Friday, October 21, 2005

Bill Bennett, racism, Weasel Boy and a total lack of logic.


Yes, America's Dumbest Wanker™ needs another good figurative boot to the nads and, yes, I'm going to deliver it. Deal with it, since this will actually show one of the standard weaselly (pun oh so intended) debating techniques used by the citizens of Wankerville. I'm sure you've seen it before.

Over here, Jinx gets all frothy and sanctimonious about an African-American speaker at some conference who (if we are to believe the coverage and I see no reason not to) actually calls for the killing of all white people. Jinx then gets all uppity, writing:

Now, who will be the first liberal reading this post to call this man a racist as he so richly deserves? CC? TNO? Brandon?

How can I eviscerate Weasel Boy? Oh, man, let me count the ways. First, we have the really sleazy strategy of bogus equivalence -- the attempt to equate two things which are in no meaningful way equivalent.

On the one hand, we have Bill Bennett -- self-proclaimed conservative morals czar, GOP superstar, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under Reagan, drug czar under George Bush I and so on. Just read the biography -- you don't get a lot more high profile than that in the GOP wankersphere, so when someone like Bennett starts even muttering about aborting all black babies, that's news and that's racist. And it's a big deal because of the weight Bennett throws around in conservative circles.

And, on the other hand, we are given someone who is allegedly Bennett's equal, so that equally offensive statements are supposed to be equally shocking and reprehensible. We are given ... Kamau Kambon? Who the fuck is Kamau Kambon, other than a black man who was recorded making some vile comments 3:41 into a four-hour presentation? How many of you had even heard of Kamau Kambon before reading this article? And yet, we are supposed to somehow accept that Kambon's statements are, on a global scale, equivalent to Bennett's in influence and persuasive power. Oh, please. But wait -- it gets better.

Read the article referenced by Weasel Boy here -- what do you notice? It's pretty clear that there have been some updates since its original publication, with someone having to edit to point out that Kambon is now only a former NC State visiting professor, of whom even NC State writes:

The remarks recently attributed to one of our former employees do not in any way represent the values and standards of the university. This type of speech is counter to any reasoned discussion on the issue of race relations, and is absolutely unacceptable in the NC State community.

Isn't that special? In order to find a liberal racist comparable to Bill Bennett, apparently the conservative wankersphere can't do much better than a former, sessional, visiting professor whose views have been disavowed by that very institution. Wow! Talk about controversy! Oh, yawn. Seriously, it doesn't get much more pathetic than that. And, no, we're not done yet.

So, having established that Weasel Boy is trying to defend his own racist beliefs and defense of Bennett by dragging a no-name like Kambon out of obscurity, we can still ask the question -- is Kambon racist? In a word, fuck, yes. Of course he's racist, fer Chrissake. What kind of stupid question is that? Who the hell would even think of denying that? But that's not the important thing.

It's not that Kambon is racist that's relevant so much as that he's just a certifiable dingbat. Kambon is clearly far beyond anything resembling reason -- he's just a loon. And yet, this is the man that wanks like Weasel Boy are now parading before us to defend Bennett. It would be like criticizing Christianity by forever using known nutbar Pat Robertson as the comparative standard. And I'll bet Wankerville would be all over that comparison in a second, complaining about how unfair it was. And yet, hard to believe, that's still not the best part.

Once again, we have Weasel Boy, thinking himself far more clever than he really is, writing:

Remember Bill Bennett's "racist" comment that the left was moaning about? How much do you want to bet that these comments don't garner as much of their attention (in fact, they'll most likely sweep them under the carpet):

Note the implication here -- unless we on the left similarly condemn Kambon, we are clearly two-faced hypocrites. And (surprise, surprise), WB is right -- which is why I absolutely agree that Kambon is a racist. But notice what didn't just happen here.

While Jinx was challenging those of us on the left to condemn Kambon, he still doesn't make any similar admission with respect to Bennett. Isn't that delightful? Jinx puts all of the burden on us not to be hypocrites, demanding that we recognize Kambon's racism, while Jinx himself still continues to give Bennett a pass.

Oh, yes, there's still some world-class hypocrisy going down here. And I'm betting you can see where it's coming from now.

JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR
, I accept whole-heartedly that Kambon is a racist. So, Jinx ... let's hear a similar, unequivocal condemnation of Bennett. Come on, dude ... you opened this door, it's your turn to walk through it.

MORE WINGNUTTERY
: Wouldn't you know crazy-assed bitch Michelle Malkin would be all over this story, too, since I suspect that's where Jinx gets most of his howling gibberish. Go read, then come back for a pop quiz. I'll wait. Dum de dum dum ...

And now, what was missing from Malkin's hyper-ventilating coverage? Well, there was the fact that Kambon is only a former instructor at NC State, while Malkin describes him as "an affiliated faculty instructor," totally neglecting the "former" part. Naughty, naughty, Michelle -- you're getting almost as bad at bearing false witness as Weasel Boy, aren't you?

And what else is missing from her missive? Why, not only that Kambon isn't even there anymore, but that NC State has (as I so graciously pointed out above) repudiated his comments, so Michelle's suggestion to e-mail NC State and complain will get you absolutely nowhere and will only piss off the folks at NC State because you're such an ignorant goober.

Jesus, but Malkin is a journalistic slut. As are her sycophantic groupies.

AFTERSNARK: I love the fact that Malkin refers to Kambon, then links to the Africana Studies faculty list at NC State, which doesn't even list Kambon. Dishonest or stupid? We report, you decide.

BY THE WAY, make sure you soak up the irony of someone who wrote a book in defense of internment complaining about racism.

OH, LOOK: Someone else taking an axe handle to Bill Bennett. Talk about your excellent timing, dude.

7 comments:

CC said...

Excellent -- the "I was only joking, I didn't really mean it" defense. How thoroughly unoriginal. Next.

Anonymous said...

I have a friend who did the 'what? you thought I was serious? I was only kidding!' thing, especially with women, and wondered why he never got anywhere.

Bennett was maybe trying to be absurd to make a point, but its obvious he really put his foot in his mouth.

M@ said...

Peter, isn't the real problem that Bennett equates black people with criminals? Does that not sort of have the slight odour of racism to it, to you? You don't have to take Bennett's quote out of context to make that connection.

CC said...

Pete Rempel blithered:

[Bennett] didn't say "I was only joking" after the fact.

You are seriously starting to try my patience, Pete. I never claimed that Bennett said that.

Rather, I referred to his weaselly attempt to get out of trouble as the "I was only joking" defense.

Talk about people who refuse to read ...

Glaivester said...

Bennett committed the cardinal sin of alluding to the fact that blacks have much higher crime rates than whites.

You can criticize his statement for being insensitive, but I don't see that what he said was inaccurate.

He never advocated mass abortions of blacks; he simply made the point that arguing for or against abortion based on "consequentialist" arguments was morally problematic, as such arguments could be used to justify monstruous policies like anti-black genocide.

"let's hear a similar, unequivocal condemnation of Bennett."

Yes, it was racist and evil of Bennett to allude to the fact that blacks have high crime rates. That is something that people of good character should pretend not to notice.

CC said...

Bennett committed the cardinal sin of alluding to the fact that blacks have much higher crime rates than whites.

You can criticize his statement for being insensitive, but I don't see that what he said was inaccurate.


Not only was it potentially inaccurate, it was a racist statement all by itself.

See here.

Anonymous said...

Quote: Bennett committed the cardinal sin of alluding to the fact that blacks have much higher crime rates than whites.

But they do, don't they?

Underlying reasons aside, it is a fact and the sooner people can remove their heads from their asses and accept that, the sooner we can begin identifying and treating the real problems and reasons around the "WHY?".

Constant denial, knee-jerking, fear of admitting a social/racial perception and claims of statistical predudice don't help the understanding of "why?", cloud the waters and prevent anyone from actually changing this FACT!!!