The candidate of hope and change selected a running mate who was first elected to public office when Obama was 9 years old. He was elected to the Senate when Obama was 11.Still, given Sunday's lead Washington Post editorial, I may have been too hasty in assuming Biden would stall transracial transformation:
[W]e saw a glimpse of the old Biden when he met with The Post's editorial board during his short-lived presidential campaign. Asked about failing schools, Mr. Biden seemed to suggest that one reason so many of the District's schools fail is the city's large minority population and contrasted D.C. schools with those in Iowa. "There's less than 1 percent of the population in Iowa that is African American," Mr. Biden said. "There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with." The Biden campaign quickly issued a statement asserting that the candidate was referring to socioeconomic status, not racial differences.Picking a politician to run for Vice President after such an on-the-record gaffe1 proves that the change already has arrived. Obama's mere appearance already has wrought the heralded transracialism. There's no need actually to elect the man.
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1 Remembering that the Post hasn't endorsed a Republican for President since Eisenhower's first term, republishing this anecdote now doubtlessly was an attempt to inoculate the ticket from accusations of racism. Yet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Following the passage quoted above, the editorial's next sentence reads: "The lesson we took was not to think that Mr. Biden is a racist -- we don't -- but to worry about his tendency to speak too much before he thinks enough." This is itself remarkable: the candidate for Vice President acquitted on the charge of racism because he's incompetent to stand trial.
7 comments:
I told you he would not become PotUS.
Not this time around, anyway. Hopefully, never.
But he's got too many target points and not enough defenses. Now add to that not enough brains, but that followed from the socialist upbringing.
The Biden quote is utterly amazing.
Carl's footnote is hilarious, except that the WaPo's forgiveness of such obvious racism is truly troubling.
bobn - you can make the strongest argument that gun laws are fairly irrelevant to crime rate. As per John Lott, there might be some tendency toward "More Guns, Less Crime." But cultural/ethnic differences plus how much different ethnic groups brush up against each other accounts for almost all of the variation in violent crime. New England has had low violent crime since colonial times, TN and GA have had high violent crime since the 18th C.
I can put you onto my posts and sources for this if you like.
Obama is TOAST. The election is OVER.
Here's the proof: http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080823/capt.88cb2b162f784466a5a63016a89e1a9f.obama_2008_ilmg122.jpg?x=400&y=273&q=85&sig=wLPhven86zRdKYcERoo9iQ--
Spectacularly bad judgment!
AND race has NOTHING to do with it.
Although guns'r' sorta OT, I commented over at bob's about this, and thought I'd dupe it here:
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Nicely argued.
Additionally, I'd call attention to the UK's crime stats.
1) About 10 years ago, the UK made a defacto ban on all guns, even long guns. It's hard to own one even for sport shooting (i.e., skeet, trap, etc)
2) UK per-capita violent crime has been steadily approaching, and in almost all cases surpassing that of the USA for around three decades. The gun ban had no substantial positive/reductive affect.
3) In the USA, most home-invasion robberies (about 80%) occur when the owner is away. In the UK, that figure is reversed -- most occur when the owner is HOME -- because the owner, defenseless peon that he is, is able to tell the thug(s) where the valuables are, and they are chosen for their inability to fight back(see below). While getting robbed is most unsettling at any time, doing it with you THERE, helpless, has to add substantial additional psychological trauma to the event.
4) In re, 3, above -- violent crimes are even more heavily weighted against women and old people. If the thugs don't have guns, then all they have to do is choose victims who they can physically overpower with ease -- women and seniors. Since there is no risk to them of being faced with a gun, they know they can generally win that face-off every time.
But wait -- it gets better -- lots better:
Read this.
And This.
They veer in a different direction than the basic topic, but they also relate to the question at hand: The validity and utility of gun control laws.
I'd like to have more reliable sources than those last two links, but there's no particular reason to question them, at this point.
> I tend toward AVI's view: rather than merely race, it's culture--or clashes between different and closely spaced culture
I have problems with this latter notion. In the USA, at least, all too much of a percentage of violent crime derives from blacks.
It's not race-vs-race, as one might think at first.
If you square it off:
. Perp: Black White
Victim==========================
Black
White
The percentage of crimes in the Black perp column is way out of proportion to that in the White perp column. I don't have numbers to hand to support that assertion, so value it as you will. I have seen them, however, and find the sources to be credible.
The above holds sway even if low socioeconomic status is figured in. Poor whites commit far fewer crimes per capita than poor blacks.
I'm not claiming it's a skin color thing by any means -- but I do believe it's a culture thing at the least (and not a "cultural boundary" issue -- it's the black culture, period).
Much of black culture encourages, allows, and supports violent behavior and action. It does not look down on gang activity, gang violence, or the drug-lowlife cultural connection.
If you extract black-perp stats from US crime statistics, it's remarkable how Eurpean they are... despite the widespread availability of guns.
Again, this isn't intended to be a racist polemic -- I cite only stats, which generally cannot be racist.
These stats lead you to the notion that there is something problematic with black cultural memes which lead them to such violence, and that the solution is not more gun control, more drug control, or even more prisons. It's needful that we get a lot more people who ack what Bill Cosby, as well as many other prominent blacks have said: A history of slavery can no longer be blamed for modern black problems. Blacks themselves need to examine what they contribute to their overall lower status.
I do agree with OBH about the relationship between gun control an home invasion.
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