conservative

Political Racism

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

Ending Identity Politics

Eradicating Identity Politics

:: By: Larry Walker II ::

Those who say that Republican’s don’t like President Obama’s policies, solely because of the color of his skin, tend to forget that he’s also a member of the Democratic Party. In the United States, we basically have a two-party system comprised of Republicans (25%) and Democrats (31%). Even though the majority of us are independents (42%), who may at times be persuaded either way, we essentially have a two-party system with each side on opposite poles on just about every issue, foreign and domestic.

Generally, Republican voters stand for lower taxes, limited government, and a strong national defense; while Democratic voters slant towards higher taxes, an immense government, and a feeble defense. Both parties generally lean towards the preservation of individual liberties, except when it comes to certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act and an assortment of overbearing government regulations, but overall one would be correct in concluding that Republican voters disapprove of the Democratic Party’s policies period.

When it comes to President Obama, and the majority of Republicans feelings toward him, once this forgotten variable (the fact that he’s a Democrat) is added to the mix, one would be correct in stating that Republican voters don’t like President Obama because he adheres to Democratic Party policies. Say this and you’ve got it right. Say anything else and you’re a moron. When we are honest, and free of the poison of identity politics, we know this is the truth, but conflating differences in political ideology with racism is so far from reality that it borders on absurdity.

Political Racism

In short, racism is the belief that one race is superior to another. Formally defined, racism is, “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” But is there such a thing as political racism? If so, let us clearly describe what it would look like.

First of all, each major political party is comprised of members of each and every race. So is it possible for White Republicans to believe their race superior to that of Black Democrats? No, but isn’t that what the hucksters are saying? If this were true, then wouldn’t White Republicans also have to believe themselves superior to Black Republicans, as well as to White Democrats? Assuming all of this was true, it would follow that Black Republicans must believe their race is superior to that of Black Democrats. Wait, isn’t this all just foolishness? Here’s a newsflash for you: White Republicans are not a race, neither are White Democrats, Black Republicans nor Black Democrats.

To have any validity whatsoever, such political racism would have to arise between members of the same political party. For example, if there were a Black male Democrat who believed in essentially the same things as, let’s say, a White female Democrat, and one chose to pull the race card in order to discredit and belittle the other, perhaps then you could make a case for racism. But to be viable, you must begin with members of the same political party, who agree 100% on everything, par for par, apples to apples, where the only difference between them is race. But even then, their disagreements may not be due to racism.

It may just be that only one member can hold the office up for grabs, and there are essentially no differences between them, other than race. Who do you vote for when this arises? Will it be that every time a Black candidate faces off against a White candidate, we must all goose step to the drumbeat of the Black candidate, regardless of his or her moral character, political affiliation or beliefs? Must the Black candidate win 100% to 0%, in order to dispel any allegation of racism? Following such an election, must the public then agree 100% with whatever policies the Black officeholder dictates, without question? Is this how we are to correct the racial injustices of centuries past?

Identity Politics

It turns out that what 21st century Democrats are slobbering about isn’t racism at all, but rather a form of identity politics. Through identity politics, social pressure is applied in an attempt to influence the majority to accept the beliefs or behavior of a minority. But, we should never confuse beliefs and behavior with race. I am a Black Conservative, and entitled to my own opinions. Thank you! If I don’t like your brand of politics, and your policies have negatively influenced my life, why in the world would you expect me to convert to your position?

What did you think would happen when the first Black President was spawned from the Democratic Party? Did you expect Republicans to change their ideology? Did you think a light would dawn in the minds of Republicans, wherein they would realize they had been wrong about low taxes, limited government, and a strong national defense, altogether? Did you expect the entire party to repent, and join ranks with the Democratic Party? Is that how you thought it was supposed to work?

Did all Democratic Party members suddenly drop their party allegiance and join ranks with Republicans when George W. Bush was elected to the presidency? No, they didn’t. Rather, they screamed, hollered, whined and protested constantly about almost everything the man did or said. So now that the shoe is on the other foot, the same bunch is crying racism. Those that didn’t bother to vote in the 2014 mid-term elections did us all a favor. They know better. Here’s another newsflash: Abstention is a vote.

Repealing Obamacare

It would not matter whether President Obama was White, Hispanic, Asian, straight, gay, male or female; Republicans would disagree with his, and the Democratic Party’s policies period. My personal feelings about Mr. Obama are thus: I despise the man and everything he stands for. I have nothing against his wife and children, and if he wasn’t the President, I wouldn’t have an opinion either way. In fact, before he ran for President, I kind of enjoyed hearing what he and his fellow left-wingers had to say. But my personal animosity towards him began on the day he started campaigning for the office. For me it’s not personal, it’s all about his brand and style of politics.

Here’s the crux: I don’t like anyone telling me I have to do something, or if I refuse I’m going to be punished. Here’s a prime example: “You have to join our religion, or else we’re going to cut your head off.” Well, come on and take your best shot. You see, it’s one thing to make improvements to our national health care system, which actually improve our health and lower costs, but entirely another when it boils down to the government commanding me to buy one of its prescribed insurance plans, or else I will be forced to pay a tax. Pardon my French, but eff that!

The fact is if Mr. Obama’s health insurance plans were so great, and so affordable, then no one would have to force me to buy one, I would happily do so. However, as things stand today, in my opinion, his plans suck, and I can’t afford either available combination of premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. But what sucks even more is this notion that the federal government will impose an additional tax on me, for not complying with Mr. Obama’s individual mandate. The employer mandate is equally bad for America. Both should be repealed.

Whether you got a better deal through the Affordable Care Act, or nothing changed, you should realize that thousands upon thousands of your fellow Americans got screwed. My life was already tough enough without the government threatening to take more out of my pocket than it already takes, under the guise of this misnamed piece of legislation. They should rename it the “Either You Will Buy One of the Health Insurance Plans We Prescribe, or Else Hand Over a Percentage of Your Income to the Government Act”. The concept of play or pay doesn’t mesh with the ideal of liberty in my book. I should have enough freedom to say, “No thank you”.

The bottom line: Those of us who have adopted Conservative-Republican ideals will likely never join ranks with Democrats, no matter the identity of the Democratic Party leader du jour. Democrats can nominate anyone of their choosing next time, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, mixed, feminist, gay or lesbian, Christian or Muslim, but it won’t alter Conservative-Republican political beliefs one iota. Masking unpopular and unjust political policies behind the aura of anyone’s personal identity is akin to identity theft. President Obama’s policies aren’t Black or White; they belong to the Democratic Party, and are thus mostly defective outside the realm of a classroom. It’s time we end this errant notion of identity politics, and resume arguing our ideological differences at face value.

Image Via: The Pittsfield Police Department

Hope and Change on Ice

/ L. M. Walker / 2 Comments

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver
(8/31/1935 to 5/1/1998)

Remembering Eldridge Cleaver

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *

“Right-wing conservatives and left-wing radicals here in the U.S. must be willing and able to sit down at the same table, look across the table at each other and see not an enemy, a target or a statistic, but a brother, a sister, a fellow American, another child of God. We must expand our hearts and enlarge our identity beyond ‘my people’ to include and embrace all of Creation.” ~ Eldridge Cleaver

In the late 1960’s, after leading a troubled youth, Leroy Eldridge Cleaver became a prominent member of the Black Panthers. Having held the titles Minister of Information, Head of the International Section of the Panthers while in exile in Cuba and Algeria, and as editor of the official Panther’s newspaper, Cleaver’s influence on the direction of the Party was rivaled only by founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

Cleaver and Huey Newton eventually fell out with each other over the necessity of armed struggle as a response to the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program and other actions by the government against the Black Panthers and other radical groups. While Cleaver advocated the escalation of armed resistance into urban guerilla warfare, Newton suggested the best way to respond was to put down the guns, which he felt alienated the Panthers from the rest of the Black community, and focus on more pragmatic reformist activity.

In 1968, Cleaver was shot during an ambush he initiated against Oakland police officers, in which fellow Black Panther member Bobby Hutton was killed and two police officers were injured. Charged with attempted murder, he jumped bail and fled to Cuba and later to Algeria. Following Timothy Leary’s Weather Underground assisted prison escape, Leary stayed with Cleaver in Algeria; however, Cleaver placed Leary under “revolutionary arrest” as a counter-revolutionary for promoting drug use. Cleaver later fled Algeria and went underground in France.

Cleaver returned to the United States in 1975, having become a born again Christian, and renouncing his ultra-radical past. The charge of attempted murder, stemming from the armed Panther attack on Oakland police in 1968, ended in Cleaver being sentenced to probation for assault. In the late 1970’s, he joined the Mormon Church of Latter-day Saints. Once his probation ended, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on December 11, 1983. He periodically attended regular services, lectured by invitation at LDS gatherings, and was a member of the church in good standing at the time of his death in 1998.

Cleaver argued that the Mormons were among the few religious groups who, as an entity, did not propagate slavery. He simply found the claims that the Church was a “racist institution” to be unconvincing. Furthermore, Cleaver identified with Joseph Smith and with the ideas of a literal relationship to God as children, not as creations. He appreciated how seriously Mormonism took the written scripture.

Along with Cleaver’s theological conversion came a political conversion. By the 1980s, Cleaver had become a conservative Republican. He appeared at various Republican events and spoke at a California Republican State Central Committee meeting regarding his political transformation. He began lecturing on college campuses, promoting conservative issues and campaigned for then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan. In 1984 Cleaver ran for election to the Berkeley City Council but lost. Undaunted, he promoted his candidacy in the Republican Party primary for the 1986 Senate race but was again defeated.

Eldridge Cleaver’s journey, in his own words:

“I embarked upon a search to try to find out what was the truth. That led me to checking out all different kinds of religions. Because I knew that there must be some truth out there somewhere. But I found out that every time I went and checked out a religion or a sect or a denomination or a cult, people started calling me by names. I thought I’d better go check out the Mormons, so I went and studied their material, their doctrine. And People started calling me a Mormon… And then I went and checked out the Moonies to see what Rev. Moon was talking about. But I tell you, I was very reluctant, because after following Mao Tse Tung, and Ho Chi Ming, and Kim El Sun, I wasn’t ready for another great wise man from the East. And I said ‘Hey, I’m not a Moonie, I’m not a Mormon, I just got to the M’s!’

“You know, it’s a logical progression, it’s a metamorphosis. And what I found was that my heart was growing, I became more and more inclusive to be able to relate to more and more people on this planet.”

“I used to be a Marxist and I used to think all our problems were economic and political. But at the end of the day I found out that our main problems are spiritual problems. Because the connection between people and between Creation and the creator is not a political connection, it’s not an economic connection, it’s a spiritual connection. Your creator lays down markers in your life—you don’t know what all this is happening for.”

“A lot of people said I sold out. The biggest drug dealer in Oakland said to me: ‘You know, you flipped out, man.’ I said, ‘No I flipped back in.’” ~ Eldridge Cleaver

————————————————————

I can identify with Mr. Cleaver on several levels, although my life has been somewhat less dramatic. I grew up in the era. I was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1960. My father was a pioneer in the day, he was just completing his Master’s Degree when I came along. In 1964, my family headed for California, where we resided about 80 miles from Oakland. I remember the times. I remember the struggle.

Cleaver’s transformation was similar to my own. When my eyes finally opened, I came to know that, “… we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).” Once I understood, I embarked upon my own spiritual journey. I ran with the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Christian Scientists, then back to the Pentecostals. I just never made it to the M’s, yet.

In the early 1980’s, I too became a Reagan Conservative. Groupthink forever ceased to be my forte. Freedom requires an open mind. ‘The connection between people and between Creation and the creator is not a political connection, it’s not an economic connection, it’s a spiritual connection.’ I choose to live free. Today, I am an independent conservative, I am Christian, I am American, I’m Black, and I’m proud.

“If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.” – Soul on Ice – by Eldridge Cleaver

Right On, Eldridge, Right On!

References:

One Journey Home: Eldridge Cleaver’s Spiritual Path ~ by Linda Neale

From Black Panther to Mormon: The Case of Eldridge Cleaver ~ Mormon Matters

Photo via:

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Obama’s Illogical Health Care Act

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

Random Thoughts from an Independent Fiscal Conservative

  1. If the insurance industry does away with preexisting conditions, then health insurance costs will go down. Yeah, unless those people really get sick, and then health insurance costs will skyrocket.
  2. If younger workers who don’t want health insurance are forced to buy it, then health insurance costs will go down. Except, of course, for those who don’t pay for health insurance now.
  3. If everyone had health insurance then the quality of care would improve? Unless, of course, we don’t address the quality of health care.
  4. If we had passed Obamacare the Federal government’s monthly budget deficit would have only been $210 billion instead of $220 billion, in February. What a noble achievement. And what about the other $210 billion? Do we perhaps have bigger fish to fry?
  5. If 30 million people who can’t afford to pay one extra dime for health insurance are forced to buy it, then health insurance costs will go down. Except for those individuals who were not paying and now have to pay, and the rest of the population who will have to make up the difference.
  6. We got the Stimulus wrong, but we will get health care right. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
  7. The reason health insurance costs are rising is because of publicly traded, and (mostly) non-profit health insurance companies greed. Of course it couldn’t be related to the fact that Medicare and Medicaid undercut payments to doctors and hospitals, which makes insurance costs rise for the privately insured.
  8. Nobody complains about Medicare. And why would they? I mean it’s practically free, it’s completely insolvent, and it’s the cause of most of our national debt.
  9. We must pass Obamacare by March 18th. A more noble goal would be to draft a final bill first, then get public feedback, discuss it, debate it, and then vote. Is this deja vu?
  10. The American people want Obamacare to pass. No. The American people want Congress to start over and to calmly and rationally pinpoint the more pressing problems of the day, and to address those with logical and coherent solutions. Solutions that everyone would agree upon. In reality, there are only a few purple shirts out there who are being paid $15 per hour to act like they want it passed. The rest of us (unpaid and under appreciated) are willing to wait for the next Congress and the next president. Hopefully, a president who’s not all tanked up on Nicorette gum. And preferably a Congress who is less concerned with bribes and racketeering, and more concerned with facing facts with logical, non-political solutions.

End of Random Thoughts………

Not Accountable – It’s Your Government

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

By: Larry Walker Jr

The United States Government Accountability Office says major impediments are preventing GAO from rendering an opinion on the federal government’s financial statements, the federal government did not maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with significant laws and regulations due to numerous material weaknesses, and financial management system problems continue to hinder federal agency accountability. I’m just wondering whether the situation is improving as we trudge down Obama’s disastrous path.

My view is that it’s unwise to radically increase the size of any enterprise, which has an unsound and unreliable financial infrastructure. In my opinion the federal government is on an unsustainable path. I strongly question the federal governments ability to continue as a going concern. If the federal government were a publicly traded corporation, its CEO would be in prison. Just imagine the auditors of Bank of America, or AIG stating that they are unable to render an opinion because the entire financial structure is not accountable.

Here is what the GAO found in its latest July 8, 2009 report, followed by a link to the full report:

FISCAL YEAR 2008 U.S. GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

What GAO Found

For the second consecutive year, GAO rendered an unqualified opinion on the Statement of Social Insurance; however, three major impediments continued to prevent GAO from rendering an opinion on the federal government’s accrual basis consolidated financial statements: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense, (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements. In addition, as of September 30, 2008, the federal government did not maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with significant laws and regulations due to numerous material weaknesses. Moreover, financial management system problems continue to hinder federal agency accountability.

The federal government still has a long way to go, but over the years, progress has been made in improving federal financial management. For example, audit results for many federal agencies have improved; federal financial system requirements have been developed; and accounting and reporting standards have continued to evolve to provide greater transparency and accountability over the federal government’s operations, financial condition, and fiscal outlook. In addition, the federal government issued a summary financial report which is intended to make the information in the Financial Report of the U.S. Government more understandable and accessible to a broader audience.

The federal government’s response to the financial markets crisis and economic downturn has created new federal accountability, financial reporting, and debt management challenges. Such challenges will require utmost attention to ensure (1) that sufficient internal controls and transparency are established and maintained for all market stabilization and economic recovery initiatives; (2) that all related financial transactions are reported on time, accurately, and completely; and (3) these initiatives are effectively and efficiently financed. moreover, while policymakers are currently understandably focused on efforts directed toward market stabilization and economic growth, once stability in financial markets and the economic downturn are addressed, attention will have to be turned with the same level of intensity to the serious longer-term challenges of addressing the federal government’s large and growing structural deficits and debt.

Finally, the federal government should consider the need for further revisions to the current federal financial reporting model to recognize its unique needs. A broad reconsideration of issues, such as the kind of information that may be relevant and useful for a sovereign nation, could lead to reporting enhancements that might help provide the Congress and the President with more useful financial information to deliberate and monitor strategies to address the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09805t.pdf