There are a few unpleasant facts we need to face:

1. Racists vote, right along with non-racists.

2. Southerners vote, right along with Eastern, Northern and Western voters.

3. Few screeds have changed racists into non-racists. Attempts to shame racists out of their attitudes have not succeeded.

4. Laws and public opinion have muted racism and driven it underground. No one wants to be tagged as a racist, even if they are one.

5. Racism still exists–heavily in social situations.

6. We often confuse racism with other forms of social acceptability or unacceptability, such as manners, presentation, language, hygiene, integrity, common sense, and good citizenship that are applied to everyone.

7. It is often the case, though not spoken of, that many blacks do not present themselves well in public, and are thus tagged with criminal intent, because that is an odds-on probability on the streets, especially late at night in black-dominated cities. Crime statistics back this up (This is not to say that whites present themselves well all the time.).

8. More and more blacks are indeed gaining social acceptance, because they try to do so, are reasonably educated, and present themselves properly.

9. Racism does play a part in attacking Obama, but from my admittedly-limited observations, it is a minor influence among the many whites that I have talked with here in Virginia. I would give it one part in ten at the most. The main complaint whites speak of is the seemingly anti-white ideas they believe that Obama and his wife espouse or hold close!

10. No one I know understands why we must run a projected deficit of 9 Trillion dollars over the next ten years; a projection that will undoubtedly grow by leaps and bounds as the Obama years go by.
The nation is broke right now.

From what I read on lots of internet sites, and from most of the people I meet who live in my neighborhood which is filled with many middle class people, and a lot of retirees, I feel that what I’m about to say represents what a lot of those people think as well. I’m hearing a groundswell against Obama’s policies and what he is doing or attempting to do to our country.

I’m not getting this racist thing at all. I think that’s an excuse that’s being used. It’s his policies that people talk about, not his race. It’s a neat excuse for some like Janine Garafalo who claimed racism of the ‘tea partyists’, but it’s all about policies–not race. Tea partiers are not racists, they’re Americans who are expressing their opinions about the direction our country is taking under Obama. Those who speak up at town halls are not racists, nor are they ‘mobs’, they are people who are concerned about the direction we’re being taken by Obama. They’re Americans exercising their right of free speech.

America was founded on the concepts of freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, the press, and freedoms of private enterprise, as well as the continuation of those rights through elected representatives who promise to uphold the Constitution of those rights. But we are moving away from some of those freedoms faster than ever could have been imagined. Not only with certain government take overs, and potential take overs (like ‘government’ health care), but with rumors of potentially trying to limit free expression in media on radio and internet, and even via the UN–the taking away of free speech in the guise of so-called ‘hate speech’. Perhaps that will be next in this out of control congress as well, the stopping of our free speech to speak out via the internet or radio.

Another thing brought up in this article I don’t understand is blaming so-called ‘birthers’ for their belief that it is necessary for a man who is called upon to do so, to actually provide a long form birth certificate. Instead Obama chooses to spend millions of dollars with a team of lawyers in order to NOT have to show his long form original birth certificate. What is that about? Anyone could have gotten the type of ‘Certificate of Live Birth’ shown on the internet for him, even if they were born out of the country, just by someone showing up and registering there was a birth. But the real long form BC showing the hospital, the time of birth, the doctor, the weight of the baby, and a lot of other details is only gotten by actual birth in said hospital–so WHY does he refuse to show that long form birth certificate? Can anyone explain that?

We who demand this of him–show the real long form birth certificate, may not like him, that’s very true. But it’s not because we are racists, southerners, low income, gun toters, Republican Christians, or anything else. I’m not any of those. It’s because we believe in the Constitution, and because we are a country of laws, and that there are reasons for laws, and those laws should be followed for good reason. This man is not above the law. And a precedent should not be set, nor an exception be made for him.

The internet is the only free press we have. And so far, we can still stand up for the right to tell what is, whether it’s about his birth certificate, or his background, or his anti-Constitutional policies.

http://www.theobamafile.com/

Agree 100% racism (I prefer xenophobia . . . “racism” is loaded) is not a Southern thing. Its a human thing. ALL people have some strain of xenophobia, to some extent. I also agree that “[o]bjecting to large government, higher taxes, and more socialism” are tenets of the Republican party. We may disagree with how genuinely the party follows those tenets, but they are tenets of the party.

If the xenophobia exists, then I don’t think saying that the disagreements with Obama (NOT with the Democratic Party . . . with HIM) are based on policy differences is covering up the xenophobia. Obama is Hitler (for pushing for health care reform, a staple of the Democratic party for half a century), Obama is Stalin, “I want my country back!!”, “I don’t trust him, he’s an Arab”, showing up to a town hall with the President of the United States armed with a loaded AR-15 and carrying a sign reading “time to refresh the Tree of Liberty”. . . that’s not a policy dispute.

Several weeks ago, someone here mentioned the difference between opposition to Bush and opposition to Obama (I was, and am, vehemently opposed to the Bush Administration). Anti-Bush people demanded impeachment. The demanded prosecution. They DIDN’T advocate assassination, revolution, armed insurrection, etc. Those aren’t tenets of the Republican Party.

“Don’t socialize my Medicare!” may be phrased as a simple policy debate, but it is difficult not to see something more at play.

Mike Reynolds may phrase it strongly in comment #42, but the point he makes is valid. Republicans were/are opposed to the Clinton Administration. Many thought he was tacitly involved in a murder (if you believed Vince Foster was murdered). But the disagreement didn’t go to hysterical levels like it has with Obama . . . and Obama hasn’t been in power for even a year. Maybe the difference is truly that Obama’s agenda is so radically different from other Democratic Administrations . . . but if it is I don’t see the massive difference. If the current administration is simply a Democratic one, and the dispute is really policy based, then why the over-the-top behavior? I agree with the label “hysteria”, and hysteria isn’t a policy difference.

**off-topic: to SJ — You deserved a fair and respectful response to your post to me several threads ago. By the time I got a break from work to get back here, I couldn’t find the thread to reply. That was not my intent, and I apologize for leaving the questions you posed unanswered.

Yes. There is no racism in the GOP. The fact that the GOP went from zero to batshit crazy paranoid lunatic ranting insane birther/deather idiocy in roughly a millisecond, that’s normal. Can’t you see that? Completely normal. The whole “Obama is a Nazi because he wants poor people to see a doctor” thing? That’s in no way, shape or form evidence that Republicans are racist nuts.

Objecting to large government, higher taxes, and more socialism, is not racist as much Republican.