NOW THAT THE PRESIDENT HAS MADE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR whose side he’s on in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, it’s time for those of us who disagree to be crystal clear about where we stand — squarely on the principles of justice and equality before the law.
That’s precisely what Bill O’Reilly did recently when he criticized Al Sharpton for using the outcome of the Zimmerman-Martin trial as proof America is just as racist as it was 50 years ago. Much to the chagrin of many in the mainstream media, last Saturday (July 27) CNN host Don Lemon agreed with O’Reilly. According to the Hip Hop Wired website (hiphopwired.com/), “Lemon responded to O’Reilly’s rant by saying, ‘He’s got a point. In fact, he’s got more than a point. In my estimation, he doesn’t go far enough.’”
Lemon was not the only African American to criticize Sharpton’s attacks. Writing in The Wall Street Journal July 22, Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, piled on with these words: “One wants to scream at all those outraged at the Zimmerman verdict: Where is your outrage over the collapse of the black family? … Seventy-three percent of all black children are born without fathers married to their mothers. And you want to bring the nation to a standstill over George Zimmerman?”
Our first African-American president continues to be Johnny One-Note, however. In his July 24 speech on the economy, he told his Knox College audience, “This growing inequality isn’t just morally wrong; it’s bad economics. . . . When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy.”
As the editors of the July 25 Wall Street Journal observe, though, “The core problem has been Mr. Obama’s focus on spreading the wealth rather than creating it. … The food stamp and disability rolls have exploded, which reduces inequality but also reduces the incentive to work and rise on the economic ladder. … And don’t forget the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policy, which has done well by the rich who have assets but left the thrifty middle class and retirees earning pennies on their savings. . . . If only Mr. Obama understood that before a government can redistribute wealth, the private economy has to create it.”
You’d think anybody born and raised in Hawaii — and who vacations every summer with his family on Martha’s Vineyard — would be able to grasp the simple idea that all boats are lifted on a rising tide.
Perhaps what the president and his White House advisers need right now is an alternative summer reading list — one that consists not of fictional “narratives” by progressive party hacks but of comprehensive, fact-based analyses by experts in law, economics, history, science and ethics.
It would, of course, be pure folly to argue with demagoguery and ignorance. That’s why this “full disclosure” column simply lists some of the most useful and reliable sources of information about American conservatism.
Those with closed minds will ignore and condemn such sources. Those with open minds will learn and profit from them.
Books
• Carson, Ben, M.D., “America the Beautiful” (2012)
• D’Souza, Dinesh, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” (2010)
• Freidman, Milton, “Why Government Is the Problem” (1993)
• Goldberg, Jonah, “Liberal Fascism” (2007)
• Hayek, F. A., “The Road to Serfdom” (2007)
• Klein, Edward, “The Amateur” (2012)
• Kranish, Michael, and Helman, Scott, “The Real Romney” (2012)
• Levin, Marc R., “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” (2010)
• Murray, Charles, “Losing Ground” (1994)
• Shlaes, Amity, “The Forgotten Man” (2007)
• Sowell, Thomas, “Economic Facts and Fallacies” (2008)
• Steyn, Marc, “America Alone” (2006)
• Sykes, Charles, “A Nation of Moochers” (2012)
Periodicals
Cybercast New Service
Forbes Magazine
Human Events
Imprimis: A Publication of Hillsdale College
National Review
Taki’s Magazine
The American Conservative
The American Spectator
The Christian Science Monitor
The Wall Street Journal
The Weekly Standard
Bruce Robinson is an author and former Benicia resident.
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Geez….talk about someone who is ‘one note’. Robinson takes the cake. Same old drive. Hey, read all these far right conservative sources that are as reliable and accurate as a Ouija board! My God…where to start? Ok, how about this….?
“You’d think anybody born and raised in Hawaii — and who vacations every summer with his family on Martha’s Vineyard — would be able to grasp the simple idea that all boats are lifted on a rising tide.”
For over 30 years…save the Clinton years…only the boats of the wealthy have been lifted. The rich are getting richer and richer…while the middle class and poor tread water or even decline in wealth.
Or, let’s try this….
“The food stamp and disability rolls have exploded, which reduces inequality but also reduces the incentive to work and rise on the economic ladder. ”
And, why are more people on food stamps? Oh, yeah…the Bush Great Recession! Over half receiving food stamps are working. More and more jobs are low wage jobs. I challenge the author to identify anyone who would rather collect food stamps than work. Of course, a raise in the minimum wage might DECREASE the food stamp rolls, so can I count on the author to endorse such a raise?
Robinson even endorses the cultural wisdom of Bill O’Reilly. You know…the guy who admitted to being SHOCKED when he went to a black-owned restaurant and the patrons weren’t yelling ‘Motherf******, get me another iced tea!’. And this is Robinson’s go-to guy on the African-American culture.
No, Robinson, the solution isn’t reading the ultra-right crap you read…it’s for you and your friends to escape the Faux Bubble…you know, where everyone KNEW Romney would win, even on election night…and took a breath in the world of reality.
First: Like Bruce, I write using my own name [ unlike “Benician ]. I can imagine that there are legitament reason for hiding behind a synomyn, but I cannot figure out why this writer who calls himself/herself Benician. Perhaps its because he would not like the public to know who is writing such tripe. My pen name is Conquitadori in this room, oops! I guess it is not a secret any longer! lol
It still appears to be a secret.
Benician I do have a question. Just what news outlets, newspapers,cable shows and network news outlets do you use for your vast info. You apparently do not watch Fox or read the WSJ{You know that one I would assume you know what i am talking about } So now can we compare your news sources to say the writer which I do not think you know what his outlets are. Lets say you put your sources out on the table and lets compare sources that I assume you read both sides and then make a comment based on both sides. Benician you have not done that. So now is your chance.
Bruce, gripped by simple ideas about the world as you consistently are, even your chosen sources of “information” share your “understanding” that tilts into superstition. You and they merely display again the fact that smart, educated people can rationalize their errors almost intelligently. These errors reflect the constricted portal through which you view that part of the world-scene the shape of your portal allows. I don’t expect you to grasp this elementary fact of epistemology. Your “portal” will reject it even before you see it. It functions something like Freud’s “Superego.” Likely, it correlates with your wished class-identity, financial interest and personal background and history. You embody the psychologically or spiritually shattered and polarized condition of current society, and hence are deprived of the wholeness and balance needed for truly clear perception and understanding. You ought to remain quiet. Take up meditation.
This is my advice also to other “Servants of the Con” whose writings appear on this Forum.
Bruce, here are three more that make for good reading for those who truly seek both sides of the issues. The two FDR books cover much of the same territory.
Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Robert Bork
FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt Prolonged the Depession
New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America – Burton Folsom
Dennis, once you grasp “both sides” of — say — a coin, do you actually have hold of the coin, or must you further grasp that you don’t hold “two sides” but the metal itself? Wake up, dear fellow. You’re in the same Right-Pocket world as Bruce.
PARABLE: A man had spent his whole life living in the right-hand pocket of a large Workman’s pair of pants. He believed the interior of that right side-pocket was the world itself, and the whole of existence. A slight doubt of his belief miraculously arose that let him intuit that he lived in a pocket. Unfortunately, he could not conceive of a whole pair of pants, let alone the Workman whom he had always misidentified as ethereally distant God. Anything other than his Right Pocket World could only be a Left Pocket. Hence, that poor man ended up in a most embarrassingly naked position, out of work, heading into the Cosmic Washing-Machine,
but sensing that he had been Nothing but a Small Investor.
ReParable: A young working man lived in a large left pocket of a pair of pants owned by Mr. Big. In that left pocket were all kinds of people; blue eyed, some brown and a few had green eyes. There were people with red hair, brown, black as well as blonde. The people in the left pocket knew there were other pockets, but also that the Right Pocket People (RPP’s) were all evil and devious. All the RPP were all the same: blue eyes, blonde hair. They all looked the same too, at least that was what the leaders of the LPP all told everyone and everyone knows that LPP leaders never ever lie.
Then on wash day all the pockets were empty and it was decided to pick a leader. The LPP picked one man who had blue eyes and brown hair and the RPP picked a man with brown eyes and black hair. This could not be so! All the RPP were Blue eyed blondes. The LPP were outraged and felt insulted. No RPP with brown hair and blues could be the leader! They had a meeting and decided they had to kill the RPP leader, so they gathered together, formed a lynch mob and were about to kill the poor RPP leader.
But then the RPP leader spoke his words rang true and the LPP’s were ashamed of themselves for it had been proven that they were liars, but hypocrites as well.
Then Mr. Big came back. And he put everyone back in their pockets, LPP in the Left, RPP in the right. But there were a few left over, including the young man.
Mr. Big asked him which pocket he wanted to be in and the young man decided he no longer wanted to be in the left pocket.
Moral of the story: It does not matter which pocket you are in, Mr. Big still wears the pants.
The problem with living in anyone’s pant pocket is all the lint you have to wade through. Let alone the fact that you are constantly in close proximity to someone nether regions. The wisest of all stays away from pant pockets entirely.
Here is some reading material I found interesting. It is a report created for, and released by, the College Republican National Committee. It is particularly relevant to BruRo’s closed minds vs. open minds paradigm.
http://images.skem1.com/client_id_32089/Grand_Old_Party_for_a_Brand_New_Generation.pdf
Mr. Petersen wrote: “Here is some reading material I found interesting.”
I too found the CRNC report interesting. I will forward your reference to RNC Chair Reince Priebus who, regrettably, seems utterly clueless about the important role mobile and social media played in the last election. Not I, however, for all but two of my 13 “millennial” grandchildren (as well as most of their parents) get their news from Facebook and Twitter—alas!
We conservatives take comfort in the long view of history (past and present), which may be summed up in these proverbial words of wisdom: “This too shall pass.”
A rising tide indeed lifts all boats, or so said John Kennedy. But his brother Bobby reminded him that not everyone could afford a boat… and asked him what would happen to those who live and work on the shoreline?