One of the joys of being an independent blogger is that you don’t have to pay attention to anything that doesn’t interest you, or about which you have nothing helpful to say. At least 90% of what Fox News and talk radio spend their time blabbering about falls into that category for me. It’s not that those stories aren’t important. Rather the question is, what’s the point in me becoming the 143rd blogger to add my two cents on a particular story, unless I have something to say that hasn’t already been said better by someone else?
This “value-added” approach to blogging explains why I haven’t had anything to say about the Cliven Bundy BLM confrontation. There were a couple of times in recent days when I almost blogged about it, but then something else would catch my eye — who can resist a LESBIAN POLYGAMY headline? — and I’d forget about it. But so what? Everybody was blogging about the Bundy story, and the value of my two cents would have been negligible anyway.
That stance changed this morning when I noticed Dana Loesch discussing how a Politico reporter asked her to comment on some controversial racial remarks made by Cliven Bundy:
I’ve only ever focused on the BLM. In fact, I repeatedly said on my radio program that this isn’t about Cliven Bundy, it’s always been about the abuse of the BLM. The left is unhappy with this because they want to use Bundy’s remark to invalidate the entirety of the claims against the BLM. Forget Tommy Henderson, Kenni Patton, or other ranchers who have weighty claims against the BLM, it’s all moot now because of Cliven Bundy. Bundy’s a racist, therefore anyone who agreed with his criticism of the BLM’s heavy-handed tactics is also a racist. Bundy’s a racist, thus the politicians who spoke against the BLM sending 200 armed agents to deal with a local issue must also be racists. Now it’s the left who wants to make this about Bundy and his remark so they can silence all criticism of the BLM. In their minds, you can’t condemn Bundy’s remark and criticize the BLM. . . .
Bundy’s horrible remark doesn’t change that the BLM is overreaching.
Exactly so, Dana. This calls to mind, by the way, Andrew Breitbart’s insistence on “vetting” people before associating himself with them. Andrew understood that, in order to be in the white-hot heat of the national spotlight, he had to be “clean” of any unsavory associations, and he was careful to make sure he checked people out, sometimes in ways that offended them. But I digress . . .
The top of Memeorandum is now covered with reactions to Bundy’s “Negro” remarks, including condemnation by the eminent Nevada civil rights leader Harry Reid (eye-roll) and predictable celebratory jeering from the usual suspects, e.g., Slate.
Yet Dana’s point still holds: Bundy’s unfortunate remarks do not in the least justify the abusive conduct of the BLM. Do we have to conduct tests of people’s opinions on every controversial issue before we recognize their fundamental rights? And who will be the arbiter of which opinions are and are not acceptable? Will NARAL be the judge of what is acceptable to think about abortion? Will we authorize GLAAD to investigate people’s views on homosexuality? And will such judgments then be made the basis of whether a citizen is entitled to keep his life, liberty and property? Good God! Would liberals have tolerated this attitude toward suspected Communist subversives?
It should suffice to say that Bundy’s comments reflect opinions that are probably not uncommon among elderly white Nevada ranchers, who don’t waste much time wondering if their opinions (on race or anything else) are acceptably progressive. But the terroristic fury of an online lynch mob has had its intended effect: Republican politicians are predictably scuttling for cover, and very few of Bundy’s erstwhile supporters have been able to withstand the onslaught with anything like courage or dignity.
Among the dignified few is Kevin Williamson of National Review:
National Review correspondent Kevin Williamson, who recently compared Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to Mahatma Gandhi, told TPM in an email on Thursday that he thought Bundy’s racially charged comments were “lamentable” but they were “separate” from Bundy’s standoff with the Bureau of Land Management. “Mr. Bundy’s racial rhetoric is lamentable and backward,” Williamson said in an email. “It is also separate from the fundamental question here, which is the federal government’s acting as an absentee landlord for nine-tenths of the state of Nevada.” “I very strongly suspect that most of the men who died at the Alamo held a great many views that I would find repugnant; we remember them for other reasons.”
Hear! Hear! And it’s not just the Alamo.
Has anyone ever bothered to investigate, for example, the racial opinions of those American heroes of the 101st Airborne Division who, surrounded by Hitler’s army at Bastogne, held firm to that crucial crossroads at peril of their lives? An awful lot of brave young G.I.’s probably died in the snow there — just like American boys died on the beach at Normandy, at Okinawa, at Iwo Jima — whose private opinions would today categorize them among the racists, sexists and homophobes that everyone with a WiFi connection now hastens to condemn.
Indeed, the careful student of history may be startled to learn the degree to which the Union troops whose victory in the Civil War secured the freedom of millions of slaves, were themselves quite frankly racist. For that matter, many of Abraham Lincoln’s statements about race were nearly as “lamentable and backward” as what Cliven Bundy said.
So I never said a word about Cliven Bundy until the Left decided to turn the old rancher into a symbol of “right-wing racism,” and now I’ve only got three more words to say: “Fuck you. War.”
Shouts of “Raaaaacist!,” it seems, are just ways to shut down people the left doesn’t like. While Mr. Bundy certainly has views the majority of us do not like, the real issue is why the BLM, which was started as the Grazing Service, has been allowed to adopt a policy where it can destroy industries.
William Travis was born in Edgeville County SC 93 years before Strom Thurmond
Well, the eugenics movement in America was inherently racist, so strong proponents of it, like Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson or Oliver Wendell Holmes, were racist. Therefore, anyone who finds themselves ever in line with any of those men’s opinions, even 100 years later, are racists too. My logic is flawless.
Yep. And lest we forget, Strom Thurmond volunteered with the 82nd Airborne.
“The authors quote [Harry] Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” http://tinyurl.com/yard8ud
RAAAAACIST!
Please keep in mind that this racist meme comes from the NY Times, that bastion of journalistic integrity. I think it’s made up out of whole cloth. There was just something about the way the conversation was described that did not ring true. Nonetheless, whether he is or is not a racist is not the point. Although the left will try to make it so.
I’m a nobody, but nevertheless I stayed out of it and didn’t tweet or RT things about it because although the operation was clearly another ridiculously heavy-handed, stupid overreach of government, Bundy was not completely blameless. I’m sure he was frustrated by the bureaucracy of it all, but in not resolving the issue and refusing to pay fees for 20 years, he left himself open to criticism. Now with the left trying to twist the story into a racist pretzel, I’m glad I was a weenie and didn’t get into the fray because Bundy is done. He’s toast at this point. (Forgive the unintentional food metaphors.)
[…] TOM: Let’s Condemn All Sexist, Racist and Homophobic Heroes of American History… […]
Does Cliven Bundy’s personal views about race make Harry Reid right about supporting pederasty (and government corruption flowing to Harry Reid and his family)?
I did not realize that whether you have rights or not against the federal government is dependent on whether your views are PC enough.
“Bundy was not completely blameless.”
Yeah, by the time I noticed the story, it had become clear that Bundy was not a completely innocent victim, which is not the same as saying the BLM right. There are, and have been for many years, problems with the BLM which under the Clinton and Obama administrations have been run by political appointees with a radical environmentalist agenda. So I was content to watch the Bundy story develop without feeling any obligation to intrude my two cents, and had the nagging feeling it might turn out badly, although I didn’t expect this.
You mean the alleged pederast, Harry Reid?
[…] TOM: Let’s condemn all sexist, racist, and homophobic heroes of American history… […]
Actually BLM is the result of combining the General Land Office, which is now BLM Cadastral Survey, and the Grazing Service. The GLO was responsible for the Public Domain, which is where the overwhelming majority of BLM lands come from.
All good people know that the Puking Buzzards should have lost at Bastogne because the Army was racist, sexist and anti-ghey.
Since they were progressives, all progressives are obviously racist.
I think he was making an observation and observing such facts is obviously raaaaacist.
Pederast Harry Reid calls on Republicans to throw Cliven Bundy under the bus and then join him in trolling bus stops for young homeless teen boys looking for companionship…
“many of Abraham Lincoln’s statements about race were nearly as “lamentable and backward” as what Cliven Bundy said…”
…actually, significantly more so, in my opinion.
To expect Bundy to be as nuanced about race as 86 Pages worth of nothing Sotomayor is ridiculous.
“there is a physical difference between the white and black races that will for ever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality.”
~ A. Lincoln
Bundy actually does something for a living. I’m just saying.
“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people”
~ A. Lincoln
Attention Tech Support: Something weird is going on with The Other McCain. Whenever I hit my bookmark to come to this site, I get the same page as I had the last time I was here. In order to get the most recent version, I have to hit refresh. This behavior started on 4/22. It does not happen with any of my other regular stops. I am using the Pale Moon browser and I cleared out my cookies for the site twice. I suspect you have some kind of issue with the date on your page. I don’t know if others are seeing the same thing. If so, then it must be a site thing. If it is just me, then I must have a problem on my end.
that’s the one.
Me, too.
Specifically, I suddenly have to keep clearing out my cookies and cache to view the most up to date page.
The mobile site no longer shows up for me on my phone as of that date. Wonder if it’s related.
Years ago, Oprah had the FLDS polygamists on her show where she sat them down and, with that faux intellectual calm of hers, asked them why people were so nasty as to resist the FDLS call for polygamy.
She utterly ignored the fact that those people are the most racist people in this galaxy. The important thing to her was to destroy another sexual taboo – at all costs.
Same with the left’s love of Margaret Sanger regardless of her chumminess with the KKK: it’s about free sex, so the hell with everything else!
The left knows how to ignore racism when the stakes are high enough. (Or should I say LOW enough?)
A slight omission for rhetorical effect here, but point taken.
[…] Update 2: While Kira Davis doesn’t care about Bundy’s remarks as does Dana Loesch & Stacy McCain botes some history […]
I certainly understand your sentiment Stacy but in the air as the legalities are on the Government’s side it’s not relevant.
As long as the media image was of an overreaching government the Government was checkmated. There was no way for them to move without bad optics.
Now merits of the case not withstanding the government has cover. Any move against Bundy will be pitched to the low info voter as a move against a white racist, any pol who supports him will be tagged by his remarks.
In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the Democrats drag this out to fire up the uninterested black vote and move in at a time most likely to stimulate the vote.
It might not be fair but it’s reality.
Interesting, because the mobile site keeps showing up on my desktop as of that date.
I find it shocking how many voices on the right are, “scuttling for cover.” Just shameful. Media matters puts out an edited video, the NY Times labels it racist, and some on the right can’t run fast enough. Are they too stupid to see the Alinsky tactics or too gutless to fight back? I applaud RSM for standing up to Media Matters, Harry Reid, and the BLM. Smear tactics will not crush liberty.
You are right. Of course when the left throws Ayaan Hirsi Ali under the bus…well that is just meh. http://ace.mu.nu/archives/348756.php
[…] comments. There are hundreds of links to news outlets and blogs covering Bundy’s remarks. The left is hoping that Bundy’s unfortunate ramblings will negate any wrongdoing by the BLM. They want us to forget how much land the federal government controls, and the tactics it employs […]
same here. I could see the headline in the RSS feed and could click and everything worked, but going to the home page sent me back to 04/22. Dumped my cache and everything was back to normal.
To every leftist that brings up the name of Cliven Bundy– throw the name of Alvin Holmes, elected Democrat from Alabama, back in their face:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376480/ala-dem-offers-100k-proof-white-families-adopting-black-kids-families-show-andrew
Is a committed Communist on a higher moral plane than a casual racist?
There is an answer to that question.
That aside, there is one identifiable group in this country that is more racist than every other…black people.
This fact doesn’t cause me to despise black people as a group simply because, as a group, they are the most racist members of our society. No. I cut folks a break.
Now a filthy fucking Communist? That’s another matter altogether.
Let me tell you about the caucasian………
Remind them that Fred Phelps was a Democrat too. He even hated gays.
The Left just found this cycle’s Trayvon Martin. I read the remarks, and they sound eerily familiar with similar comments made by black scholars. The Wire over at Yahoo News is already publishing a list of conservatives who supported Bundy for the express purpose of attacking them as racist. So much for a conversation on race. Seems Bundy’s willing to have it. The rest of America is sotomayoring itself back into slave chains.
And was highly decorated, including Bronze Star and Purple Heart among many others, and was President of the Reserve Officers in the 1950s.
Also, Thurmond was a Circuit Court judge and would not have been drafted. He volunteered.
Well, maybe “alleged” for form’s sake – but he has never denied it.
BUT if he had been “blameless” and followed what the superficial observers call “the law” all along, he would have been run out of business like the 72 other ranchers who used to graze on those lands.
So there is that.
This happened to me, too, I thought something had happened to the site. It was not until I found a link Stacy put up on Twitter that I realized it was me. Cleared the cookies, but it still went to the cached page from a couple days ago until I refreshed.
Also switched to Pale Moon, which has otherwise performed very well (after the one tweak Quartermaster mentioned last week, to prevent sites from registering the browser as Mozilla and sending Google info to Google).
Ditto.
I admit, a few years ago I would have been hedging, too, with some weaselly qualifying statement about not agreeing with Bundy before commenting on the land issues. But it’s just gotten out of hand, ridiculous.
I don’t care what they call me anymore. To hell with them all.
Alleged just means the burden of proof is on the accused!
The government has no cover. It’s not illegal to be an ignoramus.
I would be remiss if I didn’t observe that there’s a difference between SOUNDING racist and BEING racist.
Bundy’s remarks sounded perfectly awful.
He was also trying to explain what happens when the government squeezes the happiness out of people. He observed that black families on welfare are doing worse than before it. We all know that to be true.
He mistakenly went all the way back to slavery when he needed only to go back to before the War on Poverty. To state that the black family was intact during slavery makes him an ignoramus, not a racist.
His discourse on this an other subjects sounds like he’s heard other people express good ideas but he himself cannot reproduce those arguments without making an ass of himself. His thought processes are not orderly; whether that’s early-onset senility or general loopiness I cannot say.
A couple of weeks ago, Democrats from Detroit sit in silence while Louis Farrakhan delivered an anti-Semitic, anti-white rant.
And Al Sharpton has a TV show.