Sentimental Favorite Wins

Concerning Rush Limbaugh's charge that
General Colin Powell supported Barack Obama entirely because of race:

...does it follow that Limbaugh supporters are
white, OxyContin-pill-popping, fat old men?

Comment by Bertrand at Debate Both Sides

A couple of months ago, I told of an incident in my long ago teenage years. An adult neighbor demanded my opinion and I made the mistake of giving it:

The man exploded into a rage. Pointing his finger in my face, he screamed that young bums like me just wanted to tear the country down, that we had no respect for the law. I managed to blurt out that I had not broken any laws that I knew of, but that only made the man more angry. In a flash, I had become the manifestation of every unpatriotic punk he had seen on television, burning flags while our brave boys died fighting communism.

My mom quickly spirited me out of the fellow's house while my dad stayed behind to calm the enraged man. I could hear him yelling behind us as we went down the street. "You broke my law. You broke MY law." Before we got home, the neighbor's son caught up with us. "Man, that was COOL."

Studies have sought to correlate personality with political belief. The idea is that a willingness to entertain disagreeable opinion is more often deficient in conservatives. I am skeptical. I don't know how a debate can be engaged by someone who cannot bear to read an opposing opinion. Well.......

A while back, I read a blog post which proved that Obama had never been a citizen because Bill Richardson, nominated to be Commerce Secretary, had slipped up and admitted that Barack Obama was an immigrant. So I dropped a note pointing out that Barrack Obama was also the name of Obama’s father. I went on to suggest that searching for "a conspiracy on behalf of a new born infant in the 1960s by his parents, grandparents, and the state of Hawaii strikes me as a waste of time."

The author graced me with his reasoning in concluding that the President Elect is an immigrant. It seems Obama is a fraud. He is a socialist with anti-American associations. I am loyal only to my group identity (nothing in my note had indicated my race). I supported Obama because of his skin color. Obama had never owned a business. The new President will pander to America's Muslim enemies. His final argument is that I have very little conscience because I am a left wing puke vessel. Obama's immigrant status is thusly proven. The exchange may be found here.

Data is not the plural of anecdote. So this cannot demonstrate the current state of contemporary conservatism. Still, we can entertain conclusions about a substrata of conservatism, even if it is composed of one individual.

Your turn.

Why do journalists insist on euphemisms in describing Pat Buchanan? After Buchanan's tirades against Israel and his description of the Jewish "Amen Corner" in the US, the late William F. Buckley reluctantly concluded that Buchanan is antisemitic. That was as harsh a judgment as he could muster. A journalist a few years ago seemed unusually frank when he was pushed into specifics. He admitted that the fellow "certainly is a tribalist." A tribalist.

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