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Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America.
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .
Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them..
I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University 's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that a man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.
So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, BlackAmerica. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.
There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness. God Help Us all...
Scott Brown won the Charles Sumner seat
in the U.S. Senate
As the new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, said: "It's not the Ted Kennedy seat. It's not the Democrat seat. It's the people's seat."
Instead of Ted, let's remember an honorable and courageous Republican senator who once filled the seat to which Scott Brown was elected.
Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) was one of the founders of the Republican Party. Angered by Sumner's denunciations of slavery, a Democrat congressman beat him nearly to death on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner responded with a classic denunciation of the Democratic Party for promoting The Barbarism of Slavery.
During the GOP's 1860 election campaign, Senator Sumner gave a speech that speaks to us today:
"If ever there was a moment when every faculty should be bent to the service, and all invigorated by an inspiring zeal, it is now, while the battle between Civilization and Barbarism is still undecided.
Happily, a political party is at hand whose purpose is to combine and direct all generous energies for the salvation of the country. The work must be done, and there is no other organization by which it can be done. A party with such an origin and such a necessity cannot be for a day, or for this election only.
If bad men conspire for slavery, good men must combine for freedom. And when this triumph is won, securing the immediate object of our organization, the Republican Party will not die, but, purified by long contest with slavery, and filled with higher life, it will be lifted to yet other efforts for the good of man.
Others may dwell on the past as secure; but to my mind, under the laws of a beneficent God, the future also is secure, on the single condition that we press forward in the work with heart and soul, forgetting self, turning from all temptations of the hour, and, intent only on the cause."
The day he died, Charles Sumner urged Republicans to stay true to the principles of our Grand Old Party: "My bill, the civil rights bill - don't let it fail." The Republican-controlled 43rd Congress honored his memory by passing the 1875 Civil Rights Act.
Where's the Outrage?
Where’s the outrage now, New Albany? A little over a year ago, a New Albany small business owner was asked by a Chicago newspaper if he was going to vote for Obama for President. When he said he would not, the reporter asked him why. He responded with something like, “I won’t vote for him because he’s black.” The reporter got what he wanted….a neat little sound bite that falsely demonstrated that all white Hoosiers must be racists.
What followed was an aggressive campaign by another small business owner (not even in the same business) attacking him for his remarks. I didn’t agree with the comment and responded publicly so. But I understand where his sentiment came from. I believe that most African American New Albanians would never support my Party, not because I am white but because they have been led to believe that only Democrats care about them. No racism there….but certainly a prejudice formed not by what my Party believes but by what they believe us to believe. No real checking of the platforms of each Party. No real examination of individual candidates and their beliefs. Just a prejudiced opinion that because a candidate is Republican he has to be “anti-black.”
Now we have the Majority Senator from Nevada who said, before the election, that our President would make a good candidate because he was "light skinned" and spoke "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." It was also revealed that the current leader of the Democratic Party once said that if any African Americans were ever attending a GOP event, it would be because they were serving the food. He said the Republican Party was “not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party.'' Then he turned around and proclaimed "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." So, I ask again…where’s the outrage now?
Another question: Why do you keep electing these people? Third time Mayor Doug England, when addressing the issue of who would get contracts to help the S. Ellen Jones District spend a $6.7 million grant described builders, developers and realtors as “vultures.” Multi-term incumbent Congressman Baron Hill set the voters straight when he declared “This is my town hall meeting. I set the rules. And you're not going to tell me how to run my Congressional office." Hey, it sounds like as the GOP Chairman, I have an agenda here!
The truth is we all say stupid things some times. I admit that I have made more than my share. There are whole websites devoted to giving you all the stupid things politicians have said for all time. With media being what it is today, no one should ever expect that comments will be made in “private” ever again. So, if you say something stupid, you are surely going to have to admit it. What probably will also never change is that someone will use your stupid quote to try to gain an advantage for his “side.” It makes good controversy but bad politics. It holds those we elect as accountable but can destroy their lives in the process. No wonder good people have no interest whatsoever in getting into politics. So, as a result, we leave the job of leading us to those less qualified.
May I recommend a compromise? Number one, how about if we give each other a little “slack?” Recognize that everything we say isn’t going to come out perfectly. Second, reel in the attacks when someone says something stupid. Americans have become way too sensitive about stupid things other people say. Third, let’s start finding out what those we vote for actually believe….where they actually stand on issues we care about. Get beyond the rhetoric and get involved. We might actually get some smart people elected. I wouldn’t, however, expect them to stop saying stupid things any time soon.
Dave Matthews
Chairman, Floyd County Republican Party
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