Why I think Trump Was Right

I think we all agree that Nazis are bad. Evil. Their ideology and their “Third Reich” caused untold suffering and destruction, costing millions of lives. It should not be celebrated. It should not be defended. It should not be encouraged or promoted. It should always be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

All that said, I also think that Pres. Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville was right on target, and I’ll tell you why.

Close to 20 years ago now, I lived in beautiful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Twenty minutes to the north is a sleepy little town called, “Hayden Lake.” Hayden Lake had the unfortunate distinction of having a white supremacist “compound” a few miles outside of town. Richard Butler and his skinhead Aryan Nations “Church” (tax dodge) came to be synonymous with North Idaho, and Hayden Lake became guilty by association (I suspect Charlottesville is currently suffering from something similar).

Now, every year Coeur d’Alene hosts a big 4th of July parade, right down Main Street. It’s quite the big deal. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people come out from all around to watch the floats, the marchers, the bands, enjoy the music and food in the park, stake out a claim for your picnic blanket, and stay all day to watch the fireworks at night. It’s an annual tradition, and we never missed a year.

Except. One year, Mr. Butler and his “family” decided that they wanted to have a “parade” as well. They applied for, and were granted, a permit for the march. The town council and the citizenry were in an uproar! They didn’t want the Aryan Nation wackos in their town! Up went the hue and cry, but to no avail. The town could not legally deny them a permit, and so the march would move forward.

And you know what the town did?

Nothing.

On the day of the parade, just before the appointed hour, businesses all along main-street closed up shop. Locked their doors. “Closed” signs in the window. No one came to line the streets. No bands were playing. There were only a scattering of vocal protestors, and they were kept in check by the police (unlike in Charlottesville). I was very nearly a ghost town.

The Aryan’s wanted to make a splash, cause a ruckus, to assert their “rights.” And they tried.

And we ignored them. We belittled them with our silence. We spurned them and their ideology with our collective absence. We didn’t give them the satisfaction of a response. We turned our backs on their hate.

So they came with their four vehicles, packed with shaven-headed youths in their white t-shirts and suspenders. They “marched” down Main Street to the park, where they had their “rally.” They blathered on for half an hour, attended solely by a scant handful of protestors cordoned off some distance away. And then they left.

And the stores opened back up, the people came back out, and we went on with the day. There were no fights. No smashed windows. And only a few raised voices.

That is how you deal with that kind of hate. Don’t give it an audience. Deny it a forum by denying it a crowd. If you must oppose it, sing. Pray. Dance. Oppose their hate with joy. Not with black face masks and baseball bats. If you really want to “oppose” people like that…LAUGH AT THEM.

Would there have been violence, or death, in Charlottesville if “antifa” and their associates had all stayed home?

I think I can say with some confidence that few in Charlottesville wanted the Nazis there. But did they really want a “counter-protest” group who showed up spoiling for a fight, either?

So, when Pres. Trump suggests that both sides had some measure of blame for the violence that occurred, I think he is spot on. Nazis and Aryans and their ilk are belligerent and violent by nature. They expect hostility, and are prepared to respond in kind.

But these “antifa” are the same folks who show up to riot at UC-Berkeley, all too ready to bring violence to bear to oppose the terrible dangers of having a conservative commentator speak on campus. So, when they showed in Charlottesville, in full regalia, it made confrontation nearly inevitable.

Couple that with the bizarre incompetence or gross malfeasance on the part of local law enforcement in their complete failure to do anything to de-escalate or defuse the situation, and it was a recipe for disaster.

Highlighting the role or burden of liability this other group played in what happened does not mean you defend or diminish the evil that is Nazism, or the abhorrent nature of their professed ideology. It doesn’t mean you have to be sympathetic to either side. It simply means you assign blame where blame is due.

The last few days it’s become clear that there is acceptable violence, and unacceptable violence. The “antifa” marchers who showed up to counter-protest the Nazis and other white nationalists are being portrayed as freedom fighters, some even going so far as to compare them to the soldiers who fought the Nazis in WWII. Except….Easy Company didn’t wear masks.

If we are going to stand against hate and violence, let’s stand against in all its forms, regardless of the source, Left or Right.

It is sad and unfortunate that a group of white supremacists decided to descend on Charlottesville and spew their hate. But, instead of gearing up and heading in for a fight, a much better response would have been to ignore them. Let them have their say, and then watch in stony silence as they drive away.

And then move on with the day.

Bill Maher Guilty Of…Cultural Appropriation!!

Well, it looks like the Royal Order of the Perpetually Aggrieved has gots itself all in a froth that Bill Maher, caustic TV blatherskite and cantankerous busybody, went and used the “N-Word” on his show recently. {{Cue gasping, frantic dismay and generalized vaporishness}}

He had the temerity to refer to himself as a “house nigga” in a self-deprecating manner. And heaven KNOWS that using such a term is deeply racist and offensive. Right?

Nigga, please.  (go ahead. click it. I dare you.)

Now, let me say right up front, I personally find the use of The N-Word and all its derivations deeply distasteful and offensive. Regardless of who says it.  It deeply saddens me that a term which should be met with universal loathing and avoided by anyone with half a clue, has instead been allowed to infuse our culture to the point where it is used openly by a cross-section of society. Well, a certain cross-section. Okay for me, but not for thee, and all that.

And Bill Maher should rightfully be chastised for it.

Using such racially charged words is clearly reprehensible and TOTALLY outrageous. Well, except when, you know, it isn’t. The outrage here does seem fairly selective.

If I recall, it wasn’t all that long ago that Ben Carson was called a “house negro” (see also, above) and an “Uncle Tom”, and before that it was Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice; and this was BY OTHER BLACK PEOPLE and many of their self-appointed surrogates on the Left. For which many on the Right were justifiably outraged. So, it would appear to me that what Mr. Maher is most guilty of is not racism, per se, but instead, that most fashionable of Social Justice jihads: “cultural appropriation.”

Or, as it’s also known: “It’s Only Wrong When White People Do It.” Maybe he should have said, “house cracka” instead?

To me, The N-Word is offensive, radioactive, and should rightly be shunned and purged from our collective national vocabulary; but the current outrage seems to be not that “someone” said The N-Word, but rather, that the wrong color someone said The N-Word.

Which is pretty sad.

I have to be honest, I’m having a real hard time sympathizing with any hurt feelings about this one. There is a definite double-standard at play here. Our country seems to have developed a strange schizophrenia when it comes to racial equality. The Un-Civil Rights movement has come full circle, and “separate but equal” is now all the rage again. Only this time it’s minority students who are clamoring FOR it, not fighting AGAINST it, demanding things like “Blacks Only” dorms on campus.  Yes, really.

For months and months and months now, I’ve watched as terms like “white supremacy” and “white privilege” and “patriarchy” have become household words. I’ve listened as these nefarious white folk are blamed for all manner of societal ills and moral failings.  We’ve been treated to such forward-thinking ideas as, “A Day Without Whites.” I’ve watched in dismay as crowds of pre-dominantly black minority students descend on classrooms and verbally berate and intimidate white students and professors for everything from rape culture to global warming. And MTV helpfully published a public service announcement entitled, “Dear White Guys: 2017  New Years Resolutions” to helpfully highlight some of the areas where white dudes really need to get it together. But that’s not racism. How dare you suggest it. It’s…uh…uhm, a…justified outpouring of collective social outrage over the continuing climate of oppression towards minorities and a seeking of redress for the legacy of slavery and, uh, other stuff.

Which is apparently supposed to justify all manner of thuggish, belligerent and violent actions which, if carried out by gangs of white students, would promptly be branded a hate crime and declared a national crisis.

So which is it? It seems to me like the average white guy must be hyper-vigilant about everything he says, constantly on guard against any accidental microaggressions or cultural appropriation, while the aggrieved minority activist has nearly carte blanche to say anything and everything and still get a pass.

So when a talk-show host lets slip an ill-considered and yet culturally ubiquitous term as a humorous quip, and suddenly everyone is aflame at the GALL of such a thing,!!!!!1!!!!11!11! {{choke, gasp, gurgle, swoon}}…

…while I find it obviously distasteful, I fear that I am also less than compelled to outrage.  Sorry, but I’ve watched too many black comedians on YouTube use that same word like punctuation.  Bill Maher is a profane, irreverent Lefty shock-jock who, to his limited credit, seems willing to take pot-shots across both sides of the aisle. But if he is to be censured and vilified for using “that word,” then there are a whole lot of other people out there who need to be in the unemployment line as well.

I am to believe that there are certain words what are only offensive if white people say them? Are there now multiple cultural vocabularies that only certain ethnicities are “allowed” to use? Is there a guidebook somewhere?

And why, oh WHY on EARTH did it EVER become okay for one black person to call another that word? I simply don’t understand.

There shouldn’t be “white” wrong vs. “black” wrong, or “liberal” wrong vs. “conservative” wrong. If something is wrong, it’s wrong for everybody. And if you’re going to get upset about it, get upset EVERY TIME. Regardless of who says it.

Equality should mean that everyone is treated with the same level of respect, compassion, courtesy, and opportunity.  But this growing schism between “white” culture and “black culture” is leading to an increasingly fractured society in which, I fear, true equality may not be achievable. This nation was once proudly proclaimed as a “melting pot” where people from a wide variety of cultures and background come come together, find common ground and be bound together by a common set of ideals which transcended race or color or creed. Any more, however, it seems we are breaking apart into increasingly divided camps, the us vs. them mindset is becoming uppermost, and it is getting harder and harder to see a bright future for this country if we can’t drop the barricades.

And maybe one way to start moving in the right direction is by getting rid of “that” word altogether.

What happens when you lie on your resume…

So, imagine if you will, the CEO of a top Fortune 500 company.  A long-standing leader in the industry, with satellite branches in other countries and significant influence across the globe. Thousands of employees, hundreds of divisions, involved in everything from pharmaceuticals to oil refineries to high-tech research and development.

Now, imagine that this company is plagued by scandals.  An overseas plant is caught using child labor.  Another facility is shown to have falsified safety reports.  Low-grade medicines being pawned off as premium quality with high prices.  The more the problems that come to light, the more people start digging, and things just keep getting worse.

Now, imagine that time and again the CEO’s response to each new revelation of wrong-doing, oversight, or unethical business practice is, “You can’t blame me, I only found out about this when I read about it in the Wall Street Journal!”  And even as his corporation begins to crumble around him, he continues to go on golf outings with his rich buddies, takes his extended family on numerous overseas vacations on the company dime, and continues to try and divert attention from his problems by pointing fingers at everyone else but himself.

Now imagine millions of customers and consumers of this corporation’s products — who might otherwise hate big business — turning a blind eye to evey misstep and instance of malfeasance on the part of the CEO…because he’s black.  And then attacking his critics as racist for daring to impugn the character of this fine, upstanding member of the community!

In the real world, just how long do you suppose that this CEO would remain the CEO?  How many more instances of incompetence, disconnectedness, and destructive business practices would the clientelle endure before the stockholders got fed up and had him fired?

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Next Time, Don’t Elect A Black Man!

WHAT!?!  HOW CAN YOU SAY SUCH A THING!???!  RACIST!!  HATER!!!1!1!

Wait.  It get’s better.  DON’T ELECT A WHITE MAN EITHER!  Don’t elect a woman.  Don’t elect a hispanic, or a lesbian, or Jew.  Don’t elect a Mormon or a Christian or a Buddhist.

Next time…Elect. A. PRESIDENT.

The criteria used to select the qualifications of those who serve in the highest offices of our lands, of those who will help frame and craft our laws, who we elect to guide the country forward and make the difficult decisions required of leaders in this day and age should have NOTHING to do with their skin color, their gender, their religion or their “cultural heritage.”

I propose that we are in the mess we are in right now because we elected a black man. Not because Barack Obama is black, but because we as a voting populace became so enamored of the idea of electing an African-American as President, became soooo fixated on the sense of accomplishment we could collectively feel at breaking through this cultural barrier into a new, undiscovered “enlightenment” that we allowed ourselves to be swayed.  We turned a blind eye to what should have been some very real concerns about this individual’s (lack of) qualifications, experiences, questionable associations and storied background, and allowed ourselves to be swept along on a carefully manipulated wave of euphoric idealism.

And so we elected a black man.  Because it made us feel good to do it.  Not because he was in any way the most qualified, not because he had any demonstrated talent or ability for the position, not because he would best be able to represent the interests of the United States on the global stage…but because he was an icon we wanted.  More than anything, I think voting for Barack Obama became a sort of social statement about our ability to somehow atone for a shameful past. {Cue Music: “We are marching to Pre-torrrria….}

There aren’t enough of any one particular minority demographic in the United States to elect a President.  Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Amerian Indians, Asians, young, old, rich, poor…we aaaalll had to play a part.  It became part of a collective social consciousness.  For some it was a chance to speak out, to elect someone they hoped would “represent their interests” better than an establishment white guy might.  For some it was, I think, a chance to show how enlightened, how tolerant, how progressive they were in bucking the existing paradigm.  Many perhaps voted for Barack Obama out of some vague sense of racial or social guilt which they felt might be assuaged or expunged if they participated in this great social awakening.  Of course, many just bought into the class warfare schtick he was selling and wanted the free stuff he was offering.

NONE of which is a very solid foundation for picking a candidate for the office of the President of the United States.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve got absolutely no problem with either the idea or the practical reality of someone who is black becoming president.  You put a Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas or an Alan West or maybe even a a Condolleza Rice in there and hey, they’ve got my vote.  Why?  Because I like their politics.  Their personal philosophy resonates with me. I can look at a record of accomplishments which suggest to me a level of overall professional competence which grants me a sense of confidence in their ability to handle the demands of the position.

Not because of, or in spite of their skin color.  Or their gender.  Or their religious beliefs.  Because I think they are the most qualified, and so that other stuff SHOULDN’T MATTER. Right?  Isn’t that what true equality is really all about?  Shouldn’t THAT be considered the truly “enlightened” approach?

So, I hope we’ve learned our lesson.  As we sit mired in double digit unemployment, as our national debt continues to skyrocket, after six years with no signed federal budget and a sequestration which imposes daily pain on the infrastructure of this nation while the President golfs and vacations, I hope our euphoria has faded.  I hope our guilt-motivated idealism has moderated a bit.  I hope that when the times comes again, whether on the local or national stage, we don’t elect a black man, or a white man, or a woman, or a {fill in the blank}.

I hope we wise up and elect the people MOST QUALIFIED to lead this country, regardless of how their chormosomes are configured.

SILENCE! or I keeeeeell you!

So, apparently, under the Obama Administration, it’s more important to placate xenophobic islamicist temper tantrums than the defend one of the foundational tenets of our political system and way of life known as “free speech.”

Can we impeach him NOW?!?!

Hate Crimes and That Cold Chill They Bring.

Listening to the radio on the way to work this morning, I heard something that chilled me to my very core.  I literally got a chill down my spine.  I quite literally spoke out loud, “Oh, shit.”

It was a “top of the hour” news blurb about how the push for Hate Crimes legislation is gaining steam, being pushed through Congress to bring harsher penalties to those who commit crimes motivated by hate.  You know, rather than the much nobler greed, anger, disinterest, or predatory exploitation.  It’s HATE that we have to watch out for, right?  I mean, in addition to all those “love crimes” we’ve got on the books.  But I digress.

What really rocked me back on my heels was one sentence that came across towards the end of the sound bite.  Some mouthpiece promoting the legislation spoke of trying to keep better track of “bias motivated events.”

Bias. Motivated. Events.  Think about that fer just a sec.

In one swift and subtle movement, we knocked the edges off the definition of “hate crime” and squishy-coated it down into “bias motivated events.”

Can you see the inherent, insidious danger here?

If someone mugs a pedestrian, say, man dressed up in women’s clothes, does this constitute a hate crime?  What is the burden of proof to say that the alleged criminal  didn’t target this person because of their “lifestyle”.  What if the crook took the dude’s predilections for frills and lace to suggest he might be an easy target.  Not because the crook hated the tranny, but because he figured he/she might be an easy mark.  Too effeminate to fight back, who knows?

Instead of 6 months, suspended, for attempted robbery, our felon gets 5 years because it’s a “hate crime.”

But wait.  This goes back to prosecuting intent, rather than actions.  If I further dumb this down to say that any “bias-motivated event” can be prosecuted, ANYTHING I DO that is motivated by my personal bias or worldview, can now become prosecutable.

Anything.

Say a church decides that since Sally has decided to become Sam, that maybe we don’t want him/her teaching Sunday School anymore.  Is that my right as a private institution, or is it now a hate crime, because it was motivated by a religious bias against Transgendereds?  Not that we hate them, but just that we don’t want them teaching our sunday school class.  That’s not hate, it’s bias.  Instead of just being unfaaaaaaaair, is it now also a hate crime?

If I choose not to rent to a couple of guys because they look, act, and sound like belligerent gang bangers, can I be prosecuted for my “bias” against thugs who will likely wreck my rental?

If a pastor speaks out against men preying on boys for sexual exploitation, can I be prosecuted for a hate crime because of my BIAS?

This is an incredibly dangerous area, a slippery slope that, in the name of protecting rights, will end up destroying them.  I mean, short of a diary, a blog post, or a text message, etc., how can you prove INTENT behind an individual’s action?  Do gays, or blacks, or hispanics have special protections against crimes that others don’t?  Shouldn’t all be equal under the law?

Robbery, murder, rape, arson.  They are crimes.  They are illegal.  They shouldn’t be MORE illegal because of who the victim is.  WHY I committed the crime might make me an asshole, a reporbate, a truly descpicable human being.  Sadly, or thankfully, there’s no law (yet) against being an asshole.  It is only the CRIME I commit which makes me a criminal, regardless of my motivations for it.

Isn’t that what this trend in hate crimes suggests?  That eventually, what you THINK about a situation will have as much legal weight as what you actually DID about it?

Scary stuff.  Beyond even 1984.  Madness.

Racism = Bad. Racialism = good. Apparently.

So, I have determined that it is only appropriate to focus on a person’s race or gender if you are “heralding” it.  Judge Sonomayor is being “heralded” as the first hispanic Supreme Court Justice.  Barack Obama is “heralded” as the first black president.  Every month is some sort of minority appreciation month where we “herald” the contributions of blacks, pacific islanders, native americans, women, children, those with a cleft palate, the tone deaf and wiccan transgendered performance artists.  Okay, I might have made up those last few.

So, lemme get this straight.  Basing your decision on whether or not to pull someone over for a traffic stop or to give them “extra screening” at the airport based on their race or gender is BAD, profiling, ptooie, but basing your decision on whether or not someone should sit on the Supreme Court of the United States in large measure because of their race and gender is GOOD?  Hoookayyyy….

If you believe that, by nature  of her gender or her ethnicity, Judge Sonia Sonomayor has some unique and/or unmatchable ability to perform her job as Supreme court justice, you are a racialist.  She certainly seems to think so, as per her much quoted sentiment:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Did she mean in general, or merely with respect to women’s issues, or Latino issues?  Which, of course, then begs the question, why do we need a special set of rules or a unique viewpoint to properly and impartially apply the law to women and/or Latinos?  How is suggesting that a latino woman is somehow inherently more capable of making the correct decision than a white man at its core any different from barring blacks from military service because they aren’t “smart enough?”

Answer:  No difference whatsoever.

There is of course that touchy-feely, squishy-guishy idea that a minority woman should be cherished and protected because of her unique perspective based on her upbringing and challenges.  Bollocks.  That’s called “coddling,” and it promotes all sorts of enabling behaviors that cause us to overlook clear and present concerns with the performance and methods of an individual or group out of some misguided sense that we should not “quell their voice.”  

Sure, let ’em talk.  Just don’t let them make “policy” from the bench!

So, lemme ask.  Whyizzit that a white South African man who emigrated to the US last week is on his own, has to compete in the marketplace just like everybody else, and is lucky if he can avoid paying out-of-state tuition at a college, but a black man whose ancestors came to this country 185 years ago is an “African-American minority” who deserves special consideration in hiring, academic scholarships, and other  quota-based entitlements?   How long until “minorities” are required to just be “Americans,” and compete on an equal and impartial basis with the rest of us genetic misfits, especially when a lot of them would be hard-pressed to find Africa on a map?!

There is NO EQUALITY where there is PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT.

If all men (and women) are created equal with respect to the law, then they MUST be treated equally.   NOT given undue priviledge based on a real or perceived injustice now divorced from their present situation by several generations.

One would hope that the selection for a Supreme Court justice would be completely blind to race, skin color, gender or taste in music.  One would HOPE that we would simply chose the most qualified individual for the job, REGARDLESS of the nature of the adjectives one might ascribe to their appearance!

But no, it would appear that we still have a LONG way to go in the area of equal rights in this country. 

If Sonia Sonomayor is qualified for that seat on the Supreme Court, good on ‘er.   BUT.  She must be qualified because of her experience as a judge, her demonstrated performance as a jurist, and her proven and demonstrable committment to upholding the principles of established Constitutional law.

Not because she’s a latina chic.

DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremists Makes Stars & Stripes

There’s a front-page report on the DHS report highlighting the dangers of “right-wing extremists” in today’s Stars & Stripes,  yet strangely I can find nothing about it on their web site.  I wonder if that was an editorial decision to bury the story?  You can’t unprint newspapers, but you can easily delete a link.

There was some speculation that this report was some sort of clever and complex hoax, but Michelle Malkin confirmed it, and the Stars & Stripes has it front page of their print edition, at least here in Germany.

I think this comes under the heading of “boiling the frog slowly.”  They don’t even mention any “credible threat” in the report.  Just a vague sort of “sense” that economic conditions and a black president “might” foment discord by disgruntled right-wingers and disaffected miliatary veterans.

In other words, there are dangerous points of view out there, against which we must be vigilant.   Viewpoints like, illegal immigration is bad, abortion is wrong, or that the President of the United States shouldn’t be running our civilian corporations or determining what content on the Internet is permissible.

What exactly is it that the Left is so afraid of?  So afraid that they have to villify, marginalize, even criminalize conservative viewpoints?  And more importantly, why are we letting them get away with it?

The Rise of the Obamessiah.

Throughout his ascendency to the presumptive nominee for President during the recent campaign, Obama, or perhaps more accurately, Obama’s crack media and PR machine, built a groundswell of enthusiasm which soon bordered on euphoria.  Through deft manipulation of images and soundbites, along with the willing collusion of the media, seasoned liberally with generous dashes of Bush-bashing, Barack Obama was propelled to almost rock-star status in a very short period of time.

He came from essentially nowhere…an ill-recognized first-term Senator with a mediocre voting record and no significant achievements to single him out from the crowd.  Suddenly, he was riding a wave of popularity and fervent adulation so broad, so deep, and so completely unexpected that it left many an observer stunned, bemused, and more than a little suspicious.  The meteoric rise to fame, especially one so completely at odds with anything in his background to justify such fervent devotion, lent more than one conservative commentator to draw parallels to the equally sudden and similarly inconceivable rise to national fame of an unkown corporal in 1930’s Germany.

The detractors on the political Left poo-poo’d such comparisons, invoked Godwin’s law, and surmised that after eight years of Pres. Bush’s “failed policies,” people were just refreshed by a fresh face and fresh ideas.   But’s it’s gone far beyond that now.  Has for quite a while in fact.

In a Jan. 21st CNN article entitled, “Black first family ‘changes everything’,” we see the Obamas painted as a sudden and convincing role model for black families, where before there were none.  Until now, it asserts, black families have been woefully misrepresented, or at best, suffered under their own, self-imposed mediocrity.

America has often viewed the black family through the prism of its pathologies: single-family homes, absentee fathers, out of wedlock children, they say. Or they’ve turned to the black family for comic relief in television shows such as “Good Times” in the ’70s or today’s “House of Payne.”

But a black first family changes that script, some say. A global audience will now be fed images of a highly educated, loving and photogenic black family living in the White House for the next four years — and it can’t go off the air like “The Cosby Show.”

The essence of this sentiment is apparently that, until now, black families have only risen to the level of that portrayed of them in the media. That they’ve suffered under a global stigma of poverty, broken homes, and eubonics.  Now, with this new, “positive” portrayal of a loving, solid, black nuclear family, black families are now free to strive for a greater standard.  Or something.

The relationship between Obama and his wife may help untangle some of that pathology, some black commentators say.

Because only now, now that the Obamas are, can decades of afro-american family dysfunction be truly addressed.

Several black women actually sighed as they talked about how much Obama seems to touch his wife and exchange soulful glances with her in public. They said Obama will show young black men how to treat women — and young black women how they should be treated.

Morgan Freeman couldn’t do it.  Bill Cosby couldn’t do it.  Scores of other black thinkers and philosophers who exhorted their culutral brethren to stay married, to turn away from drugs or gang violence, to build a strong self-identity that didn’t revolve around racial guilt or some nebulous “legacy” of slavery have now all been marginalized in favor of a new, true example for the black demographic to emulate.  Barack and Michelle Obama {{swoon}}.

Brea, the writer for EbonyJet.com, is the daughter of a white mother and a Haitian-American father. She says she felt pressure to claim one race growing up. She never quite felt like a full citizen.

Obama’s biracial background and his “exotic” upbringing relieves her of that pressure. Obama will help other blacks who come from multiracial backgrounds and immigrant communities to be comfortable in their own skin, she says.

Again, we see this strange sentiment at play such that only through the example and influence of Barack Obama can mixed-race Americans truly feel acccepted.  Nothing else has worked until now.  They struggled with their self-image and self-acceptance until BARACK came along.  Now it’s suddently “okay” to be black, or bi-racial, and you don’t have to feel like a second-class citizen anymore.

Again, in this fawning review of “Slumdog Millionaire” by the British Telegraph, every good and noble and refreshing element in the film is somehow tied to the new idealism which has sprung up around Barack Obama.

And in that single word {love} lie the key qualities of Slumdog Millionaire. It does not have an ironic moment. It is utterly devoid of cynicism. Instead, it is bright-eyed, optimistic – idealistic, even. To generations reared on a drip-feed of corrosive cynicism, the elevation of greed for greed’s sake and weary disillusion with our leaders and our institutions it feels almost shocking.

Yet maybe we’re ready for it. We saw these laudable qualities in the hundreds of thousands of people (most of them young) who toiled to elect Obama. Those whose work limits them to poring over the minutiae of life in Washington’s Beltway and the Westminster village have already been murmuring that this idealism looks like naïveté. Yet look where our defensive cynicism has landed us: maybe we do need to look at the world anew.

Next week, millions of Americans – and no doubt hundreds of thousands of Britons – will cluster around television sets to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, whose election victory is rooted in the notion that while the world may be troubled, complex, and even ugly, our best instincts can help make it better. Slumdog Millionaire – a truly remarkable film – is rooted in that same idealism.

As Christians, we should be leery of such sentiments.  Putting all our faith in one man, depending on one man for our provision, our faith in the world, or emotional sustenance or our hope for the future is idolatry unless that man is Jesus Christ.  In Proverbs 3:5-6, we are told:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

The “He” in this passage is clearly God, not Barack Obama.  There is a very real and present danger in putting your faith and hope for your future and well-being in the hands of one man.  Not only does this give one man more power over your life than you should be willing to give up, but you will inevitably be disappointed when that man proves himself to be all too human.

The moment we give the man who is President the power to be our Savior, we elevate him beyong a mere elected official, and make him our spiritual stand-in.  We give him undo power to speak into and control our lives.  We credit his judgement to be superior to our own, his values worthy to supplant our own, his demands sufficient to supercede our desires.

The strange, almost reverent way in which many people seem to describe Barack Obama, the assumption of some implicit goodness and the idealistic fervor with which many seem to follow him suggests an almost cult-like obsession. 

A Cult can be defined as: “…any group of persons devoted to a charismatic leader(s) who changes their outlook and behavior by transmitting his/her values and views and perhaps a kind of “energy,” spiritual or otherwise. ” *  Hmmm.

Before you dismiss the “cult” label out of hand, first examine some of the “warning signs” of cult behavior:

• Adherents who become increasingly dependent on the movement for their view on reality (!!!)
• Important decisions in the lives of the adherents are made by others
• Making sharp distinctions between us and them, divine and Satanic, good and evil, etc. that are not open for discussion (Bush evil, Obama gooood)*
• The spiritual group uses a special set of rules that you must obey or be cast out (Oppose Obama?  RACIST!)*
• The spiritual group demands that you give up as much of your assests and your yearly income to it as possible. (kinda funny, but not…”spreading the wealth around”)
• The spiritual group demands that you accept its teachings without reservation, even when those teachings are in direct conflict with your understanding of basic scientific knowledge (global warming, stimulous package).
• Provide an authority figure that everyone seems to acknowledge as having some special skill or awareness  (!!!)
• Provide a philosophy that seems logical and appears to answer all or the most important questions in life
• Promise instant or imminent solutions to deep or long-term problems (!!!)
• The leader sets forth ethical guidelines members must follow but from which the leader is exempt (72 in the White House?  Sure….no prob.  I’ve got the carbon offsets to back it up)

Barack Obama is not the savior of this nation.  He is not the Moses who will lead us to a promised land, or a Savior who will redeem us from our collective national sins.  He is just a man.  One third of the triad making up our separation of powers.  To grant him any more power or authority – legal, spiritual, or otherwise – than that is to set ourselves on a very dangerous path towards the kind of oligarchical centralization of power so many accused George Bush of attempting, and against which our Founding Fathers spoke so stridently.

OBAMA! Deliver us from….uh…?!

I know I said that the blogging was off for a while, but this question has been burning its way through my brain for a while now, and I’m simply just dying to find the answer.  So here goes:

Just what exactly is it that Pres. Obama is supposed to deliver us out of?  The sweeping rhetoric during most of his campaign, and the rallying cry of his fervent followers is that Pres. O! will right what is wrong, and deliver the downtrodden people of America from….what?  In all seriousness.

Everyone seems to point to the last “eight years,” as though only in the last eight years has our country devolved into some sort of nightmarish monster, and Pres. O! is the dragon slayer come to rescue the defenseless villagers from the menace of….what?

Why just the last eight years?  Because there was a Democrat president before that, so of course things couldn’t have been that bad?   It’s the sole responsibility of one Republican president that drove this country into the ground in just eight years, and only through the vision and greatness of O-ba-Ma! can we hope to recover?

So please, in all seriousness, if there is some minority reader out there, a black or hispanic or some other group who feels that Barack Obama is somehow this Ghandi or some other visionary who will lead you out of your circumstances, please tell me what exactly those circumstances are.  Because I’m just not seeing it.  Or at least, I’m just not seeing how Pres. Obama is somehow the magical cure for whatever ails you.

Is Barack Obama going to somehow resolve the problems of innner-city single mothers raising teens at risk from gangs and drugs?  Will he solve teen pregnancy once and for all?  Broken marriages, unfaithful husbands and wives?  Will he somehow magically bring economic prosperity to areas suffering from urban blight and business flight?  How?  What makes him so different that he will somehow be able to miraculously solve problems that have been plaguing Presidents – both Democrat and Republican – for the last 30 years or more?

How will Barack Obama “finally” free the black men and women of this country from their chains?  And of what are those chains made?  What oppression do you suffer?  And how is it Barack Obama that will fix it?  I’ve seen t-shirts with His image overlaid with those of Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman.  Harriet Tubman, who helped slaves escape to the North, and Freedom.  MLK who helped break down long-standing racial and social barriers, the catalyst to sweeping changes in integration and equal rights for minorities.  And so now Barack Obama steps up and ushers in the next era of…what?  He can’t help free the slaves, get blacks the vote, or secure equal access for minorities.  IT’S.  BEEN.  DONE.  ALREADY.

So, what is this next great barrier, this next level of oppression that B.O. is supposed to break through, to bring freedom and release from?  What EXACTLY is it that he is saving you from?

Please help me understand.