Food for a stiff upper lip
Bookworm on Nov 06 2008 at 8:07 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Now that the shock is over, I’m focus on being relentlessly cheerful and forward looking. I’ve noticed today, though, that my stiff upper lip is heavily coated in chocolate. Apparently I needed a little external help to keep the internal fires stoked!
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Book, aha!
Now I know how to detect a conservative Marin woman!
I’ve been thinking about the incredible reactions that many people are having now that an African-American has been elected President. There have been so many people with incredibly emotional reactions to this. Some of those that have affected me have been Juan Williams (Fox) and Condoleeza Rice.
People begin speaking of this in relative calm tones, and then the emotion sets in, and many of them end up choked up or even weeping.
What is clear to me is this: The fact that Barack Obama was elected President means that the nation’s people had already advanced beyond racism to the point where a black man could be elected. What I see is that so many people did not KNOW this!
I see in particular that so many black people continued to believe that this simply could not happen. Even as Barack Obama’s campaign continued to lead, continued to prove that he was winning the majority, they feared it couldn’t happen. Now that it has happened, they are in emotional shock: What could not happen, has now happened. Even a very large number of white people are dealing with exactly this same realization.
On the other hand, there may have been some number of white racists still out there also believing that this could never happen. I believe white racists are out there simply because I believe that they must exist somewhere in this bucket of 300 million people. And it’s good that they’ve been repudiated, wherever they are. I’m also glad it appears that it is very difficult to even find these people.
I suppose it’s a good thing that the perception that America was not ready to elect any black man has now been abolished. I’m troubled by the fact that all the coverage, and all the beliefs, is that with the election, America itself has finally overcome the barrier. In truth, I think we overcame the barrier some time ago. We just didn’t know it as a nation. Now we do know it, for sure. And the rest of the world, where we see such a bizarre emotional reaction as well, knows it for sure too. (How terribly they must have viewed us as a people, to be having this reaction that their perception of us was so wrong!)
In the end, the abolishing of that perception is about the only definitely good thing I’m ready to take from this election.
Mike:
Man, I’m used to enjoying and savoring almost everything you write, but what you wrote here is a real gem.
I’ve seen the same, the quick going from simple talking about what Obama’s election means to the deep emotions of joy, surprise and gratitude that this thing — the election of a black man to the presidency — has finally happened.
I can’t add to what you said, Mike. Just keep on keeping on here.
PS: I still think the guy is going to be a disaster.
I’ve got a daughter, freshman in college, who could not stand John Kerry election (he threw his medals over the fence! she told me) and this year old enough to vote for the first time voted for McCain. I’d like to take suggestions for a reading list to recommend to her as countervalence to the campus indoctrination. Already gave her the book about the persecution of the Duke lacrosse players and will forward a copy of David Mamet’s ‘Why I am no longer a brain dead liberal’ essay. Other suggestions please?
The seemingly giddy sense of relief that a black man has been elected POTUS is apparently a western worldwide reaction. Desmond Tutu was interviewed on NPR yesterday, and in his own version of the calm to emotional crescendo Mike described,
Tutu recounted numerous e-mails he received from around the planet all excitedly painting the senders’ joy at the outcome.
I suppose the “non-Western” world is also pleased. Russia announced they are putting IRBMs on the boarder with Poland as an alleged response to the missile shield we are constructing against Iran et al.
Yes, Obama could be a real disaster.
Al
Zhombre (#4)
In political philosophy, if your daughter is not aware of the roots of modern Progressivism/liberalism, I recommend Jonah Goldberg’s ‘Liberal Fascism’. The first four chapters particularly. It’s accessible and clear concerning those roots 1870-1950.
The remaining chapters are not nearly as clear and strong (at least to me), but still worth a read. In those chapters, I especially appreciated the material relating the counterculture revolution of the 1960’s to the German counterculture of the early 1900s, and the information spread throughout the book on supporters of eugenics (and cultures of death).
Zhombre –
Thomas Sowell usually posts a summer reading list that suits your purpose. This year he recommended Randall O’Toole’s Best-Laid Plans, Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and his own Economic Facts and Fallacies.
He calls Goldberg’s book “remarkable and eye-opening.” From his other recommendations:
“The Best-Laid Plans by Randal O’Toole, gives a richly documented account of government actions and their consequences, and shows a far from flattering side of politicians, “experts” and environmentalists – who have ruined cities and suburbs in countries around the world.”
” My latest book on economics is the recently published Economic Facts and Fallacies. It looks in-depth at fallacies about such things as housing, income, race, sex discrimination, the economics of academia and the Third World.
Fallacies are not just crazy ideas. Usually they are notions that sound plausible, which is what enables them to be used by politicians, intellectuals, the media and all sorts of crusading movements, to advance their causes or their careers.”
Sowell’s archive at Townhall probably has some other suggestions.
I’d also recommend Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan, Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept, and Mark Steyn’s America Alone. Although each is ostensibly about Islam ascendant, all are really about the way in which Islam became so powerful in Europe because of an unholy alliance of political progressivism and social multiculturalism, two Leftist tools that, when working together, destroyed Europe’s and England’s sense of of self.
I can second Book’s “America Alone” by Mark Steyn. Very well done! It has the additional benefit of containing lots of biting, hilariously satirical prose. Often laugh-out-loud.
“America Alone” was not what I expected…somehow I anticipated it as being the American goddess of liberty armed with a sword and shield and standing against the hordes of islam. Instead, it’s more of a homesteading pioneer with her multiple children surrounding her and clinging to her skirts.
His book is dull in concept – discussing population statistics, and reproduction trends. It’s definitely not dull in the prosecution, though…as Mark says, it’s often laugh out loud funny.
As I started to write this, my second comparison was going to be that it was more of a prone American goddess…but that sounded rather risque. True, perhaps, but then my thoughts ran on to Europe, tv, pornography, sex etc. In the early 60s, we spent 4 years in Germany. Sex was very open there at that time…the red light district was well known and legal. TV was non-existent. By our second tour in the late 60s- early 70s, everyone had a TV, and the hours of 6-9PM were known as children’s programming hours where the material was very conservative. Outside of those hours, the material – including and maybe even especially the ads – was R rated. In fact, often X rated. I’d compare it to TV in the US today, except our ads are still fairly free of sexual content. Sex was an open topic and there was snickering about the US prudishness about sexual material. And then you read AA and discover that with all that sex going on, the birth rate is dropping like a lead sash weight.
The muslims of Europe, of course, who repress women to the point of insanity, are multiplying at a rate that would put rabbits to shame.
If you look at the birth rates in the US, where are they higher? in the sexually exuberant areas, or in the relatively sexually repressed areas?
There’s a connection here. I’m not sure what it is, but there is a connection. Maybe “sex is for fun” vs “sex is for reproduction” mentality? I don’t know.
“If you look at the birth rates in the US, where are they higher? in the sexually exuberant areas, or in the relatively sexually repressed areas?”
I think there’s a difference between repressed and reserved, the latter is frequently mistaken for the former.
>>I think there’s a difference between repressed and reserved, the latter is frequently mistaken for the former.>>
You’re right. That’s a better choice of words. “Reserved” is voluntary, “Repressed” is not. There _is_ a certain amount of coercion in some parts of the country, though, and in that case, repressed would be the better choice. I think it probably depends on just how strong societal disapproval in an area is. It’s one thing to “disapprove” of certain behavior, another thing entirely to “shun” someone as a result of their behavior. We’re social animals. Shunning is a form of outcasting, and just as those in Marin county didn’t want to come out and proclaim their support for McCain, we all don’t want to be outcasts in our community. It isn’t physical, but can be just about as powerful.
Book, I went with a bag of M&Ms.
Some good books include “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” by Thomas Sowell, which gives great insights into the leftist dream of achieving utopia through purely human means.
Also, “The Long March” by Roger Kimball, written in the 1990s but absolutely applicable today, describes how folks like Bill Ayers and his clones decided to take over academia and other fundamental western institutions then subvert them from within.
“The Road to Serfdom,” written in the 1940s by Friedrich Hayek, is considered a classical analysis of how free people can allow themselves to slowly become wards of the state.
“Witness,” by Whittaker Chambers, the man who exposed Alger Hiss as a communist, is a brilliant confessional/memoir/philosophical treatise that tracks a man’s progress from credulousness to consciousness. A good read for a college kid who wants to see a brilliant mind at work.
Thanks to all for the response and the suggestions. Thomas Sowell and British historian Paul Johnson were already on my mental list. I actually gave her a copy of Sowell’s Economic Facts & Fallacies.
I was just barely old enough to vote for Goldwater in 1964 (yes, I know I’m ancient), but you must be feeling about as I did after working so hard for his election. Pundits tolled the death knell of both the Republican Party and conservatism. We vowed that we’d come back, no matter how long it took. It took exactly 16 years, when we elected Reagan. It can be done.
Btw, Oz, the people who disagree with you have defended you more against the charges of “concern troll” than you yourself have. It may look like you don’t care, but obviously you do. You care but you can’t bring yourself to defend yourself. You only mention it as a fact. Not so very entertaining when the pull of entropy can’t be resisted when it is acting against you, now is it.