GOP speaking instructions: open mouth, insert foot.

[Mikey]

Ben Carson graces the world with a particularly unique brand of bigotry and insensitivity that is dumbfounding for an educated minority gentleman. Honestly, even if he believed his own crap, wouldn't he know better than to say these things in public?

[Vic]

Bigoted about Nazis? Because absolutely nothing in his statement is bigoted about Jews or Gypsies or anyone else that the National Socialists victimized. Or is it because he does not think that anyone who would hold Sharia Law above the Law of the United States should not be President?

[Mikey]

Bigoted about Nazis? Because absolutely nothing in his statement is bigoted about Jews or Gypsies or anyone else that the National Socialists victimized. Or is it because he does not think that anyone who would hold Sharia Law above the Law of the United States should not be President?

I'm writing about his Holocaust statement, not about his views about Sharia law. We had that argument in the 1960 presidential campaign with JFK, if you'll recall, and I'm not willing to revisit it. No, I mean bigoted in the sense that if I said that same thing about HIS minority culture, I'd be crucified. Think of the response if I said, "You know, if Africans had been better armed then we probably wouldn't have had this whole headache over the triangle slave trade." The fact of the matter is that Carson used an awful and ethnic-driven divisive example in a misguided attempt to support a political leaning, and I am absolutely flabbergasted that someone's trying to defend him for it.

Here's the second point, similar to Ann Coulter's recent idiot comment about the Jews. Carson is a supposedly well-educated member of the intelligentsia of our nation. Does he not understand that in the political arena, you just can't say certain things in certain ways? Even if some moron agreed with him, he still can't go around talking lightly about a current ethnic group OR about the genocide of 13 million ethnic minorities and other minority groups.

[Captain Seafort]

Ann Coulter's recent idiot comment about the Jews

You'll have to be a lot more specific than that Mikey - I've yet to hear of her opening her mouth to do anything but change feet.

[McAvoy]

Ann Coulter's recent idiot comment about the Jews

You'll have to be a lot more specific than that Mikey - I've yet to hear of her opening her mouth to do anything but change feet.

Agreed. I have yet to hear her say anything rational of respectable.

[Mikey]

Ann Coulter's recent idiot comment about the Jews

You'll have to be a lot more specific than that Mikey - I've yet to hear of her opening her mouth to do anything but change feet.

Ah, sorry. Here's the particular idiocy to which I was referring. It's a good example, because except for her choice of language it wasn't one of the most bizarrely bigoted things she's said - it's just that someone in the media for a living has got to know what you can and can't say out loud.

[Captain Seafort]

it's just that someone in the media for a living has got to know what you can and can't say out loud.

What the media "can and can't say out loud" correlates exactly to what does and doesn't make money, and Coulter is very good at judging that. Besides which, in this case at any rate, if it hadn't been for the "fucking Jews" comment you'd have to admit that she had a point - why on Earth do Republicans so often act as though Israel is a swing state in US elections?

[Mikey]

it's just that someone in the media for a living has got to know what you can and can't say out loud.

What the media "can and can't say out loud" correlates exactly to what does and doesn't make money, and Coulter is very good at judging that. Besides which, in this case at any rate, if it hadn't been for the "fucking Jews" comment you'd have to admit that she had a point - why on Earth do Republicans so often act as though Israel is a swing state in US elections?

"If it hadn't been" is my point. I don't know that I truly disagree with her intention; the part with which I take exception is the language of the commentary. By "can and can't say" I don't mean what raises interest, even negative interest; I mean that she will complain about criticism, even after making a commetn like that.

[Graham Kennedy]

Bigoted about Nazis? Because absolutely nothing in his statement is bigoted about Jews or Gypsies or anyone else that the National Socialists victimized.

Except for the part where he is (at least) heavily implying that victims of the holocaust are to blame for what happened to them. Don't know if you could call that bigoted as such, but it's certainly and incredibly dickish and stupid thing to say.

Or is it because he does not think that anyone who would hold Sharia Law above the Law of the United States should not be President?

I wonder what his views are on people who break the law for their christianity rather than their islam?

[Vic]

Bigoted about Nazis? Because absolutely nothing in his statement is bigoted about Jews or Gypsies or anyone else that the National Socialists victimized.

Except for the part where he is (at least) heavily implying that victims of the holocaust are to blame for what happened to them. Don't know if you could call that bigoted as such, but it's certainly and incredibly dickish and stupid thing to say.

Or is it because he does not think that anyone who would hold Sharia Law above the Law of the United States should not be President?

I wonder what his views are on people who break the law for their christianity rather than their islam?

I've been looking at transcripts of those statements and I can find no implications of blame in them for the German Jews. It is historically debatable as to whether or not an armed Jewish populace could have made any difference whatsoever, but that is all there is to it. If you can find a more complete transcript I'd be more than willing to go through the statements.

[Mikey]

The "implications of blame" that you're not seeing are present - obvious, even - in the very premise of the statement. Just the idea of speaking about what the Jews could have/should have done to stop the Holocaust is relieving blame from the Nazi party and transferring responsibility for the Holocaust onto the Jews who "failed to prevent it." It's no different than the victim-blaming that goes on in myriad rape cases every year. I'm still unsure how to read defense of such victim-blaming WRT the Holocaust.

[Vic]

No where in there is the statement or even implication of "It's the Jews fault", nowhere. There is on the other hand every implication that it is the nazis fault by continuing the Weimar policy of disarming it's citizens. Read into it what you wish, realize though that is what you are doing, nothing more. The only way to imply fault with the Jews is to imply fault with ALL Germans for being good subjects and obeying the laws put forward by the German government.

[sunnyside]

It's going to be difficult to learn from history if one isn't allowed to at any point mention minority groups. I guess you'd just study white straight men?

He was trying to make a policy statement, and in looking to support his second amendment claims he would have sought a case where:

#1 A government banned weapons (ideally including guns specifically) for all or part of it's populace
#2 The populace complied
#3 The government then did horrible things to the now unarmed populace

I think we can all agree that one particular historical example stands above the others, at least in terms of historical events Americans would have heard about.

Since the point of the statement is to say that we shouldn't allow such a thing, it's going to be pretty much impossible not to imply that the victim in #3 didn't make a mistake. However the issue is the issue (2nd amendment), it isn't about the victim group.

Would it have helped if he had found a number of lesser known examples and rattled them all off?

[sunnyside]

- why on Earth do Republicans so often act as though Israel is a swing state in US elections?

The Israel Public Affairs Committee generally gets ranked as the second most powerful lobby. That's not conspiracy stuff, it's an entirely legal lobby. The American Association of Retired Persons typically comes in first, and nobody on either side dares pissing them off, hence why their entitlement programs get called "sacred cows" when budget battles go on.

[Mikey]

So, blaming the victims is OK so long as you couch it in the guise of historical talking points? Good to know.