Happy Valentine's!! One Day All Americans Will Be Treated As Citizens Without Racial Overtones.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To all my many girl friends and platonic relationships I wish you The Happiest Of Valentines.  Thanks for enriching my life and keeping me in line.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hate eventually consumes those who hate.  (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Do liberals/progressives know/understand what blacks voters want/think? (See 2 below.)

Meanwhile, call me a racist because I am tired of subtle ads showing black and white married  couples on TV, turned off by the focus on black interviewers because Hollywood Liberals were upset there were not enough black Oscar Night nominees and the special emphasis on black citizens because of white guilt.

Over time, marriage among races will happen and will do more to unite races than anything I know because all people, in their right mind, have the same aspirations for themselves and their families irrespective of race.  It is time to focus on Americans simply as citizens regardless of color and apply the laws equally.  There are times when special attention is justified but, generally speaking,  I believe preference eventually builds resentment, creates more hurdles and bias towards those demanding/receiving  special consideration.

There  are no better weapons against bias than self-betterment through education and seizing  opportunities that abound in America because of our various guaranteed constitutional freedoms and the basic innate decency of most Americans.

Therefore, it is past time to improve and toughen our educational curricula and return schools to their former role of educating our youth so they can compete worldwide, teach them what a great nation we have, learn how to interact with their peers and embrace what it means to be a responsible citizen.

I recently watched an interview of a person who lived in California and was asked why he thought there was so much homelessness and disregard for basic laws, etc.

I found his answers instructive and insightful.

When it came to the homeless, he acknowledged much of it was related to mental issues but he also said  no income was raised by enforcing laws with respect to anti-social homeless behaviour. After all, the homeless have no checking accounts or anything of value and jailing them actually incurs a huge cost. Giving tickets to soccer moms for speeding raises revenue etc..

Furthermore, when it comes to calling for enforcement, citizens now run a risk of being tagged as mean spirited. He talked about the manager of the basketball arena who tolerated the selling of unregulated food by peddlers because, if he sought police enforcement, the city commissioners would be on his back accusing him of being a mean spirited citizen and wasting the time of the police etc.

I believe it demeaning not to hold black citizens to the same standards as whites et al..  Limbaugh is right when he says holding black citizens to lower  standards is equivalent to soft prejudice. Most all people rise when challenged.

If dogs replaced homeless, I daresay citizens would demand the city fathers do something and surely they would respond.

Think about these answers. Seems to me they are valid and explain why America has sustained a serious break down  in our collective societal values and standards.

On another note, various Democrat candidates believe generosity is Godly.  Thus, they are willing to excuse those indebted for their education, allow everyone to obtain a free education, free health care but are niggardly when it comes to raising the minimum hourly wage to only $15. I believe we ought to raise the minimum wage to $50/hour. That way everyone will be above the poverty level and can afford to pay for their own health care, college tuition and even support their various narcotic life styles.

After all, we live in America where everyone is "entitled" to everything they want. Does not our constitution  guarantee every citizen the right to pursue happiness? So how can one be happy if they are not allowed to have what they want? This is why liberals are so unhappy and miserable. They sincerely care for those deprived of their entitlements. This is why Pocahontas and Bernie are so appealing.

Obviously, conservatives do not agree with liberal concepts and this makes them cold hearted because liberals have little compassion for those who disagree with their values. This is why they hate Trump.  Like Reagan, Trump believes government is the problem more than the solution but he too is trapped into spending beyond our means because he is forced into quid pro quos with Democrats as well as undisciplined members of his own party.

There will be a reckoning day which will come sooner if radical Democrats like Bernie win and somewhat later if spenders in Congress do so.

What a sad legacy my generation is leaving and the new "entitlement"generation  seem not to have learned much either.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)After Three Years of Hate, the Dems Have Lost It
By Jonathan F. Keiler
Writing in the Atlantic (“This is No Way to Beat Trump”) Thomas Nichols, a self-described former Republican and #NeverTrumper, castigates Democrats for their failure to take down President Trump, in light of the disorganized Iowa Caucus and the party’s unimpressive stable of candidates.  In the piece, Nichols pretends to dispense hard-headed political advice.  In fact, the article reveals why he and the Democrats he wants to help are floundering.  Their perception of the world is so distorted by manic dislike of President Trump that they have ceased to act as a responsible political party which can offer a reasonable alternative. 

The very premise of Nichols’ case, and by extension that of the Democrat party and all its putative candidates, is that beating Trump must be their principal goal, eclipsing all other concerns.  Nichols thinks the Democrats are not attempting to do this -- which is preposterous.  But more interestingly having come to this false conclusion, he has no prescription for exactly how to beat Trump, only that it must be done.

Of course, beating Trump has been the monomania of the Democrats (and #NeverTrumpers) for over three years.  It’s the first and last thing out of all the candidates’ mouths when they speak, and one of the few things they agree upon.  

The Washington Post recently ran a typical article highlighting the malady entitled “’Tempted to despair’: Trump’s resilience causes Democrats to sound the alarm.” Huh?  Are we talking about a presidential campaign or a soap opera?  It’s quite as if Trump were ill, the Dems suffering heirs hoping he’ll just die -- which is probably not far from the truth. 

Manias in general are not good things.  Occasionally a smart or extremely lucky maniac reaches his objective.  Much more often mania sidetracks its victim by severely narrowing his focus, depriving him of necessary context and a broader and more realistic picture of reality.

That’s what’s happened to the Democrats.  The Iowa caucus disaster is one symptom.  The failed impeachment of Trump another.  The stable of unstable Democrat candidates yet another. 
Which bring us to George Orwell’s 1984, but not in the usual way.  Big Brother is usually the focus of such commentary, the putative leader of dystopic totalitarian Oceania, a fellow both Comrade Sanders and tribal chief Warren can easily admire.
Often forgotten is Big Brother’s antagonist, Emmanuel Goldstein.  He is the subject of a daily “two minutes hate,” which is where the novel opens.  The “two minutes hate” is part of Oceania’s political regimen, required of all citizens. It’s not clear at all in the novel that Goldstein is real, or just an invention of regime propaganda, yet it doesn’t matter.  The two minutes hate is designed to deflect the population’s anger and fear away from the regime to this supposed enemy of the people.

It’s a sick regime, which is the point of the story. 

And it’s pretty easy to see in the modern Democrat party the same dynamic taking hold, albeit before they have actually achieved total political control.  Trump in almost every respect is the Dems' Emmanuel Goldstein, a subject of such mindless animus and vituperation that the party can’t see the forest for the trees.  It’s been three years of hate, and way more than two minutes a day.     

Modern therapeutic psychology would suggest an intervention, and in the United States such a role has often been played by the press.  Historically, when a party or politician went off the deep end, there was a vibrant press to point it out, mock it, and return things to semblance of rationality.  That has not been the case in America for a generation or two now, with the mainstream media having lost most all semblance of objectivity to become the Democrats' great enabler.  And indeed, the mandarins of the modern media are, if anything, even more Trump-afflicted than the party that they supposedly cover.
Very much like a schizophrenic, neither the Dems nor the media can recognize the pervasive objective truth about American today -- things are going pretty well.  The economy is doing great, unemployment is low, and the markets are confident.  We are ending a China trade war with some gains.  Borders are more secure.  Unemployment is at historic lows.  With the exception of small military commitments to Afghanistan and Syria, we are at peace.  We are energy self-sufficient, and even climate-change doomsayers must now admit things are not so bad. 

The Democrats have a lot of problems.  But their biggest one is their grip on reality.  As long as that’s the case, whoever they pick in 2020 is not likely to be any more successful than Emmanuel Goldstein. 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
2)

The Black Vote as Progressives Imagine It

by Noah Rothman

In the years that followed the 2012 elections, you could have been forgiven for thinking America’s political class believed that Hispanic voters cared about one thing and one thing only: immigration reform. The need to establish a legal pathway to residency or citizenship for the country’s illegal population dominated every discussion of what Latino voters wanted from policymakers. This idea persisted right up until the 2016 election, when Donald Trump implausibly won more Hispanic votes than Mitt Romney.

The statistical evidence that Hispanic voters did not think and behave as a bloc was apparent well before the president bet his electoral fortunes on the prospect, but it took the shock of 2016 for that complexity to become apparent to federal officeholders. Today, everyone has gotten the message save the most pandering social-justice activists, who continue to refer to Hispanic-Americans collectively as “Latinx,” a word that non-Hispanics use to demonstrate how in-touch they are with Hispanics, but which is rejected by those it is supposed to describe.

Could today’s progressive social reformers be making a similar mistake with how they approach black voters? Probably not, insofar as African-American voters are more reliably Democratic than the varied array of ethnicities and cultures that make up the “Hispanic vote” in the United States. And yet, after listening to the 2020 candidates discuss race in America, you might come away with the idea that black voters are of one mind on that issue, and that mind is racially hyper-consciousness and oriented toward reparative justice.

One by one, during Friday night’s debate, the Democratic Party’s presidential aspirants sought to demonstrate their bona fides by proclaiming America indelibly—perhaps irredeemably—racist, and advocated reparative policies to level the playing field. Bernie Sanders insisted that the U.S. is “a racist society from top to bottom.” Joe Biden claimed that the nation’s institutions are plagued by “systemic racism.” Pete Buttigieg agreed, adding that “systemic racism has penetrated to every level of our system.” Per her brand, Elizabeth Warren has a plan for that. “We need race-conscious laws in education, in employment, in entrepreneurship to make this country a country for everyone,” she said. For his part, Tom Steyer pledged to make the New York Times’ “1619 Project” policy by establishing a “formal commission on race” to “retell the story of the last 400 years in America of systematic racism against African Americans.”

That’s certainly an attractive platform for progressives of every demographic stripe, but is it one that will speak to most black voters? African Americans are justifiably gloomy about the state of race relations in America. Most do not trust this president, perceive racial harmony to be in decline, and report having experienced discrimination in their lives. But are they amenable to the “race-conscious laws” Sen. Warren advocated? Not necessarily.

Take Affirmative Action, for example. In theory, an overwhelming number of black voters support affirmative-action programs for minorities (though, according to Gallup, that number has declined while support has increased dramatically among whites). And when you drill down into the specifics, the policy becomes markedly less popular among African Americans. When Gallup surveyed the landscape, following a 2016 Supreme Court case that affirmed the constitutionality of using race and ethnicity to make college admissions decisions, non-Hispanic blacks were by far the most hostile toward the decision. Only 35 percent approved of the ruling. Fifty percent disapproved of colleges using admissions criteria that were not based on merit alone. Fifty-seven percent said race and ethnicity should not be admissions factors “at all.” The Pew Research Center confirmed that this apprehension was not limited to college admissions. When asked if “companies and organizations” should take race and ethnicity into account when making “decisions about hiring and promotions,” 54 percent of African-American respondents said no.

Likewise, just about every 2020 Democratic campaign promised to “study” the issue of monetary reparations to the descendants of slaves. Before he dropped out, Cory Booker was the most forceful in his support for an outcome of that “study” that would support such a program. Former Massachusetts Mayor Deval Patrick is prepared to “offer explicit support for federal reparations,” according to Axios. The traction these candidates have generated among African-American Democrats tells you all you need to know about how the party’s primary voters respond to these overtures. Despite being the primary beneficiaries of this proposal, a 2015 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that only 52 percent of black respondents backed slavery reparations. A 2016 Marist University poll showed 58 percent of African Americans would support such a measure.

A March 2019 Pew survey showed that, while “drug addiction” was chosen by every major American demographic as an urgent problem facing the nation today, black Americans’ priorities diverged from those of their white and Hispanic counterparts. Seventy-five percent cited “racism” as one of the most pressing matters before policymakers, but a similar 72 percent cited “violent crime”—well ahead of how their white and Hispanic counterparts view the issue. This disparity could explain why, according to the latest national survey of Democrats via Quinnipiac University, Mike Bloomberg secures the support of a staggering 22 percent of black primary voters, just behind Joe Biden’s 27 percent.

Among progressives for whom Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” policy amounts to codified racial discrimination and harassment, this is a confounding result. But Bloomberg’s $200 million advertising campaign is dedicated mostly to promoting the former New York City mayor’s record of preventing gun crime. For African-American voters, the latter issue may be a more tangible priority than amorphous promises to ameliorate racism through public awareness campaigns. That dynamic could also contribute to a 2017 Marist survey’s results, which showed that nearly three-in-ten black voters were withholding judgment on or were outright opposed to the objectives of the Black Lives Matter movement, which advocates against the aggressive over-policing of minority communities.

Pew’s expansive study of U.S. race relations showed that what might be the most revealing discrepancy between the world as it is and the one progressives imagine is the extent to which race is a dominant factor in Americans’ private spaces. “How often, if ever, did your family talk to you about challenges you might face because of your race or ethnicity?” the pollster asked. “Seven-in-ten black adults who attended college say their family had these conversations at least sometimes, compared with 57 [percent] of those with a high school education or less.” That disparity might seem like a minor one, but the 2017 census found that only 23 percent of African Americans are four-year college degree holders.

It’s possible, even likely, that Republican partisans have made too much of Donald Trump’s outreach to black voters, but Democrats would suffer at the polls either by failing to win black voters or by losing them. As Hillary Clinton learned, it’s a fine distinction between not turning out on Election Day and voting Republican. And by regarding black voters as a monolith consumed by what progressives believe should be their concerns, much of which are race-specific, they might be courting more risk than reward.

Noah Rothman is the Associate Editor of Commentary and the author of Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++