Sunday, April 27, 2014

Not an ideal hero

Is it my imagination or do the conservatives in this country make poor choices for their everyday heroes? They have rallied around George Zimmerman, who turned out to be a bad choice. Now there's Cliven Bundy--rancher, scofflaw, squatter, citizen of sovereign Nevada, and part-time constitutional scholar. We can also add embarrassing racist to the list too.

Two isn't much of a list, but can I add Ben Carson? There's also Herman Cain, Joe the plumber, and on the more professional side there are Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin.

Cliven Bundy, just like George Zimmerman, should have triggered warning bells. He doesn't acknowledge the U.S. government as sovereign. Yet he's mixed up enough to talk about the Constitution, and I don't think he's referring to the the Nevada state constitution either. He hasn't paid the fees for grazing his cattle for decades (or maybe ever) and he thinks he owns the land they graze on. What are the chances that he pays his federal taxes? Not high, I'm guessing. Yet a bunch of conservative pundits rallied around him, undeterred by his questionable legal status and questionable judgment. A bunch have had to temper their enthusiasm in light of his racist remarks.

He's certainly an attractive figure for gun rights whackos. He's protectin' his property from those dang lawless federales, who would take his property (and yours) if you gave them a chance. He collected a lot of people who'd enjoy a showdown with federal agents, but the agents didn't give it to them. That was probably wise, though it depends on how many people decide to copy the strategy.

Conservative hero worship is earned too easily, rarely recanted, and then the mistake is repeated again. The worship commences based on some big action, not quiet, thoughtful deeds. Conservatives could find thousands of heroes if being a hero wasn't based on shooting someone or disrespecting Obama to his face. But they choose what they choose, and evidently they choose the ones who provide red meat. That's dumb, but it's going to happen again and again.

Image: news.google.com


Another reason conservatives should be more careful--the left-leaning MSM will search for the Achilles heel of their hero, and report it with fanfare.

Update 7/28/14. George Zimmerman is positioning himself to shoot someone again. This guy is either stupid or sick. 

3 comments:

Dangerous said...

Good advice that they will never heed. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of activist Republicans agree with the sentiments of Mr. Bundy and his ilk, if not agreeing with his exact words.

Let's not forget that in many state Republican parties, Ron Paul's supporters took control of the apparatus. And Ron Paul has been in bed with all manner of racists and homophobes. They may be able to avoid proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but at a lesser standard of proof if it quakes like a duck ...

It's easy for people to disguise racism with hatred the government, particularly with a black president and social policies that the conventional wisdom and media truth have tagged as favoring blacks and minorities. Anti-government talk is code for racism. Now, I'll admit that many non-racist GOPers also don't like government for other reasons. But they happily bait the others with a wink and a nod, or at least the hint that "deep down we agree with you but we can't say that because then we'll lose".

I'm not so inclined to forgive them for this kind of either marketing or real positions they hold. They also gleefully engage every day in guilt-by-association against their opponents, with no other evidence that somehow Democrats in general or President Obama agree with the outrageous statements of people like Reverend Wright or the far left. Yet, Rush and Hannity and others immediately come the side and trumpet the totally ridiculous views of someone like Cliven Bundy. Even if he never uttered an inconvenient and impolitic word against minorities, he's still just a thief and deadbeat.

So it's going to happen again and again not because they aren't careful. It will because that's who they are and/or whose support they want to court.

MsLady said...

What frustrates me is the seeming inability of progressives to capitalize on these incidents, in terms of increasing minority voter turn-out (and not just minorities, but also moderate whites who are appalled and repelled by this sort of sentiment).

Amusingly, Bundy doubled down on his remarks by way of trying to explain that he was just wondering aloud whether blacks were better off under slavery or under the "welfare system that they currently live under". That made me laugh out loud, because the guy has his head so far up his ass that he apparently doesn't realize that assuming that the vast majority of black Americans live "under the welfare system" is racist in and of itself, let alone his moronic ruminations about the superior "family lives" of slaves as compared to modern black Americans.

And what of the millions of poverty-stricken whites who rely on welfare? Should they also try their hands at picking cotton to see if that's more work-ethic-inducing and socially acceptable than collecting welfare, or does that solution only apply to the descendants of slaves? Funny how poor, rural whites never seem to earn a mention whenever a conservative offers his views of the welfare state. Neither, for that matter, do corporate welfare takers.

And as an aside, conservatives' deification of George Zimmerman was nothing short of stupid and disgusting. So shooting an unarmed person doing nothing more menacing than walking home from the store, regardless of their age or race, qualifies as a heroic act to conservatives? That's just pathetic.

ModeratePoli said...

@MsLady, Welcome to my blog! About getting minorities to vote, it's a habit that has to be built up by the people, just like voting has been instilled in other US citizen. I'm thinking of the ethos among New Deal voters--it seems nothing stops them (or maybe it's just my mother who's like that).

Obama seems to have a very good GOTV organization, so he should keep it up and running for the next 20 years at least. If he does that, it may be his biggest legacy and something he was uniquely able to contribute.

I'm curious. How did you find my blog?