers.” with, “I don’t women should have the choice of becoming a soldier over being a mother.” How could you possibly reach such a conclusion?

Do you think, therefore, that women should not be allowed to be President because they are needed to raise presidents?

There you again with the “not allowed” nonsense. Nobody said it, so therefore, it is a bogus question.

Third, are you and Sowell negating the roles of fathers in this equation? Do not fathers play an important role in society? Do fathers not play an important role in raising soldiers? I guess Sowell doesn t have a problem with single mothers as long as their husbands died in combat and they are themselves raising little soldiers. What happens, btw, when all the men have gone off to war and there s no one around to impregnate all the women left behind? I guess Sowell believes in virgin births too.

You go from asking irrelevant questions based on conclusions reached by assumptions made based upon your own biases to plain stupidity.

Seriously. Let s pretend I haven t made up my mind on this issue and that I don t think Sowell s position is total idiocy. What s your answers to these questions?

A. You don’t know Powell’s position. He offered an opinion of what he likes and what he doesn’t like and you made an assumption on his position which is that he doesn’t think women should have a choice as to what they do in their lives and that they shouldn’t be allowed to join the military. He said nothing of the sort. I don’t like that access to porn on the Internet is so easily available, especially to kids. If I wrote that, you would probably assume my position is that I’d want to ban Internet porn, and I don’t.

B. Because you reached conclusions based upon assumptions that you don’t know are true or not, your questions are pointless.

I’m going to assume that as a conservative, Sowell “doesn’t like” abortion but I guess I should never, ever assume that he would deny women the right to have an abortion.

Let me ask you this, is it accurate to say that, even though Sowell dislikes it, he believes women should join the army if they want to? Does that follow from his stated dislike?

Jay, in your whole long response you never once attempted to argue in favor of the belief of that women should NOT jointhe army because they also have the ability to get pregnant. It was a brilliant dodge. So let me ask you point blank:

Do you think women should be allowed to join army?