Hi Jim,
You say you are a progressive. That can mean many different things. Ross
Perot was (is?) a progressive but then so was FDR. Are you a socialist?
That's what I usually think when I hear "progressive".
Cha bhi fios aire math an tobair gus an tràigh e.
Earl
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim
To: LibertarianExchange@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:07 PM
Subject: [LibertarianExchange] Re: An article
Rarely do I respond to posts here, I am mainly just observing and learning.
But...this post deserves a response from a progressive.
Jessie and Al always think they are the victims. They remain part of the
problem instead of being part of the solution. There are many like them...I'm
not sure if it is left-over anger from the civil rights era or if they are
actually trying to gin up some anger by playing the victim, but their
bitterness is always there.
Maybe it's nostalgia for the "good ole days" of anger spilling out in the
streets, but it is certainly not helpful. I cannot express how discontented I
am with people like this...especially when I hear someone call them
"progressive." They are not progressive, they are left of the left liberals.
If you push them on their opinions a little, you will probably find out that
they still believe reparations are owed. I think that Affirmative Action has
provided adequate reparation. I believe that Affirmative Action actually gave
many, many, minorities a hand up at just the right time in our history. But it
has probably served its purpose and should be reviewed - just like all programs
should be periodically reviewed to determine their relevance.
Jessie and Al, et al, grabbed on to the liberal horn 4 decades ago and they
absolutely refuse to let go...the bull is shaking his head trying to get them
off but it only gets worse for them. Many, many liberals are now calling
themselves "progressive" when they really do not know what they are talking
about. I have been calling myself "progressive" since about 1984.
We believe in letting go of the horns and finding a away to go between the
horns...we are not marxist, communist, redistributers, or any thing like that.
As a small business owner, I can safely say that I am a capitalist. I used some
of my capital (savings) and invested it in the hopes that it will
grow...therefore, capitalist.
But I also believe in rules...some of those rules restrict what I can do (I
don't like these rules) and others protect my investments (I like these rules).
Sometimes it is hard for me to find that balance but equilibrium is always what
I shoot for. Many times I am wrong, many times I am right. But I always strive
to go between the horns of this dilemma.
I am the first to admit when I am wrong. But Jessie and Al can never do
this...they are so stuck in their anger and they are always trying to find some
kind of "injustice" to complain about. But that's all they do, complain,
complain, complain, without offering any solutions - except for more rules and
regulation. Always the victim and always because they are black. Hey,
dumb-asses come in all flavors.
Many of my so-called "progressive" colleagues frequently refer to Rush as a
racist. I am not ready to place that label on him. I don't know what racism is
because I have never been a victim of racism. I do have fun on my show using
satire but not once have I ever called Rush a racist. Doing this only serves to
further divide. Calling people "racist" without any real hard evidence is only
contributing to the problem - those friends of mine are still stuck in the
problem instead of living in the solution. I try to point this out to them in
the hopes they will understand how divisive and horrible their words can be.
I can go back in history and find many examples of many different people with
different ideologies (some I agree with, some I don't) calling themselves
"progressive." But in my opinion (which has been my opinion since the mid
1980s), progressive means going through the horns of dilemmas as they come up
and working together for solutions. not every one will always be happy with the
solutions in any system or political party or ideology, but working to take the
good with the bad maintains necessary equilibrium for a vibrant, educated
society.
--- In LibertarianExchange@yahoogroups.com, "Roderick T. Beaman"
<crazylibertar...@...> wrote:
>
> The following is the text of an article of mine just published at
www.libertyforall.net/?p=3262#more-3262Â .
> Â Roderick T. Beaman,D.O.
> Board Certified Family Physician
> Every government official should go to bed at night
> afraid that when he awakens in the morning
> that there will be an angry mob outside his house
> waiting to shoot or hang him.
>
>
> RUSHING LIMBAUGH FROM THE NFL
> NEVER SATIRIZE LIBERALS, NEVER QUESTION THE APPROVED AGGRIEVED
> ã??
> ã??
> Over the past few weeks it emerged that Rush Limbaugh was to be part of a
group of investors in the St. Louis Rams. The firestorm was as intense as it
was predictable.
> Weighing in were the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It always
amusing to see those two in action. Theyâ?Tre to politics what Nehru Jackets
are to fashion. Bell bottoms and platform shoes may come back. Neither Jackson
nor Sharpton can get over that their days have passed.
> Al Sharpton called Limbaugh divisive. This is a man who gave us that Tawana
Brawley hoax and never apologized for it. Heâ?Ts put himself at the center of
just about every possible event that could even be remotely considered racial.
> Tawana Brawley was the teenager in Wappingers Falls, New York who claimed
that she was kidnaped, raped and sodomized by a group of white men, among them
a part-time cop who would commit suicide. Investigators found that, at the time
of the claimed event, he was in the company of Assistant DA Steven Pagones and
State Trooper Scott Patterson. Sharpton then accused Pagones of being one of
the participants and that Pagones had murdered cop to silence him and that the
report of a suicide was part of a big cover up. Nothing is ever below Al
Sharpton.
> The case caused a media sensation and the usual suspects lined up to
exploit it; Phil Donahue, Louis Farrakhan and Bill Cosby. Despite occasional
lapses into reason, Cosby usually resides in the fever swamps of the lunatic
left. Sharpton was eventually sued, successfully, by Pagones but he resisted
paying anything until he was bailed out but some heavy duty black millionaires.
> Jesse is another case. Jesse is a part-time minister, part-time politician
and full time publicity seeker. Knowing that Martin Luther King, Jr.â?Ts
assassination would leave a leadership void, he embellished his role at that
terrible event. Afterwards, I read several accounts that disputed his version,
he somehow never got called on it. Nor does Jesse ever get called on anything.
> Particularly appalling were the events after the suicidal death of Raynard
Johnson, a black teenager in Kokomo, Mississippi in June, 2000. The local and
state police ruled it a suicide. The autopsy showed no signs of a struggle that
would be expected from a lynching. The despondent parents turned to Jesse for
help and he, of course, agreed to go to Mississippi to fund the truth.
> It was a majority white town and it turned out that he had been dating a
white girl who had just broken up with him hours before he was found hanged
with a braided belt that his parents said he didnâ?Tt own. A video from a
convenience store showed that he was wearing a belt similar to the one he was
hanged with.
> Jesse arrived to great fanfare and many cameras (I apologize for stating
the obvious. Jesse always arrives to great fanfare and many cameras) and
announced heâ?Td find who were responsible for the evil deed. Jesse said the
boyâ?Ts throat had been cut. It wasnâ?Tt. Jesse must have left the state in the
middle of the night because he has never been heard from again regarding the
unfortunate matter.
> I rarely listen to Rush Limbaugh although I have in the past. I used to
find him interesting and funny but have come to find him annoying. I rarely
listen to him anymore. But these were two of the people lined up to oppose
Limbaugh. Sterling credentials, the two of them, donâ?Tt you think.
> Many liberals have called him racist, bigoted & sexist, saying that he
ridicules blacks, minorities and women. I have never found that. He satirizes
liberals and that is what has made him such a pariah to the Left.
> Bill Raspberry was always one of my favorite columnists. Black and liberal,
he was never one to dismiss conservatives as bigots etc. He would always
listen.
> One time, he referred to Limbaugh as a racist or some such. Someone
challenged him and asked if heâ?Td ever listened to Rush Limbaugh. He admitted
he hadnâ?Tt and then tuned him in for a while. His conclusion, Rush Limbaugh
was not a racist.
> He wrote that Limbaugh didnâ?Tt ridicule blacks, women and minorities. He
ridiculed liberals. Raspberry went on to say that it was a reversal of the
usual, where liberals would satirize all things conservative but that suddenly,
when the shoe was on the other foot, the liberals showed that they could give
it but couldnâ?Tt take it.
> Quite so. I have found that all of my adult life. The most intolerant
people I have ever met have been liberals. The most judgmental people I have
ever met have been liberals. Further, the most racist and bigoted people I have
ever met have been liberals.
> When I went to college at New York University, the assumption was that if
you even went to college, you had to be liberal. As William Buckley once
observed, liberals feel that it is impossible to be simultaneously intelligent
and conservative. He also once observed, liberal intolerance was exhibited by
the astonishment that there even was another opinion.
> Judgmentalism was another matter. If you told a liberal you admired either
Barry Goldwater or William Buckley, they just about handed you a set of sheets
and a swastika armband to wear.
> Bigotry may be the most surprising to readers but it was there among
liberals, far more than among conservatives. The very same people who were
waving the flag for the various civil rights bills of the 1960s were the most
upset when blacks moved into their comfy upper middle class enclaves of Great
Neck and Manhattanville.
> The misrepresentations of Limbaughâ?Ts statements have been equally
appalling. Oâ?TReilly has stated, repeatedly, that his researchers have been
unable to find any record that Limbaugh ever said that slavery wasnâ?Tt all
bad. Yet that persists.
> I can assure every reader, that I have seen personally, how things get
distorted, in and by the media and by viewers and readers. I have been present
when stories were planted and have been quoted with things I never said. (Even
though the latter incident was in a college newspaper, it nevertheless is
illustrative. For dramatic illustration of the problem, see the excellent first
30 minutes of the otherwise mediocre Paul Newman/Sally Field movie, â?~Absence
of Maliceâ?T.)
> Rush Limbaugh has been a football afficionado for years. His problems
really emerged from his remark as a football analyst about the Philadelphia
Eagles and Donovan McNabb. He said that it was the defense that had been
carrying the team and he wondered whether the accolades that were being heaped
on Donovan McNabb were due to the mediaâ?Ts wanting an outstanding black
quarterback.
> As itâ?Ts turning out, McNabb is a very good quarterback. It was a valid
question but in these days of political ultra-correctness, such discussions
arenâ?Tt permitted. Thus, we have now a black president and former President
Jimmy Carter and others state that criticism of him arises from the innate
racism at the heart of America. (Oh yes, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa, Jimmy. In my heart, I know Iâ?Tm a racist.) And no one is permitted to
wonder whether some promotions of minorities are due to their being minorities
and that maybe society should examine all of these programs. Somehow, it seems
the answer is no.
> The Obama Administration is now waxing apoplectic over executive salaries
of companies that took TARP money. Why canâ?Tt we raise the same questions
about Affirmative Action?
> Can anyone of us entirely eliminate from ourselves racial awareness? I
strongly doubt it. At this late date in my life, the first thing I notice when
I meet a black person, is that he is black and it remains an issue throughout
any exchange. I hate that about myself. Do blacks have the same problem? I
donâ?Tt know but think so.
> But if we canâ?Tt view hold all politicians, sports figures and
beneficiaries of public policies up to the light of critical examination, we
are the losers.
>
