’)So, in this public radio interview that is now the right’s lodestone for deciphering who Barack Obama “really” is (just think what this generation’s Clinton Chronicles will be), Sen. Obama discusses this:
“…just to take a, sort of a realist perspective…there’s a lot of change going on outside of the Court, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.”
How do the zealots at LGF handle this history 101 comparison of Sen. Obama between the racial segregation of that era and America’s fight versus the Axis?
America is close to electing a President who compares his own country to Nazi Germany.
I really wish this were some sort of brilliant parody, but these morons believe what they write.
I love this country second to none, but we do a disservice to ourselves if we truly try to pretend as if for hundreds of years America wasn’t a willing participant in the enslavement and subjugation of people. Particularly in the era Sen. Obama was discussing, America was part of the greatest liberation of all time, but we did so with a military segregated by race. We simply were not practicing what we preached.
The mental midgets of Little Green Footballs have gone so far in their defense of the indefensible that they would rather defend the concept of segregation – and maybe slavery too – in order for them to attack Sen. Obama.
Really.
You say Little Green Footballs, I say the Republican Base.
I watched “Gentlemen’s Agreement” for the first time in over a decade last weekend, and even though it’s a bit hokey and sentimental, the force behind it — the Gentile director and lead actor and actress, with a name-changed Jew in a supporting role, all of them told by the most powerful Jews in Hollywood not to stir up a fuss — still comes through. In 1947, even after America had seen the concentration camp photos and watched the Nuremberg trials, there still were quotas, restrictions, covenants and other widespread discrimination against Jews. This isn’t different in kind from Nazism, only in degree.
Unfortunately, the idea of Country First has been distorted by certain conservatives into the idea that admitting America has done wrong — not just little mistakes, but serious wrong — is simply out of the question. That’s why they find the idea of a community organizer and civil rights lawyer becoming president so offensive. Can you imagine having as president someone who actually spent his life trying to fix some of the things wrong with America? Someone who called out inequality and injustice; someone who tried to ensure that federal laws to protect access to the ballot were enforced?
What a traitor! A Manchurian candidate, a socialist, a blame-America-firster.
Again, he was speaking as a law professor here. “Realist” has a very specific meaning, referring to a legal movement prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century. One of the core tenets of the realist doctrine was, essentially, that the decisions of judges constitute the law, not the documents that purport to guide them. And initially, this was met with some interest, since it seemed to give a way around some of the more extremely formalist decisions of the late 19th/early 20th century courts
As fascist and totalitarian governments began to rise on the Continent, realist perspective was viewed somewhat more skeptically – the realist argument that what judges did *was* the law could quite easily be seen as legitimizing a totalitarian doctrine. So here we have a burgeoning legal movement in the judiciary… which, in the extreme, looks uncomfortably like what we’re fighting. Part of the retreat from realism as a jurisprudential philosophy was caused by the uncomfortable comparison Obama mentions.
That’s what that quote is about. “Realist perspective” is a phrase that looks innocuous, but has specific meaning in legal theory, and specific meaning that any decent law student, much less a law lecturer, would understand. I don’t blame people outside of legal academy for not understanding it, but it doesn’t mean what they seem to think it does.
“if it ain’t white, it ain’t right”-Charles Johnson
Defend segregation? I’ll go one better–defending slavery.
On my way home from work tonight, I heard a Clear Channel talk show host pretending to be outraged that Obama dared to say the Constitution was “flawed.”
Aren’t these the wingnuts who constantly compare our current Congress to communists? Do we really need to listen to people who compare our country to the former Soviet Union or Cuba?
3/5 of a person. When somebody can explain why that wasn’t a flaw in the original constitution, I’ll eat my keyboard.
All men are created equal, except for those n……
[...] Oliver Willis, of whom I do not agree with much, makes a valid point: I really wish this were some sort of brilliant parody, but these morons believe what they write. [...]
How DARE Obama suggest that treating people inferior based on their race is in any way similar to Nazism?
Thank you, JSL, for your explanation and deepening my hope that after eight long years we may get someone with a brain back in the White House.
So it is okay when they do it but not when he does it.
Even without the slavery and 3/5 clauses, considering the fact that we still have vicious debates about just the first two amendments, I’d have to say that the Constitution certainly isn’t without its flaws. If it were a perfect document, we’d all be able to agree on it.
Loving someone (or something) means you have the duty to tell them when they fucked up.
Again, he was speaking as a law professor here.
Clearly that’s why it sailed over Johnson’s head. You can’t teach college-level critical thinking to a 5th grade education.
Yes, the idea that the Nazi doctrine of the “master race” had anything at all in common with the segregation (and lynchings) going on in this country after the war is an outrage!
I’m still just flummoxed that ‘wingers would take offense over someone saying the Constitution is “flawed.”
How many times have we changed it with amendments since it was written? If it was perfect, would those amendments have been necessary?
And we still need to amend it to ban flag burning and gay marriage.
I’m sure there are a couple of wingers who would love to burn “teh gays”
Let’s not forget the Democrats’ “nazi-like” internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. It was a Republican Governor from Colorado who stood up to FDR at the time and a Republican President who apologized on behalf of the nation.
Everyone has their skeletons, even Democrats.
Shorter Hedley: “BUT IT’S NOT FAAAAAIR, DEMOCRATS DID IT TOO”
Translated Nimrod: “Stop that. We only criticize the right here.”
I get the defensiveness that may lie behind Hedley’s post. But it’s still a valid point. Neither side is perfectly clean hands.
We know that. No-one was playing party politics with it until Hedley. Get a new dictionary.
Hedley is right on.
And don’t get me started about those Whigs!
But for modern day constitutional flaws, I suggest you read Balkinization , among other sites for discussion about what’s busted in our current constitution.
I’ll start with the quite long Lame Duck period from election day until Inauguration. The new president should be able to start as soon as the results are officially recorded.
Nimrod: No-one was playing party politics with it until Hedley.
You’re right. My (little) bad. I didn’t go back and look at all the messages in this thread which has been (somewhat atypically for here) pretty politics free.
Hedley,
Unless there was some point in the Obama public radio talk where he said Democrats are free of racism and bias, I’m not clear on how your point is relevant. Obama’s point, which conservatives like those at LGF cannot tolerate hearing from him, is that this country as a whole had and has problems. Not just Republicans, not just red states, not just white people — the United States of America. He probably could give you a much more thorough listing of what politicians with a “D” after their name have screwed up, starting with Democratic support for slavery. What’s your point?
Obama has named Earl Warren as one of his heroes for Warren’s work on the Supreme Court — even though Warren was a Republican (the party’s VP nominee in 1948) and as the Republican attorney general of California was a big supporter of the Japanese internment camps. Warren is symbolic of how our country as a whole can change; Warren thought at the time that internment was necessary, but admitted in retrospect that it was the wrong decision. He then went on to lead the Court in a large number of cases to affirm the rights to racial equality before the law, assistance to counsel, etc. Of course, this is precisely what makes Earl Warren a villain on the right.
It’s time we stop ascribing the characteristics of the modern parties wholesale to those previous with the same name. If I may inject a twenty dollar word, each modern incarnation syncretizes (usually incremental) differences from the ideology of their ancestors based on the circumstances of the era.
I’m still just flummoxed that ‘wingers would take offense over someone saying the Constitution is “flawed.”
Post office and defend the borders; that’s what it seems these people want. No police, fire department, highways, etc.
It’s LGF… would we expect anything less? By the way, is Charlie Johnson related to Larry from NoQuarter?
Anyway, we haven’t seen the least, nor the last of the insanity or the inanity from the right. Hopefully we won’t look back on these days as the good ones before the nuts became violent.
it’s sad the people can’t own up to the fact that we have had some very bad patches in American history cause by some very bad Americans – and as a country we have always (most of the time) done our best to better ourselves and not repeat the mistakes of the past, but far to often we allow the moron class to rule and we start repeating everything we fought so hard to overcome from our history.
We as Americans are better then this but we keep falling back into the ideals of hate. But as long as real Americans are more interested in Football or the rims on their car more then their interested in the goings on of our government we are going to continue to repeat again and again the worst of what we can be.
You really need to prove your allegations about what you say was printed at LGF by Charles Johnson. You are so wrong it’s embarrassing to read your “blog”.
There’s a lot of ignorance here. “No police, fire department, highways, etc.” And where do you get the big brain on ‘Bob’ here? That’s ridiculous.
It really is a mistake to compare anything to Nazi Germany. Seriously. You might think it was the same, but during segregation they were not emptying entire neighborhoods and carting off all the inhabitants to gas chambers.
We’re in the final quarter of the game, ie the silly season: Senator Obama was never a slave, never met one, was not raised in segregation, basically he had nothing to do with the advancement of colored people. He is a narcissistic loner who will climb onto anything and anyone who will give him more power. That he would play the race card at this point is absurd, he had a white mother, was raised by white people in Hawaii after his black father abandoned him, its a real big stretch, isn’t it, to play the race card.
But its about the emotion, not reason, just feelings about what might be true, as opposed to what’s t
This post should have read “To defend the comparison of Nazism to the Constitution, Oliver Willis attacks LGF.”
Dogma.
Not to mention, the title and assertion of this post are literally, figuratively, and practically speaking, incorrect in that LGF defended segregation. To dig your hole deeper, you build an argument that this country was was comparable to Nazism.
I mean, like, if the constitution was perfect, like, nobody would complain, yeah?
Mental Midgets: pot, meet kettle.
Oh brother.
Oliver, if you can’t see why Obama was wrong for comparing America during segregation (as evil as it was) WHILE IT WAS ON THE WAY OUT to the murder of six million Jews and all the other horrors of Nazi Germany, then there’s something seriously fucking wrong with you.
It’s not morally relative. Anybody who’s intellectually honest can see that.
Mr. Willis, you’re lying through your teeth. I saw the LGF post, and nowhere there did Johnson or anyone speak in support of segregation. They were criticizing Obama for making an illogical comparision, similar to the flawed logic you’re using now.
Perhaps if you kiddies had lived in Germany during the 1930’s and 40’s you might understand and not even dream of making the argument.
3/5 of a person. When somebody can explain why that wasn’t a flaw in the original constitution, I’ll eat my keyboard.
It wasn’t a flaw in the Constitution; it was an intelligent (though kludge-y) solution to a flaw in the Nation. Here’s a hint/reminder for you: The slave-owning South wanted each “n—–,” as you said, to count as a FULL person, at least in the context of that part of the Constitution. It was the anti-slavery North that argued slaves should count as NON-persons — again, in that specific Constitutional passage. Do you understand why?
Without the 3/5 compromise, there wouldn’t have been a Constitution at all. Thus, as I said, it wasn’t a “flaw.”
Where, exactly, was the defense of segregation? You should shore up your logic before insulting other people’s intelligence.
What an intellectual lightweight. He didn’t justify segregation in any way. Obama’s statement was an abject embarrassment.
Aren’t comparisons with Nazi Germany a bit out of the game? If the United States government had attempted to kill all Blacks, and succeeded in killing most, I think we’d have something to say. Otherwise, I think Obama was engaging in cheap sensationalism.
Now anyone with a fifth grade education can deduce that Charles in no way defended segregation. This is why Obama is not leading by double digits because you call anyone you have an ideological disagreement with racist.
obama said nothing about military policy during WWII but directly said that America in the age of Brown v. BOE reminded him and was akin to Nazism.
Nice spin though, if it wasn’t so blatantly ignorant and wrong it would nearly be humorous.
Anyway, the polls are tightening and we just might see some libs jumping from windows come next Tuesday night. You don’t live anywhere in Jersey, do you Ollie? I’d definitely hate to have you land on me while walking down the street.
“Everyone has their skeletons, even Democrats.”
Skeleton? The Republicans are doing all they can to keep their skeletons alive. Or do you really think the Southern Strategy is a thing of the past?
Jesus Tapdancing Christ.
Blacks crying and whining about racism.
Like thats something new.
Get over yourselves.
Soon you wont be Hollywood’s or the Dem’s favorite ‘minority’
Then what will you do?
Oh yeah. From crying ‘racism’ you’ll be screaming it.
Time to learn Spanish, pendejos.
“To Attack Obama, Little Green Footballs Defends Segregation”
This is a misguided and silly accusation.
Jeez Ollie, that’s some kind of crazy glue that has you stuck on stupid.
Obviously from the number of different contact address under your screenshot, you must spend a lot of time dilly-dallying online.
This leads me to believe the following:
You do not work much. You are rallying for the redistribution that Senator Stalingrad wants to push through.
Get a good look at your fine items: computer, xbox, cell phone.
Senator Obama is a Socialist. Socialism will reduce the material, services, and goods (like your computer, xbox, cell phone) and the availability to innovate the next generations of replacements and improvements. Eventually, you will not have the latest and greatest and will have to get a real job, which you have no skills and you will cry for more entitlements.
You are a fool to believe that white people want segragation. Well, maybe the Democrats since they have to have a presentable picture of every different culture, race, religion, etc. (“Someone find a midget, muslim, homosexual, who happens to be philipine by origin or we can’t take this picture of Spkr Pelosi!”)
Yes, that is the society you want.
In reality, Republicans are color blind. We did kick the Democrats ass in war to end slavery and will do it again, if the situation arises. It will, because the Democratic Party wants to control. That is what slavery is: control. They cannot keep you as a slave in the context of the word, but you need a house, a job (they will decide your job, just like they did 145 years ago), and what you should receive in compensation. Just like they did 145 years ago.
You will vote for Obama, but not for the betterment of this society. You are voting for free money. Money that will be removed from other, hard working people who will eventually leave this country or replace the government.
Stay classy.
[...] Johnson has sent over his readers – who have referred to Arabs as “sand ticks” – to defend the indefensible. Johnson: as bad as segregation was (and it was terrible), to compare America during the time of [...]
In reality, Republicans are color blind.
Bwa hahaha! Yes, we can all see all that racial harmony at Palin/McCain rallies.
You will vote for Obama, but not for the betterment of this society.
I will do both, proudly, as a patriot. What will you do? You’ll vote for more of the same degradation and erosion of our society, our Constitution, our freedoms and our country that we’ve suffered for the last 8 years.
I love my country and I want it back.
Do you really believe that President Obama will seize Oliver’s X box?
This post was a smashing success, if for no other reason than to watch the closet case lash out like a jilted bathroommate of Larry Craig:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31728_Dumbest_Blogger_Gets_Even_Stupider/
OW, could you please, as a service to this blog, set up some kind of moderation so that any post that has both “Obama” and “socialis!” will get held in a moderation queue and the person who submitted the comment will get an email with the definition of socialism? Actually, that also would be a service toward the education of some people who pontificate on socialism without ever having looked up the word, much less read Marx-Engels.
If Obama the Socialist wants to roll back the progressive tax code to Clinton’s Communism, I dunno…
The DJIA more than tripled in those 8 years, but is down 10-20% (depending on what day you’re counting) over Dubya’s watch. Plus my tech job and real estate investment situations under communism was excellent. They’ve really sucked under Bush.
Socialism works for me.
The old ‘3/5′ argument.
Counting slaves as 3/5 of a person was for purposes of determining representation. It was the southern, slave states that wanted to count them as ‘full people’, since that would expand the number of representatives they received.
Start chompin’ on that keyboard, Mobius…
It’s hard to know what to say when you’re dealing with people who ask and then fail to answer their own questions, like this moron:
It was the anti-slavery North that argued slaves should count as NON-persons — again, in that specific Constitutional passage. Do you understand why? Without the 3/5 compromise, there wouldn’t have been a Constitution at all. Thus, as I said, it wasn’t a “flaw.”
Suffice it to say all of your idiots would do well to read JSLs comment above and then shut the fuck up.
Man, Oliver, you said it! I was thinking the same thing but just wasn’t able to articulate it. I think the GOP used thhe same logic in their attacks on Jeremiah Wright.
Oliver said:
The mental midgets of Little Green Footballs have gone so far in their defense of the indefensible that they would rather defend the concept of segregation – and maybe slavery too – in order for them to attack Sen. Obama.
Of course, the two do go hand in hand. And how about those duncecaps who did that mailer that a vote for Obama is
a vote for hitlernot paying attention to what happened in 30s-40s?These conservatives will say ANYTHING.
I think the Football folks should punt on this one. They clearly have forgotten it was the Bush Administration that wants KBR to build Concentration Camps to house illegal immigrants. Of course, that’s how it starts. And we know who will be next in the camps and last.
If the constitution isn’t flawed, why can’t Republican presidents seem to follow it?
The author of the Brown decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren, reflected some 18 years after the 1954 judgment:
The reversal of race relation policies in the United States “was fostered primarily by the presence of [World War II] itself. First, the primary enemy of the Allies, Nazi Germany, was perhaps the most conspicuously and brutally racist nation in the history of the world. . . . The segregation and extermination of non-Aryans in Hitler’s Germany were shocking for Americans, but they also served as a troublesome analogy. While proclaiming themselves inexorably opposed to Hitler’s practices, many Americans were tolerating the segregation and humiliation of nonwhites within their own borders. The contradiction between the egalitarian rhetoric employed against the Nazis and the presence of racial segregation in America was a painful one.”
[...] Oliver Willis [...]
During and after World War II, black newspapers were drawing explicit comparisons between Germany’s racial policies and those here at home. Roy Wilkins wrote in Crisis that “it sounds pretty foolish to be against park benches marked ‘Jude’ in Berlin, but for park benches marked ‘Colored’ in Tallahassee.”
Obama was talking about judges recognizing the similarities between segregation and Nazism. They did. The world changed as a result. He wasn’t saying that segregation equaled the atrocities in Germany. He wasn’t saying the holocaust didn’t happen.
Why do conservatives insist on disconnecting their brains?
I find it amusing that libs paint the GOP as racist. It was the Dixecrats not the Dixiepubs and they were led by you apostle Al Gores father.
The Dixiecrats were virulently anti-black and fought and fillibustered the Voting and Civil Rights Acts that would not have passed without overwhelming GOP support. Hell, even LBJ thanked the GOP for pushing those landmark laws through.
Let’s see, I can’t seem to recall a former member–let alone Kleagle–who was voted in to the Senate from the GOP but the Dems have one who currently resides there and is considered the grand old man of the party.
By the way, Strom Thurman was a Dixiecrat as well.
Perhaps you all should learn some history and you’ll tend to sound like you have some semblance of intellect.
OH WHY DONT YOU TRY FINDING SOME REAL DIRT ON OBAMA? HOW ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN, WHO WRECKED 5 NAVY JETS, BUT WENT ON WITH A “HEROIC” NAVY CARRER BECAUSE HIS FATHER AND GRANDFATHER WERE ADMIRALS? HOW ABOUT THE LIES UNCOVERED WHEN HE SAID THAT HE HAD ENGINE FAILURE, BUT REALLY WASNT PAYING ATTENTION TO HIS FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS? HOW ABOUT HIM CHEATING ON HIS FIRST WIFE WITH (THE NOW) MRS. SIDNEY MCCAIN? HOW ABOUT UNCOVERING SOME REAL DIRT ON THIS GUY, OR CAN YOU EVEN DO IT, ALTHOUGH THERE’S A LANDFILL OF IT THAT HASNT BEEN DISCLOSED ABOUT SENATOR MCCAIN. THE ONLY SYMPATHY THAT I HAVE IS THAT HE WAS SUCH A BAD PILOT THAT IT RESULTED IN HIM BEING A POW. IM SO SICK OF PEOPLE LOOKING SO HARD FOR DIRT ON OBAMA THAT THEY TWIST THE SMALLEST THINGS INTO MAJOR TOPICS OF DISCUSSION. ITS REALLY TIME FOR CHANGE. EVEN THE REPUBLICANS KNOW IT, SO LETS FACE IT!! 6 MORE DAYS UNTIL CHANGE IS BROUGHT TO THIS COUNTRY!