Don't Apologize

Did Governor LePage tell the NAACP to “kiss my butt”? Well, yes and no.

The NAACP expects politicians to kiss their butt, and for decades they’ve gotten in line, kneeled down, and puckered up. Many resented it, but they held their noses and laid on the lip smacks anyway. While the NAACP may once have been a legitimate civil rights organization, they have devolved into a condescending, left-wing, special-interest group and their biggest interest is playing on white guilt to further their far-left agenda - especially racist policies like Affirmative Action. Martin Luther King would never have supported it, saying as he did: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”Maine’s new governor is unpretentious. He’s conservative so I’m inclined to like him, but his candor is most refreshing: “I’ve not yet learned to speak out of both sides of my mouth,” he says. Liberals, who have been running Maine for decades, find him appalling. They claim he told the NAACP to “kiss my butt.” He didn’t, actually, but that’s what is going out over national news. Ben Jealous, CEO of the national NAACP, wants LePage to apologize.

To put this into perspective, we must go back a bit. First, LePage is in sync with the Tea Party movement whose primary goal is to limit government to what the framers of our Constitution intended. Thousands of small-government-conservative candidates for state and federal offices across the country were swept into office as the Tea Party changed American politics. Big government liberals are in shock and desperate to stop it. Trying to pin the recent Arizona shootings on them is only their latest in a series of attempts to tarnish them. Maine elected a conservative governor because enough people - even in this very liberal state - see big government as the problem, not the solution.

While LePage campaigned against big government last October, opponents videotaped him saying: "We came from behind because we have a message. We have a message that says:  One, we've had enough of the federal government. We've had enough. Two, we've had enough of the state government. And number three, government should be working for the people, not the people working for the government. And as your governor, you're gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell."

Well, that last phrase is exactly what liberals in Maine were hoping for as they followed LePage around with a video camera. The comment made national news, but the context in which it was spoken did not. Obama is the quintessential big government liberal. Obamacare is his signature accomplishment and the Tea Party was born in opposition to it. Government will take over 18% of our entire economy and force Mainers to buy health insurance. Obamacare’s constitutionality is being challenged by dozens of states in federal court for exercising power the constitution didn’t grant it. Obama has run up more debt and expanded government more than any other president in American peacetime history, and it all makes life much more difficult for state governors like LePage.

Any criticism of President Obama is assumed by our liberal mainstream media to be racially motivated. They think all conservatives - especially us rural types - are dumb rednecks. Obama himself said: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

So, when LePage declined the Maine NAACP’s invitation to an event at the Maine State Prison last weekend, the media pressed him. LePage knew where they were going and he said the NAACP was a special interest group, while he represents all Mainers. A reporter asked how he would respond to those who claim his decision not to attend was part of a negative pattern (in other words - what do you say to people who imply that you’re a racist?), he smiled and said: “Tell them to kiss my butt.” Cameras were running, so it’s on video.Last July, the NAACP accused the Tea Party of racism. There was no evidence, but a lack of evidence never stops liberals from accusing conservatives - as we’re seeing in Arizona. The mainstream media is always ready to amplify baseless accusations because perception is reality in politics. People vote based on their perception of issues and the liberal media, until just recently, have enjoyed monopolistic control over that perception. Lately conservatives have used talk radio, Fox News, and the internet to chip away at their monopoly and that’s driving liberals crazy.One of the first things LePage did as governor was to rescind his predecessor’s executive order banning state employees from inquiring about anyone’s immigration status. Now police, welfare officials, or anyone else can refuse to grant special privileges to illegal aliens. Maine is no longer a sanctuary state. Naturally, Maine chapters of both the far-left NAACP and the ACLU organized a protest against LePage for Martin Luther King Day. In Maine and Arizona, liberals consider those of us who are against paying benefits for illegal aliens sneaking into the United States to be just as “racist” as the Tea Party.

Governor LePage shouldn’t apologize for telling them all to kiss his butt. In fact, he should tell them more often.

Racism and Wolves

The villagers don’t all come running anymore when the NAACP cries “Racism!” It’s getting so they don’t take that organization any more seriously than they took the boy who cried “Wolf!” There used to be lots of racism when the NAACP formed, but they still claim to see it everywhere, even when it doesn’t exist. The shepherd boy who cried “Wolf!” in Aesop’s fable was bored and wanted to generate excitement with his antics, but that’s not the case with the NAACP. They cry racism lately because they’re afraid government programs they’ve lobbied for may be curtailed due to pressured from groups like the Tea Party.

There was a time “colored people” were oppressed by Jim Crow laws and white racism, but it’s almost half a century since the Civil Rights Bill was passed, the KKK was neutered, and racism turned into the racial preferences known as “Affirmative Action” which the NAACP supports. For nearly two generations, the deck has been stacked in their favor, but too many still play victim because it’s all they know how to do. As long as some “villagers” in the form of politicians and media keep running up, wringing their hands and appeasing them when they cry racism, they’ll continue. Many like me, however, stopped responding long ago. We’re not racists, we never owned slaves or oppressed minorities, and neither did our ancestors that we know of. We realize that all people have suffered throughout history - and there comes a time when we have to stop whining and get on with it.

Americans are getting mighty tired of that growing segment of our citizenry who see themselves as victims and who habitually blame others for their situation. There are many others who carry around guilt for having been born white, or wealthy, and will come running whenever someone claims “I’m a victim!” Victimology has become a lucrative racket for people like the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and organizations like “La Raza” (translated: “The Race”) and AIM - the American Indian Movement. There many other victim groups whose grievances no longer exist, or have diminished to such an extent that they’re hardly recognizable, but they continue to sing the same old song.

As Walter Williams wrote this week: “Yesteryear, it was the Klan or White Citizens Council who showed up at polling places to intimidate black voters. During the 2008 elections, it was the New Black Panthers who showed up at a Philadelphia polling place to intimidate white voters and tell them, ‘You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.’ What's worse is the U.S. Department of Justice has decided to not to prosecute.”

Former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams resigned over this, claiming voter intimidation charges were dropped because of racial bias and corruption on the part of President Obama’s Attorney General - Eric Holder.

Racism isn’t the cause of astronomical crime rates or high unemployment rates for black men. Their self-made subculture is a much bigger factor, but few have the courage to point that out. Who wants to hire someone who drives up blaring obscene, angry rap music with his hat on backwards, his pants sliding off his rear end, and purposely speaking in fractured English? I sure wouldn’t. Black men are not arrested and imprisoned at higher rates because of racism. They’re arrested and imprisoned more because they commit more crimes.

Young black men today are not victims of racism as much as they’re victims of race-hustlers who profit from perpetuating the myth that racism is what’s keeping them down. They’re victims of their own thinking - that if they study hard, do their homework, get straight jobs, save money, and walk the straight-and-narrow, they’re “acting white.” They’re victims of government give-away programs that have subsidized their irresponsible behavior for half a century.

It’s those continually-expanding entitlement programs - which disproportionately high percentages of black people and other minorities have come to depend on - that are threatened by the Tea Party, because they’re bankrupting local, state, and federal government. Rather than examine the efficacy or affordability of those programs, the NAACP cries “Racism!” It worked for most of a century, but it’s wearing very thin now.

Whenever I hear the incessant, deep-base cadence of rap music, I feel a visceral negative reaction. Not only does it glorify illegal drug use, exploitative and degrading attitudes toward women, nasty sexual behavior, and violence against law enforcement and rival gangs - it’s celebrated by the entertainment industry as “authentic.” That industry meets annually to bestow awards on the “artists” who produce it instead of condemning them for the malignant mindsets they spread.

When this subculture is mimicked by the rural white boys I teach, no good results that I’ve ever been able to see. We tolerate them walking around in schools and other public places with their pants down below their asses and this malignancy has infected young males from the sticks to suburbia. My least functional male students wear the outfit and imitate the behavior. They think “acting black” is cool. They revel in music and the anger it drills into them. They disdain learning. They’re rebels without a cause. They’re caught up in a contagion of anger and belligerence, and they think it must be normal because too many of the so-called adults around them seem to accept it as such.They accept it because if they criticize it, they might be accused of racism.

Who's the Coward?

“Hello fellow cowards,” said Ward Connerly after stepping up to the mike at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) last month. Thousands in the crowd with me laughed uproariously. He was referring to what President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, said the previous week - that we are “a nation of cowards” because we don’t talk about race enough. He wants to “foster a dialogue between the races.”

I couldn’t disagree more. I got tired of talking about race decades ago and most people I know are tired of it too. Remember 1997 when President Clinton began his second term saying we needed a “national dialogue on race”? I was thinking, “Oh boy. Not again.” We talk about race way too much, but Democrats are obsessed with it - so on and on it goes. Where it stops, nobody knows.

On two different forms this school year, government asked my students to categorize themselves by “race,” even though that same government outlaws racial discrimination. Everybody in America is forced to do this over and over again in an ordinary lifetime. Government is obsessed with race but ordinary people are moving well beyond it. It compiles statistics endlessly about how “African Americans” score on tests, are infected with HIV, own their own homes, are aborted, are imprisoned, what their average life expectancy is, and on and on. If there are discrepancies between how blacks are doing and how whites are doing on anything, it’s assumed to be the result of racial discrimination by whites against blacks. Democrats in government proclaim that “Affirmative Action” is necessary to “remedy” the situation.

That generally takes the form of racial quotas in hiring, awarding contracts, admission to universities, and, most recently - writing sub-prime mortgages, according to economist Thomas Sowell. Community organizers like President Obama’s buddies at ACORN threatened to sue banks if they didn’t lend to “minority” applicants who too often couldn’t afford the kind of house they wanted to buy. This sort of “affirmative action” is at the root of the economic debacle we’re currently facing, but such a discussion is not the kind of dialogue Attorney General Holder wants to have - and I’ll probably be accused of racism for writing about it.

Democrats think their racial discrimination is benevolent. They tell themselves and everyone else that granting jobs, contracts, and college admissions to women, blacks, and other minorities over white and Asian males isn’t discrimination at all. Such doublethink is their stock in trade. That’s why they get 95% of the black vote and 75% of the Hispanic vote.

With the exception of conservative black men such as Ward Connerly and Thomas Sowell quoted above, there’s little or no inclination among most so-called black “leaders” to scrap the racial discrimination euphemistically known as “affirmative action.” Even though much was made of Barack Obama’s election as the first black president, and his appointment of Eric Holder as the first black Attorney General, those two men are making sure they play the same old victim tune previous unsuccessful black candidates like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton make their livings on.

Speaking to a group called the “State of the Black Union” two weeks ago, President Obama said, “You know that tough times for America often mean tougher times for African Americans. This recession has been no exception.” He obviously intends to continue affirmative action, saying that he is “closing the gap between the nation we are and the nation we can be,” by including it in his “economic stimulus” bill.

About the jobs in that bill, Obama’s chief economic advisor, Robert Reich said, “I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals, or to white male construction workers.”

Victim mentality pervades the 95% of blacks who voted for Obama and other Democrats. They don’t tend to think of themselves as Americans first. They’re “black” first, and Americans second. Hence the now ubiquitous term “African American.” The dysfunctional numbers gathered for blacks by a race-obsessed government show a lead in nearly every negative category: illegitimate births, crime, unemployment, HIV infection, lowest life expectancy, and so forth. Black “leaders” and liberal Democrats desperately want something else to blame for all this and avoid examining their own culpability. Slavery and white racism kept blacks down for centuries, but the above-listed issues cannot be explained that way. Most flared up after the Civil Rights Act - and after Democrat “War on Poverty” subsidies nearly destroyed the black family, and after a gangster subculture began filling the vacuum created.

The Civil Rights Act was intended to outlaw discrimination and equalize public and private treatment of people regardless of race. Liberal Democrats, however, used it to substitute one form of discrimination for another, then masked it by calling it Affirmative Action. Hence the title of Ward Connerly’s latest book, “Creating Equal,” in which he argues for an end to it. He wants bookstores to take it out of their “African American Department” and include with all their other books.

If Eric Holder wants to talk about these issues, fine. But we know they’d be off the table because cowards like him are afraid to address them.

Maine's New Religion

Maine issues driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Some people here think it’s a problem and some don’t. One of the former is Paula Silsby, US Attorney for the district of Maine. “Silsby says not having a residency requirement opens a major loophole in the system and criminals can get through it,” according to a report from Kara Matuszewski on the WCSH Newscenter6 web site. “A drivers license is, in many instances, the keys to the kingdom,” said Silsby.

Among those who don’t think it’s much of a problem is the person responsible for issuing Maine driver’s licenses. “There are reasons why someone may not be a resident, but wants a Maine driver's license, said Secretary of State Matt Dunlap to WCSH. “Students or people who do a lot of business in Maine may want a driver’s license from the state. The system isn’t perfect.” Thanks a lot, Mr. Secretary. You spoke without addressing the issue. Matt Dunlap: the artful dodger.

Another who doesn’t see it as a problem is Maine Governor John Baldacci, a liberal Democrat. He issued an executive order that state employees may not question the “immigration status” of anyone applying for anything in Maine, making this a sanctuary state for illegal aliens. That would include applying for a whole spectrum of welfare benefits which are more generous here than in many other states. It’s no wonder illegal aliens want to come to Maine. How many are coming? We don’t know, because state officials would be penalized if they even ask, so we don’t keep track.

Another who doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem is the executive editor of Maine’s largest newspaper, Jeannine Guttman at The Portland Press Herald. Like the rest of the unconcerned, she’s an evangelist for one of the fastest-growing religions in Maine: Worshipers of Diversity and Multiculturism. They think it’s a problem that Maine’s population is mostly white. “. . . Maine has been one of the whitest states in the country,” she wrote to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. “A decade ago, that statistic blocked serious endeavors to try to diversify our staff. A common misperception was that journalists of color wouldn’t feel comfortable living in Maine because it was too white, so why bother to recruit?” Well, recruit she did in spite of Maine’s “too many white people” problem. People “of color” are replacing people “of pallor” on her rolls. The Press Herald’s new rainbow staff devoutly publishes endless articles in praise of Diversity and Multiculturism.

Backing up this effort, the University of Maine’s coursework requires those training to become teachers, social workers, and others studying the humanities professions to read and discuss Peggy MacIntosh’s essay: “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” MacIntosh is a devout believer and evangelist for Maine’s new state religion. She tries to make the case that, just as men are are “overprivileged,” so are white people. “Having described it,” she writes of this alleged overprivilege people of pallor have, we each have to ask ourselves: “what will I do to lessen or end it?”

Lessening “white privilege” takes many forms which include recruiting on the basis of skin color as the Press Herald is so proud of doing, or an executive order by the governor that recruits illegal aliens (who are usually people “of color”) to Maine. Why limit ourselves to American citizens of color when we can recruit illegal aliens worldwide? This grand crusade is financed, of course, by confiscatory tax rates on overprivileged people of pallor. Worshipers of diversity and multiculturalism feel very good about themselves when they spend other people’s money to propagate their religion. Thanks to them, Maine has become the highest taxed state in the country while remaining one of the poorest. It’s also one of only two states whose economy stagnated in 2006, while the other forty-eight prospered. The other state whose economy languished was Louisiana, which suffered enormous damage from Hurricane Katrina. Maine didn’t have a hurricane.

As stated above, we don’t know how many illegals in Maine got driver’s licenses because state employees are forbidden to even ask about immigration status, much less keep records. We can get a hint, however, because according to WCSH, there’s an increasing number of people with the Social Security number 999-99-9999 holding Maine licenses. In 2006, there were 3788. As of May, 2007, there were 5372 - an increase of forty percent.

If any of this bothers you, you’re either racist or mean-spirited - probably both. Maine is getting much more diverse and multicultural and that is, after all, what is most important, right?