In the Republican SUV capital, I do not go very long before I hear the wisdom of my favorite comics, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, being mouthed as the gospel without of course any need to verify the accuracy of the information.
"I heard again the oft repeated "conservative" refrain that poor minorities are to blame for the mortgage crisis, and particularly the Clinton administration's efforts to expand home ownership under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Generally, this line omits the efforts of Bush to do the same.
There is rarely any effort by those who hold that opinion to verify the information or to look at any facts.
It simply has the force of law, more powerful than one of the 10 Commandments, that can not be challenged even though the opinion was formed without any meaningful attempt to assess all of the relevant information or any information.
This is not consistent with conservative thought but it is consistent with laziness and only looking for explanations of complex events that fit a preconceived way of looking at the world, with a very healthy disregard for any information, no matter how reliable, that is inconsistent with the opinions formed and never challenged in any significant way.
Some will refuse to recognize that this worldview is at least in significant part racist. It is a view often held by middle aged white people who grumble about paying taxes and always vote the straight line GOP ticket. They would also see nothing wrong with the campaign of Chip Saltsman for the RNC chair and his song "Obama the Magic Negro" GOP Official Blasted for Distributing Obama 'Magic Negro' CD - FOXNews.com Transition Tracker
In fact many GOP stalwart's embrace this kind of discussion as intelligent discourse. It is one reason that I reject them entirely as standard bearers of conservative ideology and simply find them to be, when they are at their very best, comical and hardly people to be taken seriously.
I have discussed the origins of the mortgage crisis in several posts and would just add links to those discussions along with these links providing more recent information.
"I heard again the oft repeated "conservative" refrain that poor minorities are to blame for the mortgage crisis, and particularly the Clinton administration's efforts to expand home ownership under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Generally, this line omits the efforts of Bush to do the same.
There is rarely any effort by those who hold that opinion to verify the information or to look at any facts.
It simply has the force of law, more powerful than one of the 10 Commandments, that can not be challenged even though the opinion was formed without any meaningful attempt to assess all of the relevant information or any information.
This is not consistent with conservative thought but it is consistent with laziness and only looking for explanations of complex events that fit a preconceived way of looking at the world, with a very healthy disregard for any information, no matter how reliable, that is inconsistent with the opinions formed and never challenged in any significant way.
Some will refuse to recognize that this worldview is at least in significant part racist. It is a view often held by middle aged white people who grumble about paying taxes and always vote the straight line GOP ticket. They would also see nothing wrong with the campaign of Chip Saltsman for the RNC chair and his song "Obama the Magic Negro" GOP Official Blasted for Distributing Obama 'Magic Negro' CD - FOXNews.com Transition Tracker
In fact many GOP stalwart's embrace this kind of discussion as intelligent discourse. It is one reason that I reject them entirely as standard bearers of conservative ideology and simply find them to be, when they are at their very best, comical and hardly people to be taken seriously.
I have discussed the origins of the mortgage crisis in several posts and would just add links to those discussions along with these links providing more recent information.
I do not have a problem with an opinion, no matter the label put on it, that has some significant grounding in facts, or supported by the preponderance of the evidence, and where there is an effort to see the an issue in all of its complexity. My problem with these so called conservatives who want to blame poor people like my Congress person Marsha Blackburn and many many others that I know is that the origin of that claim has to do with who they are rather than an appropriate and impartial analysis of the facts.
you are confusing Republicans with Conservatives.
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. I never confuse conservatives with the vast majority of Republicans, but I do not believe my definition is close to yours either. Your comment did cause me to write another post in my ongoing efforts to define conservatism, which will be the first of many to come. I think that I will tackle the tax issue next. I do not expect much agreement with my definition, and some day my fellow citizens here in the SUV capital of the world may pay me to leave or possibly place a noose on my front door as a hint. The most recent blog on this subject is titled http://tennesseeindependent.blogspot.com/2009/01/conservative-each-to-his-own-definition.html
ReplyDeleteI will always vote against Marsha just as a protest vote rather than for another candidate. Most of the time my vote is either a protest vote or an attempt to pick the least undesirable candidate, or the most intelligent one with what I view to be the best judgment which was my main reason for voting for the Beanpole. I am starting to be impressed a little by Corker. I also voted for Alexander. If I had to pick a politician whose views were close to my own opinions, I would never be able to vote, and I vote in every election. I see that you ran as an independent against Marsha. In 2002, the Tennessee legislature engaged in bipartisan gerrymandering to guarantee for the foreseeable future that all congressional incumbents in this state would be re-elected. Brentwood, for example, was taken out of Bart Gordon's district and placed in the Republican district which included the Brentwood of Memphis, Germantown. Given the way they drew Marsha's district, the intent was to guarantee her election, or some other Rush LImbaugh GOP stalwart, as well as to protect the Democrat Bart Gordon. Their gerrymandering was anti-democratic in its purpose and intent.