’)I don’t know why McCain doesn’t just use the “n” word and cut through the clutter.
Ronald Reagan did it first
The term “welfare queen” is most often associated with Ronald Reagan who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago’s South Side who was arrested for welfare fraud:
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names.”
John McCain does it most recent
Mr. McCain has escalated his attacks in recent days, all but accusing Mr. Obama on Saturday of being a socialist and saying his rival’s tax plan would turn the Internal Revenue Service into “a giant welfare agency.” Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, attached the politically charged word “welfare” to Mr. Obama for the second successive day.
The Republican party hit a high water mark in the modern era for black voters in 2004. But with the nomination of Obama in a post-Katrina post-Iraq atmosphere, that number is going to plunge into the low single digits.
But none of this excuses this racial attack from John McCain. In Oklahoma the KKK is basically working for the McCain-Palin ticket.
Please do your part to bury him, and all these knuckle draggers who are supporting him and making America sick.
UPDATE
>> Casual Expressions of Racism
As a black American, I have cringed at the racism that has permeated this campaign, but way back when I wrote my first endorsement of Sen. Obama I knew that this would be topic #1.
Americans of all colors and backgrounds have invested our hope for a better future in Sen. Obama. But we’re kidding ourselves if we pretend as if black America isn’t collectively holding its breath more than anyone else – worried about the outcome of the election, the safety of Sen. Obama and his family (I said to a friend that I’m just glad that the Secret Service is really freaking good at what they do), and what it means for our country if racial hatred becomes the defining issue of how we choose our next leader. I’m scared as hell. But I’m pretty hopeful too.
I am hopeful too. I see my vote for Obama as a slap against the irrational fear mongers of the right. Frankly I think they are out of their minds, and I have no qualms in sending them further into madness.
And I am hopeful that the SS of this country isn’t as divided and will do the right thing when it is necessary and that is protect the president when it is necessary.
Their irrational fear of what they do not understand is getting out of hand. They have the gal to call liberals godless.
Well I would put my morality up against theirs any day.
Oliver, how is the word “welfare” equivalent to using the “n” word? The word “welfare” applies to anyone (including non-African-Americans) who, well, receive welfare.
McCain is using it as Reagan did, and yes while people of all colors receive welfare, he’s using it in a racially charged manner.
There is a big difference, though. Reagan was successful at creating the myth of the welfare queen. McCain, on the other hand, is overplaying his hand. McCain includes far too many people in the scope of his criticism of the Obama tax plan. He won’t be able to ghettoize a tax policy that includes 95% of working Americans.
This is yet another example of McCain trying but failing to use a play that worked for a prior Republican presidential candidate.
McCain’s also about as inaccurate as Reagan. Reagan manufactured and exaggerated the details about his Chicago welfare “queen,” and McCain doesn’t seem to know how welfare in America worked under either AFDC or TANF.
CMB is probably right about McCain’s picking a target less artfully than Reagan did. People who don’t live on government assistance are the majority of voters, and their resentment against people who do is easily stirred. (Note that while welfare reform’s severe limits on housing, food and cash allowances — things most Americans expect people to buy with their own wages — are applauded, the coverage expansion of health care programs, especially for children, is fairly popular.) In contrast, people who are in the income levels that will lose under the Obama plan are the minority of voters, and if they resent the majority who will benefit, they know it’s not socially acceptable — except at a closed-door Republican fund raiser, perhaps — to voice their disgust toward a single mom with two kids who works a minimum wage job with no health benefits.
“…he’s using it in a racially charged manner”.
How?
I don’t understand why anyone is surprised.
There hasn’t been a Republican campaign since ‘68 that wasn’t based on fear, hate, and racism.
Does anyone seriously question which party the various hate groups support?
Daniel, how old are you?
When you say racially charged manner do you mean this?
Mr. McCain has escalated his attacks in recent days, all but accusing Mr. Obama on Saturday of being a socialist and saying his rival’s tax plan would turn the Internal Revenue Service into “a giant welfare agency.”
Or is this more what you mean by racially charged?
Mr. McCain once again seized on what Mr. Obama said to Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio man now famously known as Joe the Plumber, when he explained why he favored a progressive income tax over a flat tax.
“We learned that Senator Obama’s economic goal, as he told Joe, is to, quote, ‘spread the wealth around,’ ” Mr. McCain said at the rally in Concord. “We’ve seen that movie before in other countries and attempts by the liberal left in this country before.”
Mr. McCain went further in his weekly radio address. He accused Mr. Obama, who favors giving tax credits to some who pay payroll taxes but not income taxes, of wanting to turn the I.R.S. “into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth.”
What would an acceptable style of writing have been? I don’t think you are being intellectually honest here. The redistribution of wealth has been a cornerstone of Obama’s policy all along. Obama is basically buying votes by taking money away from people who are more prosperous and giving it to people who are less prosperous.
AO:
Please point me to the dictionary that says that redistributivist tax policy is part of socialism. The dictionaries I’ve seen all basically follow this American Heritage definition:
“An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.”
It looks to me like it is Palin, with her claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — companies traded on the stock exchange and whose profits went to those stockholders and not the U.S. Treasury — were actually government-owned, who is talking up socialism. It looks like the Bush Administration, which is putting government into a dominant position in the financial industry, which is taking socialist measures.
Also, McCain is pushing a flat tax? Really? I keep seeing conservative commenters on this blog saying that the bottom 50% need to pay their “fair share,” which presumably is a rate — if not an amount — equal to what the top 50% pays. Sadly, the GOP doesn’t seem to be following this suggestion that it should raise the tax rates of the bottom 50%. Instead, McCain promises an extravaganza in which EVERYBODY’S rate will go down. Unless he reduces the top marginal rate far beyond what he’s actually said he would do, then he too is adhering to the progressive income tax.
Huckabee ran on the flat tax without giving a clear impression that he understood how that would work (Steve Forbes came across more plausibly in this area), so I’m unsurprised that Joe the Plumber is a Huckabee fan. But it just doesn’t seem to be a winning slogan to become the Republican nominee, much less the president. I wonder why Republican primary voters, if they know that the flat tax is the only fair way to go, don’t seem to make much of an issue of it.
Hmm… Obama must be slipping in a few key polls somewhere if Oliver’s trotting out the race card this strenuously.
It’s simple:
1) Obama has promised a “tax cut” to 95% of all Americans.
2) Mathematically, this is impossible, as not that many Americans pay taxes.
3) Obama is achieving this by defining “tax cut” to those who pay no income tax as reducing their tax burden from zero to a negative amount.
4) The way that “negative taxes” work is, the government gives YOU money.
5) Government-given money that is not in compensation for goods and services, or in compensation for some disability or condition, but simply to assist those who are economically disadvantaged, can be called “welfare.”
This is turning into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Obama repeatedly warns his minions that he’s going to get attacked for his race. Then those minions, disappointed that McCain won’t play along, start looking at every single attack and calling it “racism.”
Tell me, then, in what sorts of ways ARE we allowed to criticize Obama? On what issues are we permitted to disagree? In what manner can we speak? What are the words we must use?
I’m betting a lot of people are looking at the minefields Obama’s supporters are laying, where every single criticism is getting tagged with the “racist” label, and are saying “fuck it, I’m gonna get called racist if I vote for McCain and he wins, or I’m gonna get called a racist every time I criticize Obama for the next four years if he wins. I’m gonna vote McCain and get it over with and shut them up.”
J.
Amused Observer hates:
Tax credits to some who pay payroll taxes but not income taxes.
Redistribute the wealth.
Man, do you have any f’ing idea what wealth is? Because wealthy is not what you’re gonna get by getting a credit against your payroll taxes.
Nor, to be quite fair, by working at a job that pays well, because the tax system discriminates so strongly against you working stiffs who haven’t made it already. And you know what? Because *wealthy* people pay such low taxes compared to well-paid workers, if anything is being redistributed, it’s wages and salaries.
(I apologize to hard-working people for what looks like a gloat, but the ones who aren’t Republican asses will probably understand the message.)
Is this one of those famous Poltics of Envy guys talking? Not quite. I know well what I paid in income tax for 2007 because I just finished computing it a few days ago. (You *can’t* compute your taxes till all the reports are in, and the silly old hedge fund doesn’t report till September. Forget about filing on April 15.)
Wanna know what I paid versus my Adjusted Gross Income?
15% of the total. Same as if I’d worked for the money and then paid at the *lowest* rate on the whole amount.
How did I manage that? Oddly enough, without any fancy tax shelters & gimmicks. (The hedge fund was supposed to make money, not get out of taxes.) Just capital gains and qualified dividends, taxed at ridiculously low rates.
If you’re actually *earning* the money, you get to pay much higher rates. That’s the system that Amused Observer loves so much. Well, I could say I’m with you there, getting both amusement and profit out of it; but frankly, I think the system sucks.
Ok, I left out my big tax shelter: some large charitable contributions; I hope that doesn’t offend you too much; they were about on the scale that poor Black people give, as a percentage of income. Or even higher — don’t weep for me, I can afford it. Whether anybody can afford a system that subsidizes the rich, I don’t know.
Jay, shut the fuck up. The Republican party has been playing the Southern Strategy for 40 years now, you don’t get to complain when people call them racist.
The only way you can’t understand this is if you are…
A.) Stupid.
B.) Racist.
of C.) Both.
I pick C.
I don’t think most Americans believe 95% will see a tax decrease.
“Welfare” is now code word for minorities? Man, I hope Obama does not accuse McCain of racism. It will backfire.
“Don’t vote for the n*****!”
“Wait, did you just…”
“Aieeee! RACE CARD!”
It’s like Blazing Saddles for pussies.
CSS, way to argue on the facts! Jay Tea clearly laid out that Obama’s “tax” plan is nothing more than welfare. And your response was to tell him to STFU and call him a racist.
Enlightened discourse has never seen a brighter day.
In the South in 1972, when I was preparing to vote in my first election, it was common to hear “welfare” defined as “takin’ my tax money and givin’ it to n***ers.”
When I told my boss at the time I was voting for McGovern, he was furious. “McGovern wants to take a thousand dollars of MY MONEY and GIVE it to a n***er!” Nixon won.
Reagan’s “welfare queen” was the same thing. I heard stories all the time in the 80s about standing in the grocery line buying hamburger helper and seeing a “n***er” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps.
I don’t know where and when these other writers grew up, but in FL and NC,at least, the word “welfare” has ALWAYS meant “giving tax money to n***ers.” Anyone who pretends otherwise is either quite young or being disingenuous.
“Enlightened discourse has never seen a brighter day.”
Shut the fuck up, SaveFarris, you are not smart enough to bother with enlightened discourse. And if you think Jay Tea’s logical pretzel was a valid argument, then you are even dumber than he is.
PG,
You are to be commended for actually caring what words mean and going to the trouble of looking things up. Much of the jargon used by the so called soft sciences is somewhat ambiguous.
Socialism] was first applied in England to Owen’s theory of social reconstruction, and in France to those also of St. Simon and Fourier . . . The word, however, is used with a great variety of meaning, . . . even by economists and learned critics. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, . . . radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property . . . The tendency of the present socialism is more and more to ally itself with the most advanced democracy. –Encyc. Brit.
We certainly want a true history of socialism, meaning by that a history of every systematic attempt to provide a new social existence for the mass of the workers. –F. Harrison.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Would you prefer the term communism, personally I think it carries more subjective baggage.
I don’t seem to see the strong association with a flat tax that you see. I do think a flat tax is a more fair way of applying the pain of subsidizing the cost of government more evenly across society.
I find it most offensive for politicians to buy votes from the majority with taxes from a minority. The feedback loop thus established ultimately seems headed toward mob rule. Our founding fathers were quite wise in not establishing a direct democracy opting instead for a republic.
I am troubled by the actions that the Bush administration has taken in response to the financial turmoil we find ourselves and tend to agree with you. Any movement away from the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is basically unamerican.
So where was the racist language? Willis seems quite careless throwing the term racist around.
Earth to Strowbridge:
Words have actual meanings. Mathematics is not a subjective topic. Republicans have a much cleaner record historically than Democrats on the subject of actual civil rights. Racial Discrimination has been a plank of the Democrat party for decades now. Pandering to minorities using the policies of affirmative action to buy their votes and party loyalty. It has worked quite well for the Democrats.
Perhaps you could show me the text in the article suggesting that McCain has crossed some sort of line of decency.
Strowbridge:
Shut the fuck up yourself, you honkey cracker ofay peckerwood. (Thank you, Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase.)
But thank you for proving my point for me. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and a single concrete example trumps theory.
Sorry, but you can’t shut me up by calling me names. Sorry, but the Obama campaign’s strategy fails on me.
J.
Speaking of McGovern, Bruce, have you heard him come out so strongly against “card check,” the union-backed plan to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot on whether to join a union? Last I heard, Obama was all in favor of that one, too.
J.
Republicans who doth protest too much ought to Google ” ‘lee atwater’ 1954″ and see what comes up. Done? Well OK, then.
The real shame is that the daniel rotters and Jay Teas of this world think that the only way their guy can win is via the Lee Atwater Playbook. Truly one of the unfortunate aspects of this world.
Jay Tea, I have seen McGovern’s ads about card-check.
I have to confess I don’t know much about the issue. I do think organized labor SHOULD make an attempt to gain ground lost since Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controller’s Union, and all the anti-labor shit that’s happened since. I live in a “right-to-work” state, so labor is pretty much screwed around here anyway. Whether card-check is the way to go or not, I can’t say.
Anyway, McGovern’s views on card-check (or mine, or yours) are hardly relevant to the discussion here. My point is that when Republicans say “welfare”, they have historically implied “taking money from white people and giving it to n***ers.” You can say that’s NOT what they mean, but I think it is.
Mr Strowbridge, I understand your frustration, but I don’t think it’s helpful to call people stupid or tell them to “shut the fuck up.”
Except if you are responding to mccann. Now THAT stupid motherfucker needs to shut the fuck up.
Tax money for companies = Good
Tax money for black people = bad
Your rethug party and logic?
No relation.
Sorry, but you can’t shut me up by calling me names. Sorry, but the Obama campaign’s strategy fails on me.
How to breathe fails on Jay.
I imagine it wasn’t even necessary for most of the intelligent people here to even point out that, of course, our beloved little Jay is completely full of shit with the “Obama’s tax cut means welfare” line he copied and pasted from… oh I don’t know, Jay, was it RedState or Townhall this time?
1954, ed? I deal with the here and now. Besides, Obama was -7 in 1954, so that’s all irrelevant.
Give money to companies? They’ll probably hire someone or do something else to grow the economy. Besides, it’s more like “give money BACK to companies,” because they pay a lot of taxes. There’s a chance that that money will benefit me, so I can live with it.
Give the money to poor people? I’m reminded of the advice about giving fish versus teaching someone to fish.
Your idea and reality? It’s all about making YOU feel better. Actually improving things for real people? Nice if it happens, but hardly unnecessary. The poor are only props so you can make yourself feel better, an inflate-a-date masturbatory aid for your social conscience.
Kindly keep that sort of thing in private. We’d rather not watch.
And like even less buying you patch kits for your love doll.
J.
1954, ed? I deal with the here and now. Besides, Obama was -7 in 1954, so that’s all irrelevant.
I don’t think you did the Google search as I politely asked (it’s incredibly simple to do). Or perhaps you are being typically disingenuous. Or both.
“Republicans have a much cleaner record historically than Democrats on the subject of actual civil rights.”
This is a pathetic argument.
“Lincoln was a Republican, and he freed the slaves. Therefor the last 40 years mean nothing!”
“But thank you for proving my point for me.”
When a puppy shits on the carpet, you don’t talk to it about the costs of cleaning up after it. You smack it on the nose and say no.
“Sorry, but you can’t shut me up by calling me names. Sorry, but the Obama campaign’s strategy fails on me.”
A lot of things fail on you, like logic and reasoning.
Which is why I say, “Shuck the fuck up, Jay.”
You don’t deserve anything more than that.
“Mr Strowbridge, I understand your frustration, but I don’t think it’s helpful to call people stupid or tell them to “shut the fuck up.”
Except if you are responding to mccann. Now THAT stupid motherfucker needs to shut the fuck up.”
Jay Tea is no smarter than j mccann. He only has a larger vocabulary and a better grasp on the rules of grammar.
ed, heard it before. And guess what? Just because Lee Atwater said it, doesn’t mean that any time someone says “I don’t want to pay more taxes” they’re complaining that they don’t have enough money for a new Klan hood.
By that reasoning, when Obama tells Joe The Plumber that he just wants to “spread the wealth around,” he’s calling for wealth redistribution and socialism and equality of results and punishing success.
We know that’s not true, because Obama’s own charitable contributions were pretty skimpy until he started running for president. So he’s interested in keeping his own money — he’s just interested in redistributing OTHERS’ income.
J.
Like I said, I understand your frustration. It was a joke.
Just because Lee Atwater said it, doesn’t mean that any time someone says “I don’t want to pay more taxes” they’re complaining that they don’t have enough money for a new Klan hood.
I see you haven’t given up on The War on Straw. Have you seen the videos of your compadres at the Palin rallies? You have? And you’re still playing this stupid game? Shame on you. You seem a smidge smarter than those people, if ideologically aligned.
he’s just interested in redistributing OTHERS’ income.
Right. Because he’s evil and a stealth StalinistMaoistIslamofascist or whatever the Fox Talking Point du Jour is. Could be, I guess. Or perhaps Obama thinks that raising the taxes of the wealthiest of the wealthy might help pay for the disastrous Iraq Invasion (and body armor for the troops), bridges in Minnesota, schools in New Orleans, and a bunch of other stuff which desperately needs funding. The tax increase would still be less than the Deficit Reduction Act in 1993. What happened after that, by that way? Did the U.S. descend into some sort of ultra-communist dystopia as envisioned by a 14 year old Ayn Rand accolyte (not to mention the Wall Street Journal–it’s a fine line)? Or were things pretty good in the 90s? How’d the ultra-rich, who’s taxes were slightly increased (more than Obama’s proposing) fair? Pretty good? Well OK, then.
What argument can McCain make and not be called racist? Well, if he were able to, he could make a cogent positive argument about how his economic policies would benefit the majority of Americans. But since all he has to offer is a continuation of the disastrous policies of the current administration, that option really isn’t open to him, so he spends all his time on attack, attack, attack – slinging emotive mud at Obama and hoping some of it sticks.
Those emotive smears will have different meanings to different people. To naive college republican types in Indiana or Utah “welfare” merely connotes a departure from their discredited and simple-minded supply-side religion. In certain barber shops and country clubs in Alabama and Georgia it means “taking my money and giving it to the n…s”. To say that McCain and his strategists are unaware of that latter message is to accuse them of being idiots.
Admittedly the idea that the people who picked Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency are idiots is not an indefensible hypothesis. But that doesn’t effect the main point, which is that that their negative, emotive and divisive rhetoric – aimed at places like “real Virginia” and the other “pro-America” parts of the country — reveals the utter emptiness of their own policies. They’ve got nothing to run on but hate and fear. They may win, but they will only do so by tearing the country apart at a time above all others when we need to be coming together.
And McCain claims he’s going to “put an end to partisanship in Washington”. My ass. It’s “uniter not divider” redux.
Conservatives pounced on Obama saying “spread the wealth around” as if those four words, used in the middle of a conversation, summed up the totality of Obama’s economic platform. That’s false, and they know it. What he meant, and they know it, is that “a rising tide raises all boats.”
Secondly, I don’t think that having surrogates go on TV to pounce on those four words is gonna be very effective this year. I think a lot of Americans think that “spreading the wealth” from a bunch of AIG spa-goers and bank CEOs to ordinary working folks is not that bad an idea.
Since the intrepid Straw Warrior Mr. Tea brought up Obama’s vile, evil, and dowright socialist tax policy, a reminder:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/tax_policy_now_with_facts.php
ed, he’s already made two “look over there!” comments since I noted that. I think it’s safe to assume based on prior experience that he’s going to duck this until the same website he blindly copied his first bit of babble from formulates a second round of spin.
Out of curiosity, ed, how long did it take for you to find a link that proved Jay was a fucking idiot? I made a typo in Google the first try so it took me about two minutes, which really wrecks the average for me, personally.
I’m working my butt off every day in a grocery store for minimum wage and seeing people buy lobster ($29.50 lb), steak ($8.00 lb) and shrimp ($9.50 lb) with their food stamps. Obama seems to think these folks need us taxpayers to give these poor folks more??? What’s wrong with this picture?? Oh, let’s spead this “wealth” around. Cuz’ I want lobster for dinner too!!!
John McCain sounds like a conservative blogger when he says saying “spread the wealth around” sounds like socialism. He’s starting to sound like you guys and Free Republic, calling things welfare and not arguing on policy but instead digging in the conservative well of the southern strategy. It’s an interesting way to lose a campaign.
Got it. McCain can only criticize Obama by not criticizing him.
And ed, you mean like the “kill him!” shout that nobody but one reporter heard, and the Secret Service investigated and dismissed?
Meanwhile, Obama’s followers are out there following his directive to “get in their faces.” A McCain marcher in New York City had her sign taken away, then smashed in the face with it. A McCain office got fake anthrax mailed to it. Other McCain offices have been broken into and vandalized — like the one in South Carolina, where they had “Republican Equals Slavery” spray-painted on the walls.
Or, perhaps, the coordinated attempts (through the Obama web site) to keep Stanley Kurtz from being interviewed about his research on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Or the event planned on October 3rd in Dallas?
“Welcome” Palin Oct. 3 to Dallas (Women for Obama) Sarah Palin speaks at a $1000/plate fundraising lunch at downtown Dallas on October 3. Let’s give her a rousing progressive “welcome” by marching in solidarity on the streets in front of the hotel. Event starts at 11am to “welcome” luncheon attendees.
Also coordinated through the Obama web site.
Go ahead, make all your points about “code language” and various mean things said by random people at campaign events. There’s plenty of intimidation, of thuggery, of open violence being solicited and carried out in this campaign, and it’s being done by those backing YOUR GUY.
But that doesn’t count, does it?
J.
Democrats not bending over and taking it = intimidation and thuggery according to Jaytea. Please.
LOL,
By the liberal logic illustrated here McCain might as well have cut through the clutter and just called them n***** because he mentioned the word welfare and Obama together. Is that the crux of this alleged crime.
Wow, you guys are absolutely pathetic. Talk about playing the race card.
Strowbridge’
The Republicans are cleaner than the Democrats on civil rights not only because of Lincoln. LOL, Perhaps you ought to consult the voting rolls and see just who rammed that bill through Congress for LBJ to sign.
The political party that has time and time again came out in favor of legalized discrimination is the Democratic Party. Legalized discrimination, that is what affirmative action is. You know affirmative action, the process one American is granted preference over another, not because of ability but identity.
Democrats use this shamelessly to coerce minorities into voting for them. And it works well, nobody has the group political loyalty that Democrats and the blacks have.
Using the provided link regarding payroll taxes vs income as an illustration of Obama providing tax cuts for all is priceless. They still give lip service to the idea that there is some link between what you pay into S.S. and what you get out of it. In theory, we all pay a little more into the system, to pay for the widows and orphans who receive money but aren’t expected to fully cover what they withdraw. I don’t think anyone has a problem with that. But that is quite different from raising taxes on the wealthy to fund retirement for the average tax payer as a matter of course and calling it a tax cut.
From what I can gather Oliver considers the word welfare to be a racially charged one. He thinks characterizing subsidies as welfare is racist. Please correct me if I am wrong. This is a matter of semantics only. It doesn’t change the balance of payments.
What would an acceptable balance of payments be. During a working lifetime what percentage of a man’s labor should he contribute to society in the form of taxation and what percentage should he withdraw from society in the form of a subsidy?
Got it. McCain can only criticize Obama by not criticizing him.
If the only way McCain can criticize Obama is by using divisive language designed to inflame fear, hate, and old racial tensions, then that says more about McCain than it does Obama.
You never find Obama -or any of his official spokespeople – calling McCain a “racist nazi warmonger”, though those terms are at least as appropriate to McCain as “socialist, anti-American pal of terrorists” are to Obama.
Nor do you hear the Obama people calling parts of the country that lean Obama are more “real” or “pro-American” than other parts.
You do, however, find this sort of language spoken by McCain or his official surrogates, and endorsed explicitly by McCain as recently as this morning on Fox news.
To be sure, there are excesses on both sides, particularly from the more rabid partisans in either camp, but there’s one campaign that has driven consistently toward the gutter, and it ain’t Obama’s. Colin Powell is right on this score: all campaigns get nasty, but take the nasty away from the McCain campaign and you got a big fat zero. They have absolutely nothing positive to offer.
No, Oliver, it means you can’t whine about “code words” while ignoring actual violent crimes committed by the folks on your side.
Well, actually, you can. It’s your blog. But you can’t do it without being called out.
The “race card” is like a credit card. It has both a spending limit and an expiration date. In this election, they’re both long past.
I’m sure that there are some people who are refusing to vote for Obama based on race. I am also sure there are at least that many who are voting FOR Obama based on race. I don’t care for either.
I’m opposing him because of so much of what he has done, and so much of what he has not done. The man has ZERO record of achieving anything. His seven years at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge pissed away $150 million for NO measurable results. He turned a blind eye to the incredible corruption in the Chicago Democratic machine so he could keep advancing politically. And his time in the Senate was almost entirely spent putting his name on very popular bills and running for president.
And that’s just for starters.
I’m with Dennis Miller — “I don’t even notice the color of his skin, I do note the thinness of it though.”
J.
You may be opposed based on issues, but we’re seeing – increasingly – that the McCain campaign is the campaign of white supremacists. Sorry it worked out that way, but you guys are fighting alongside the worst haters in our nation. It is the McCain supporters that are throwing bricks through windows, making threatening phone calls, dressing Obama up as a monkey, prompting Secret Service visits, etc.
It’s not the race card if people are actually being racist.
“It’s not the race card if people are actually being racist.”
Kind of like the people who broke into McCain’s South Carolina office and spray-painted “Republican Equals Slavery” on the walls? Or those who insist that any white person who doesn’t support Obama is doing it purely on racial reasons? Or those who can’t articulate an accomplishment of Obama’s other than he’s black and won elections?
You wanna go on dubious endorsements? Hamas and Hezbollah want Obama elected. Castro’s praised him. The American Communist Party is on his side.
I don’t hold that against Obama. He didn’t seek their support. But apparently McCain gets held to a higher standard.
In other words, Obama is held to a lesser standard than the white guy.
Sounds vaguely racist to me…
J.
Speaking of race card, where is our example of McCain using the theory of wealth redistribution/socialism/welfare in a racially charged manner?
How does one discuss ethnicity, socialism, welfare, and the redistribution of wealth in mixed company? What would be the correct way to observe any correlation?
1954, ed? I deal with the here and now.
Unless we’re talking about Bill Ayers. Then you’re all over it.
Oh, let’s spead this “wealth” around. Cuz’ I want lobster for dinner too!!!
Sounds like you could qualify for food stamps, then.
“a rising tide raises all boats.”
1. Shouldn’t we let boatmakers keep more of their money so they can build more boats?
2. A Rising Tide is a serious problem as a result of Global Warming. By supporting a rising tide, Barack Obama is turning his back on all the poor and middle class folks who live and work at sea level.
AO,
Even under your source’s definition, Obama isn’t proposing socialist policies. Robert Owen founded New Harmony, a commune where all property was managed by a central authority. Obama hasn’t proposed anything of that sort. If you shift the meaning of “socialism” to “any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor,” then good Lord, in Ireland the Catholic Church’s works for the poor are “socialistic.”
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s complaint in “Mere Christianity” about how a perfectly good word, “gentleman,” had been denuded of its original meaning (a landed owner of property who derived income therefrom and need not labor for his living) to make it one of a hundred synonyms for “nice.” If by “socialist” you mean “income redistributivist,” use the correct, accurate, precise term and you will avoid a great deal of confusion over your meaning.
“5) Government-given money that is not in compensation for goods and services, or in compensation for some disability or condition, but simply to assist those who are economically disadvantaged, can be called ‘welfare.’”
Jay Tea, it can only be called welfare if one’s goal is not to accurately describe it, but rather to deliberately mischaracterize it in an inflammatory way.
What Obama’s plan calls for is a refundable tax credit. The argument that many people who are eligible for this tax credit do not actually pay federal taxes is a misleading, if not out right wrong.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_welfare.html
So practically everyone in America pays some form of federal tax, whether it’s on their income on their expenditures in the form of excise taxes. So Obama’s plan for a $500 tax credit is not taking money from people who pay taxes and giving it to people who don’t. To suggest that it does this is flat out wrong.
To call it welfare is worse than wrong, it’s an attempt to characterize it in a particular way to create divisions and resentment. There is no other reason to call it welfare because it isn’t welfare. The question here is whether the intention is to create divisions between economic classes or between races. Given the GOPs long history of associating both poverty and welfare with people of color, the conclusion is obvious.
But even more so, if refundable tax credits to people who don’t pay federal income taxes, are in and of themselves “welfare,” why aren’t conservatives calling John McCain’s health care plan “welfare”? McCain’s health care plan includes refundable credits that will be worth the same to everyone regardless of how much they pay in taxes. In other words, McCain’s $5k tax credit will go to those who don’t pay any federal income tax at the end of the year.
Jay Tea, is John McCain’s health care plan a form of welfare? If not, why not?
[...] and party has done the opposite. The only thing they have left is that Obama is a terrorist and that his tax plan is socialist. (Socialist because it’s progressive and requires the wealthy to pay a larger percentage than [...]
PG,
Your concern with accuracy is duly noted.
Might I bring your attention to this phrase:
radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property”
Which is part of:
“The word, however, is used with a great variety of meaning, . . . even by economists and learned critics. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, . . . radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property”
Websters revised unabridged dictionary cites Encyclopedia Britannica as the source for this definition.
Reasonable people may agree to disagree. I don’t think we are really too far apart here.
Your original point I believe is that McCain is stirring up resentment by exaggerating and being as inaccurate as Reagan was describing our welfare system in the 80’s.
I think perhaps this is because of the use of the word welfare. The term welfare has become attached to most any kind of government bailout these days. We have corporate welfare, agricultural welfare, oil companies, Wall street etc.
At the same time the public face of welfare is probably a single black mother raising multiple children by multiple fathers. Well that is an ugly picture. How accurate? I don’t know but given the metrics used by the census department we could get a composite picture if we wanted to. But if you design a system to pass public subsidies to people who have made poor life choices through the mechanism of income taxes the the comparison is a natural one to make and your are hardly a racist for bringing it up.
SaveFarris the Plumber’s friend:
Shouldn’t we let boatmakers keep more of their money so they can build more boats?
What’s the point of that if nobody but the boatmakers can afford the boats they build?
Jay Tea:
Kind of like the people who broke into McCain’s South Carolina office and spray-painted “Republican Equals Slavery” on the walls?
The difference being that nobody in the Obama campaign is encouraging such hooliganism, even implicitly, whereas the McCain campaign is in full fever-whipping mode with its talk about “palling around with terrorists” “welfare” “socialism” “real America” and “the pro-America parts of the country”. Here’s hoping the coming vote consigns you and your false-equivalencing brethren to the dustbin of electoral history, along with the politics of hate and fear being practiced by McCain.
fafaroo:
So practically everyone in America pays some form of federal tax, whether it’s on their income on their expenditures in the form of excise taxes.
And what our right-wing friends always conveniently forget is that federal income taxes are not the only governmental burden on taxpayers. As federal revenues decreased due to the republican tax-cuts, other forms of revenue collection at the state and local level increased to make up for revenue shortfalls, and such methods – user fees, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. tend to be flat levies and therefore effectively regressive. An income tax break for lower and middle-income people is simply redressing the imbalance. It has nothing to do with socialism or welfare.
Jay tea again:
I’m opposing him because of so much of what he has done, and so much of what he has not done. The man has ZERO record of achieving anything.
One thing he has achieved is the articulation of coherent and consistent foreign and domestic policies, which is apparently beyond the abilities of John McCain, despite all his years in Washington.
What’s the point of that if nobody but the boatmakers can afford the boats they build?
The more boats they build, the lower the prices (Supply & Demand 101). And if you get the bright idea to increase taxes, they’ll just:
A) pass those costs on to the boat-buying public.
B) move their corporate headquarters to Dubai where there’s a lower tax threshold.
1) Obama has promised a “tax cut” to 95% of all Americans.
Translation: I’m pro tax cut unless a Democrat’s doing it?
2) Mathematically, this is impossible, as not that many Americans pay taxes.
I would assume he means 95% of taxpayers, then.
Tell me, then, in what sorts of ways ARE we allowed to criticize Obama?
How about for actions that you HAVEN’T supported Republicans doing for the past 8 years? That seems like a good starter.
“How about for actions that you HAVEN’T supported Republicans doing for the past 8 years?”
That’s a good point. I got a tax refund this year plus a stimulus check. So how is the stimulus check not “welfare”?
The more boats they build, the lower the prices (Supply & Demand 101).
Assuming there is a market for said boats, which would include a public interested in boats who are able to pay for them something above cost. As the income disparity increases (viz. the last decade or so) and as more disposable income is gobbled up by increasing costs for health care, education, transportation, etc., the less likely it is that such markets will develop.
See, I took Econ 101 too, but unlike you, apparently, I stayed awake beyond the first ten minutes.
Will it take a full-blown depression to shake the blind faith of the supply-side cultists, or will not even that be enough?
Wilber,
the question was predicated on “a rising tide”. The market is self-explanatory.
fafaroo:
You’ll have to find someone else to argue with vis a vie the stimulus checks. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with that one. (So much for conservatives being in lockstep…)
“I wasn’t entirely thrilled with that one …”
… because it was “welfare”?
Ugh. Way to race bait Oliver. Pathetic.
“Ugh. Way to race bait Oliver. Pathetic.”
Haplo, can you explain why it makes sense to describe Obama’s tax plan as “welfare”?
I wasn’t entirely thrilled with that one.
I have no way of verifying that one way or the other.
fafaroo,
The fact that Obama’s tax “cuts” are not tax cuts, they are tax credits. .. That will, in part, go to people that don’t pay taxes at all. .. which is kinda like welfare! That, at the least, makes the subject arguable. But Oliver wants to preemt that argument by playing the race card, as he often does. That is what is pathetic – using the accusation of racism to try to make certain subjects out of bounds. Par for the course for a race baiter like Oliver.