Mike Parry, a GOP candidate for the state senate, has apologized for tweets calling President Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man” and asking “whats with the Dems and Pedophiles?”
The tweets succeeded in making Parry look like a power hungry ignorant white man. He insists that he takes full responsibility for “all mistakes in my past tweets.”
Parry insists that the racist reference was “written in haste and out of the frustration I felt for the out of control spending in Washington.” In one interview, he insisted that he should be credited for at least using his own name in such attacks, here. He also stated:
“My opinion is that our president is arrogant and angry. The fact is that he is a black man. Now if the Democratic Party and the liberals want to take my opinion and the fact and mix it together and use it to bring a bad light about me and keep them away from discussing the real issues they can do that all they want. They’re grasping for straws.”
Well, I am not sure how much mixing it takes, Mr. Parry.
Here is Parry’s website and bio.
The pretend black guy is once again spreading his ignorance by using sports metaphors ahistoically. Are you even aware that at one time Jews, Irish Americans and Italian Americans dominated boxing? Why? Because it was an escape from poverty. That’s why Jews dominated basketball also, not because they were genetically better adapted. For that same reason the early greats of Baseball in the mid to late 1800’s
were predominantly Irish. A way out of poverty. I could go on and on with this and provide numerous examples of various ethnic groups and sports. For the black man the problem was never the ability to succeed in sport it was the racism and prejudice that kept them from playing. Otherwise, as exists today professional and amateur sports represent a means of escaping poverty to those made underprivileged by social norms. This is an obvious factor to any person of color with a modicum of intelligence. As for our pretend to be black troll, not so much.
“so what do you base your arguments on now? There must be some fundamental principle you use. Sanctity of the individual, sovereignty of the king, he who has the gold makes the rules?”
That’s a difficult problem. [thinks] In general I try to base things in simple logic, then pragmatism, I guess, with various caveats to fuzzy ideas of fairness / fundamental human rights held to be self-evident / separation of church and state etc. I think “sanctity of the individual” includes this but everyone means something different by that. Some people for example think the Fourth Amendment only applies to American citizens.
In general I find that it’s easier to buy into arguments when the counterarguments are clearly based on bullshit. When I became an atheist, things suddenly became less clear, but I was able to see what I was just buying into based on religious faith.
I think as far as pragmatism goes, I try to side with whoever acknowledges the reality of things that are happening, rather than pledge faith to a principle that says what should happen. For example people go on about health insurance and how “free markets” (without the government interfering with its own market) will lower insurance rates for everybody. But the mechanics of that rely on entrepreneurs spotting markets with artificially high prices and bringing them down by entering the market with reasonable prices. People never acknowledge simple facts (like huge barriers to entry in the health insurance market with its antitrust exemptions) that undermine an ideological point like “free markets” before they’ll simply rest an argument on it as an ideological given.
“I agree about Sarah Palin, I don’t know if she is a liar”
She is a pathological liar. Many people have come out of the woodwork to point out concrete examples of different lies she has told. Also watch 60 Minutes tomorrow night.
maverratick:
I was using those an example of possibilities of discussions one could have. I hadn’t planned on discussing them. Just an example for a reply to your post.
so what do you base your arguments on now? There must be some fundamental principle you use. Sanctity of the individual, sovereignty of the king, he who has the gold makes the rules?
I agree about Sarah Palin, I don’t know if she is a liar but I have a fundamental disagreement with her on the grounds that she isn’t much more than a warmed over populist. I base this on her debate with Joe Biden. I was very disappointed because of the hype that preceded her. Her economic views for the most part are similar to W’s. One compassionate conservative was enough.
This is a very good essay by Prof. C. Bradley Thompson of Clemson University on the problem with conservatism.
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp
Neither of those positions is factually disprovable.
I think I agree with you on Marxism but actually I suspect neither of us is really familiar with it enough to talk. A lot of weird stuff has been branded as Marxist and self-advertised as Marxism; I don’t think even the Soviet Union was implementing Marxism, or even Communism, with their stupid economic system that produced visibly poor results.
What anyone or anything (e.g. the government) “should” do is always up for discussion. Why do you just assume that I think neither position shouldn’t see the light of day? Is that founded on an ideologically-based belief on what “liberals” do, and your own identification of me as a liberal?
I do prefer that if you’re going to say what someone or something (e.g. the government) “should” do, it would be nice if you backed it up with a factual argument that didn’t ultimately rest on either 1. a dictionary definition, 2. a Biblical reference, or 3. an ideological position. The reason I switched from being a conservative was seeing their arguments bounce around and around in circles from general ideological principle to general ideological principle until it ultimately rested on one of those three things as a foundation.
If you think health care and welfare are not “part of the proper function of government”, then why not”? I think “government” is any entity set up by the public to handle public affairs that no private entity has the prerogative, the resources, or the ruling authority to handle. I don’t know what you mean when you say “the proper function is not health care and welfare”. People just rest their arguments on stuff like that, without explaining why these things are true.
As for “Death Panels”, that was a factual lie from Sarah Palin. That’s an example of something that shouldn’t have seen the light of day and splayed all over the news- it was just more of her bullshit. It seems anything she makes up gets balloon-boy-intensity coverage, and she’s one of the most dishonest people in public life.
Bdaman:
you cant blame Harry Reid he is a product of his environment.
maverratick:
I think Marxism is bullshit, pure and simple and don’t think any of it should be discussed.
I also think government has a very limited function, health care and welfare not being part of the proper function.
I believe you would disagree with these ideas. So who gets to decide which ideas don’t see the light of day?
How do you know an idea is bad if you cannot openly discuss and analyze it? Or how do you know if there might not be some sort of compromise between 2 opposing ideas if you dismiss one of them?
What is mandatory nonsense in the name of balance? You want just one side of the issue talked about? I think it would be great if I got to posit my views without having to defend them.