It happened again this past weekend. It happens so often in fact, I am beginning to become numb to it. That, is the true tragedy, that the charge itself is becoming meaningless to me, and I suspect, many other Americans. I woke up on Saturday morning to discover that yet another person who has achieved fortune and fame for his ability to entertain the rest of us has, without meeting me, labeled me a racist. His evidence, not that he needs any, is that I disagree with the President’s politics. There are two video clips below, and I promise that we will get to those soon enough, after I have said my piece about a couple of things.
First, the charge of racism in this instance amounts to nothing more than our old friend, the ad hominem attack. For those of you, who might once again need this particular debate tactic defined, I will indulge. When someone is losing a debate, or plainly unable to articulate arguments sufficient to counter those of the debate partner, they serve up an attack to discredit the debate partner, rather than fight against his/her positions. The example before us is this. The Tea Parties are a grass roots movement who’s aim is to reign in government malfeasance and monstrous growth. The Tea Parties believe in free market principles as being the best and most humane way to help people in the lowest social echelons of our society improve upon their lot in life and indeed climb to other social echelons. The belief is that the best way to help people in lower classes is to eliminate the distinctions between those classes entirely. Capitalism is based on the concept that the people who make up a society are able to keep the capital that they produce, and decide upon their own destinies. The argument is hard to defeat, and I would argue impossible, especially since it has worked everywhere and every time it has been tried. Conversely, the economic destruction of Socialism has been just as complete, each and ever time it has been tried. So absent an actual argument, Morgan Freeman, labeled half the country racists.
Another problem of course with all of this, and often the problem overlooked, is this. Level this charge enough, and it will become meaningless. If you continue to label me a racist simply because I disagree with a political figure you like, it will not be long before two things happen. One, your words will become something I ignore completely, and two, any charges of racism will fall on deaf ears, even though they may be accurate in the future. I am not black, and by no means am I an expert on the topic of racism. It is a very sensitive subject in America, and rightly so. The charge currently carries a sting, as it represents that which everything our great country was established to put an end to. There was a realization by many during our founding that slavery was going to be a potential cause of our eventual downfall, and indeed it became a lightning rod some 87 years after our founding. A war was fought to end the practice, and that war took a toll of life that even today has to its credit the largest loss of human life and casualty than every other war America has been involved with combined. The ravages of that war were indeed not enough to heal us from that horrible mistake of having a class of citizen such as slaves. Here we are some 150 years later, and we are still having an argument about it. The way to heal us of this damaging part of our history is to find actual racism and put a stop to that. Using the charge of racism as a bludgeon to cajole our populace into voting for your chosen political candidate is counterproductive to your cause.
Open debate is the single greatest sign that our political system is healthy. All of this pap about a new tone and the need to come together is nothing more than a cheap attempt to silence those of us on the conservative side politically. I also have news for you Mr. Freeman, and any other leftists out there, you are only proving my point about everything I believe you represent with your attempt to silence all debate. The need for limitations on the power and scope of government has never been more clear to me. As Americans, we have the guaranteed right to disagree with our political leaders, and further the right to put up our own candidates who will oppose those your choose. There needs to be some leeway to allow for dissension with your views that does not denote mental sickness or aberrant behavior solely based on not believing you to be correct. If you would be able to provide one scintilla of evidence that equates a limit of the power of government to actual racism, then by all means, let’s talk it over and determine if it is true and if so, what might we do about it.
Racism as a charge, is impossible to disprove. The very act of attempting to disprove it appears as defensive and itself promotes the concept. That is why charging people as racist indiscriminately has been such a powerful political weapon for the Democrat Party since the 1960’s, This, is also the very reason for our innocent until proven guilty form of judicial system created with our nation’s founding. It is almost impossible to prove the negative. It is incumbent upon those leveling the charge to show that it is true, and I can not help but notice that not a single one of these entertainment stars who have leveled this charge has provided even the flimsiest bit of evidence to support their accusations. I have personally been called a racist for pointing out that Barack Obama is a Socialist. There is literally a mountain of evidence to support that claim. His entire 3 years in office so far have served as the very definition of Socialism. Our entire free market economy is under assault, with massive government takeovers of about 20% of our economy so far. My charge has a basis, yours, Mr. Freeman, does not.
I think that Herman Cain, Tea Party candidate and winner of the Florida GOP Straw Poll has the best exit question for Morgan Freeman: Have you ever been to a Tea Party?
Also of note, there is an active and well documented movement which has been organized by the Moveon.org people. This effort is to paint the Tea Parties as racist by getting Moveon leftists to show up at Tea Party Rallies and pretend to be examples of what they are claiming we are. The Tea Parties are so not abut racism that the opposition has to show up and pretend to be both Tea Partiers and over the top racists in order to give this charge the appearance of truth.
