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Chris Britt responds to cartoon criticism in Bucks County Courier Times

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Editorial cartoonist Chris Britt has responded to criticism to one of his cartoons that ran in the Bucks County Courier Times. The cartoon depicted children asking Santa Claus to protect them from police. The cartoon drew ire from two police organizations and spurred a campaign to list and publicize businesses that advertise in the newspaper.

Chris, in a letter to the editor, writes:

LET ME BEGIN with a statement of fact. Editorial cartoons are not meant to be fair and they cannot hurt you. That said, they can, in the words of one of my ink-stained brethren, punctuate the conversation with satire, mockery and gross exaggeration, ridiculing and lampooning everything from pompous politicking to holier-than-thou hypocrisy. Nobody said it was pretty, but it is oh, so American. Cartoons are supposed to provoke thought, encourage speech and usher in change. And change cannot come soon enough. Our country is reeling from a series of deaths of young black men at the hands of the police. We have all seen the headlines, read the stories and watched countless families grieve, night after night, in front of the television cameras.

…

So, to the hotheaded and venomous rant by Mr. McNesby against my cartoon, myself and the media as a whole, I say that his misguided anger and inelegant choice of words only reinforce what many have come to believe – that too many law-enforcement officers view the rest of us with utter disdain. I hope Santa brings Mr. McNesby a stocking full of joy, understanding and humility. What is that oath all police officers take? Oh yes – to protect and serve.

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Comments 41

  1. Well said. One can only hope that Mr. McNesby reads this with an open mind.

  3. So, the police want an apology for the painfully honest cartoon?

    I suspect the families of Tamir Rice, Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Cameron Tillman would like an apology too.

    And the family of “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh certainly deserve an apology, although they’d probably waive it in favor of the state of Georgia paying for the medical bills (due to the fact that the baby’s nose was blown off. Good job Habersham County.)

  4. So the Police “Protect and Serve.” OK. And I think they do, for the most part.

    BUT

    If a cartoonist thinks they DON’T, that cartoonist should also “Protect and Serve,” with pen and paper and digital bits and bytes – Political cartoons PROTECT free speech and SERVE opinions…

    More cops should speak out against injustice. But if there is silence from the police, there should NEVER be silence from the Fourth Estate…

  5. ALL Cops aren’t bad and ALL black guys aren’t thugs.
    So I guess in that sense maybe the cops can now understand the frustration of being painted in such broad generalities.

  6. A political or editorial cartoon is just that. A cartoon of editorial nature. An editorial is – for the most part – an opinion, usually written from a left or a right sided slant. People forget, that an editorial cartoonist is just forming his opinion in a visual instead of written format. Editors aren’t called on the carpet for their “opinions” they write. But cartoonists are for the “opinions they draw. I guess it can be a good thing, though. When a cartoonist is reprimanded – it sure draws attention to his work – and his opinion…

  7. Let me say that Mr. Britt speaks well of the art of Cartooning. History has shown the power of the visual arts, either in paintings, sketches and cartooning has invoked patriotism and social justice. Cartooning in itself is more than just Sunday comics, webcomics or saturday morning cartoons. They show us the world in a form of satire, but also convey the feelings and emotions that we as a society hold within.

    That being said, the cartoon is only a reflection of what art as a whole should be doing. The police have every right to be angry, but so do the protesters. I do not advocate violence or bigotry in any form, as I am sure we are neglecting to remember many police officers who have died in the line of duty from criminals, regardless of race. Both sides have suffered loss as a result of negligence and/or intolerance, but to condemn a cartoonist for mearly speaking his mind through his media of choice is no better than the cops acting as the unruly violent mobs that have plagued the streets of Ferguson and New York in recent weeks.

  8. Yes, an editorial cartoon is a graphic opinion. And Mr. Britt has come up with another graphic example of going along with the herd – or better said, the mob – in this climate of cop-bashing, leftist nonsense. I’m sure it makes liberals feel sooo righteous that they are “supporting” the black man, in this string of “racist” incidents that when looked at closely, show no evidence of racism at all. But, hey, who needs evidence when it feels so warm and cuddly to show how cops are such red-necked Neanderthals that they seek out little black kids to murder. Yeah, this is a great example of courageous editorial cartooning. Well done, Mr. Britt.

  9. There are mobs of all kinds, Carl. I don’t like people who instinctively hate the police, though I understand how frequent unfair, unpleasant encounters might make some people turn against the whole group.

    But people who deny that those encounters happen, or who adopt naive, fabulist explanations that fly in the face of the obvious, are a different kind of mob, and I’d much rather be associated with the first, whose errors arise from experience, than with the second, whose errors arise from prejudice.

  10. Mike, I don’t deny that racism among cops doesn’t exist and wasn’t a serious problem in the past (I do think racism today isn’t anywhere near as bad as it was in the past). What I’m denying is that these recent incidents don’t show any evidence of racism that I can see.

    Now maybe I can’t see this racism because I’m this right-wing nut blinded by my prejudices and I therefore can’t see what enlightened people such as yourself say is so obviously racist conduct by the cops, but if so, please point it out to me.

    There is prejudice here, however, and it is obviously so – at least to this knuckle-dragging Neanderthal – on the part of the demonstrators in the streets. I can easily understand why the black community’s view of these unfortunate incidents is what it is, but white liberals who haven’t suffered the enormous racism of the black community have no excuses for their warped view of the police conduct on our TV screens. The only case that is even a little questionable is the Garner case. But even there, racism on the part of the cops is not obvious. In fact, the officer in charge in that case was a black woman. Was she a racist too?

    White liberals have attached themselves to these mobs – ironically (I realize), they are lynch mobs – because it makes them feel morally righteous. Gee, look at me, mom, I’m supporting the oppressed black man being gunned down by racist white cops. It’s moral preening at its ugliest and it needs to stop or we will see more of the consequences of this ignorance such as what occurred in New York.

  11. Carl, the problem is out there. Yes, it is.

    I grew up in a small town where the local trooper was my second-grade teacher’s son-in-law and it was very Mayberry-like, so I’m not inclined to hate police. I’ve met some great cops.

    But I’ve also met some bastards who absolutely, definitely, undeniably go after underclass people, and who consider visible minorities underclass. Not theoretically — in front of me. While I was standing there.

    And my own problem with the Ferguson style cases is that the good cops seem intimidated by the Thin Blue Line, as certainly seen in the vicious response of police unions to Britt’s cartoon and at yesterday’s funeral.

    They need to speak up, they need to step forward. We need a thousand Frank Serpicos to self-criticize the bad guys. And what we really need is special investigators for all police shootings and fatalities, even the obvious ones.

    How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see. Here’s what I said last month, I still stand by every word, won’t tie up the forum with more now:
    http://www.weeklystorybook.com/comic_strip_of_the_daycom/2014/11/making-heads-turn.html

  12. Mike, let me ask you, is it possible to appreciate and understand the terrible racial history of our country and still be critical of the irrational reaction of the black community in these cases? You seem to feel anyone who does so is obviously not seeing the reality of our racist past nor the reality of racist cops today.

    I am not naive, nor ignorant of what’s going on out there, nor am I a victim of Dylan’s “… pretending he just doesn’t see.” I worked on a black newspaper group in Berkeley, CA – the Berkeley Post, the Oakland Post, the Richmond Post,etc. – and I heard exactly the kind of statements you’ve made here and believe me I understand what you are saying. Black people genuinely believe, understandably so, these recent incidents were motivated by racism. But they weren’t. And because they weren’t, it’s important to point that out and push back against this irrational ginning up of black people’s anger. These demonstrations are not only based on falsehoods, they are extremely dangerous as the recent murder of two cops in New York has proven.

  13. “is it possible to appreciate and understand the terrible racial history of our country and still be critical of the irrational reaction of the black community in these cases? ”

    You’re getting ahead of yourself. It’s not irrational.

    “Black people genuinely believe, understandably so, these recent incidents were motivated by racism. But they weren?t.”

    What black people genuinely believe – and what’s been proven to be the case – is that if you’re black, you’re far more likely to be the victim of one of these incidents that “aren’t motivated by racism” than if you’re white.

    “it?s important to point that out and push back against this irrational ginning up of black people?s anger”

    Thank you for looking out for us. We’re pretty gullible and easily swayed by illogical statements, so it’s helpful to have someone who can tell us when our anger is and isn’t rational.

  14. @Carl Moore:
    While you have to take this stuff on a case-by-case basis, the overall broad picture is that, as Darrin Bell and scores of others have said, these encounters are simply more likely to end badly for you if you are black or Latino, and in fact are more likely to even escalate in the first place.

    The mistake I feel you’re making is that you’re taking a much too either/or view of what constitutes racism in these encounters. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but you seem to be under the impression that protestors believe cops go marching around with a specifically race-driven agenda. While this has been shown to be unquestionably true in some instances, I doubt that it’s the case the majority of the time. The truth is more complicated than that, which is exactly why the problem is so difficult to address. If it were simply a matter of rooting out and isolating racist cops, I don’t think this would be half as thorny as it is. Far more difficult to address is the cultural conditioning that colors the mentality of many in law enforcement, plenty of whom I’m sure would sincerely say that they aren’t racist even as they constantly deepen the distrust through their conduct.

    Also…

    “…The only case that is even a little questionable is the Garner case.”

    Even a little questionable?!?

    I really don’t know what to say to that part.

    @Darrin Bell:
    Personally I feel that both “sides” of this controversy have elements that are “gullible and swayed by illogic.” Both have been guilty of allowing reckless hyperbole to damage the legitimate points they have. I say this not in the spirit of feckless moral equivalency, but as an observation based on my by-definition limited perspective as an outsider to both minority racial status and law enforcement.
    Having said that, the power dynamics at play are not equal by any stretch, which is why the police are not very sympathetic characters here. And the reaction by police departments like this one, and the one here in NYC, to even the most tempered criticism along these lines, is extremely revealing and, frankly, morbidly ugly. Particularly after the obscene stunt pulled by a selection of officers at the funeral here, I will never be able to look at police the same way again.

  15. “Thank you for looking out for us. We?re pretty gullible and easily swayed by illogical statements, so it?s helpful to have someone who can tell us when our anger is and isn?t rational.”

    Besides being snarky and ungracious, this remark comes out of that school of thinking that says only blacks can speak authentically about racism which, of course, is hogwash.

    Take a look at what Thomas Sowell has to say about these matters:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395475/when-facts-are-obsolete-thomas-sowell

  16. “Besides being snarky and ungracious,”

    In my own defense, if I wanted to NOT be “snarky and ungracious,” I’d have become a diplomat, not a cartoonist.

    “this remark comes out of that school of thinking that says only blacks can speak authentically about racism which, of course, is hogwash.”

    No, it comes out of the school of thought that says people such as yourself, who are very concerned that white liberals are “ginning up black people’s anger,” are infantilizing black people, whether you know it or not. Black people don’t NEED white liberals to tell us when we should be outraged about something. We’re perfectly capable of noticing injustice on our own.

    By the way, it’s interesting that you linked to Thomas Sowell, considering you don’t hail from the school of thought that says only blacks can speak authentically about racism. Is there some particular reason you linked to him?

  17. “In my own defense, if I wanted to NOT be ?snarky and ungracious,? I?d have become a diplomat, not a cartoonist.”

    Well said, Darrin. A point well-taken.

    “… white liberals are ‘ginning up black people?s anger,’ and are infantilizing black people…”

    I never said white liberals are the only people ginning up black people’s anger. Black leaders such as Al-Tawana Brawley-Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, etc., are quite capable of doing that all by themselves and it is they who are infantilizing the demonstrators, both black and white. These race hustlers rely on emotion, not facts and not truth, to gin up the mob.

    Why link to Thomas Sowell? Why not? He’s a much admired, well-respected black intellectual and columnist. For liberals (oh, I forgot, it’s “progressives” these days) who live in a liberal bubble that they seldom, if ever, step away from, seeing a black intellectual refuting just about everything they claim is really going on just might shock them into taking a look at what they are actually doing – ginning up the mob based on emotions rather than facts.

  18. Let me muddy this up a little more.

    I think it’s fair to say — as I have said — that one of the main, non-racist factors is that too many police take a “must be up to something” view of underclass people, like the homeless and poor.

    So, while being “underclass” and being a minority are not unconnected (nor were they when it was the Irish, Italians or Eastern Europeans turns in the barrel), this does translate to a lot of wrongful encounters between bad cops and innocent minorities.

    However, back in 1970, I got pulled over because my car “matched a stolen vehicle,” which was nonsense. I was pulled over because the cop didn’t think a bunch of longhairs should be driving a Chrysler that was only five years old (and which I got when my folks bought a new car, as college-aged kids often do).

    Once I got a little older and my hair got a lot shorter, those kinds of encounters ended. I now looked like someone who might be expected to drive a relatively late-model car.

    So riddle me this, Carl: Going back to the link I posted above, why did a well-groomed upper-middleclass young man named Fred Weary, driving a nice car, get pulled over for “a hanging license plate” that wasn’t hanging, and then Tased? Why was a well-groomed, upper-middle class young man named Ryan Moats held at gunpoint in the parking lot of a hospital for rolling through a stop while trying to get to his mother-in-law’s bedside before she died.

    Neither were shaggy or badly dressed or in any way “underclass” looking.

    So why were they treated differently than other well-groomed, well-dressed upper-middleclass men?

    And, yeah, why did you quote Sowell instead of, I dunno, Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck or some other neutral, fair-minded observer of society?

  19. Question:
    How many of us posting here actually know what it’s like to be a black man in America?

  20. I do, Keith.

    Carl, you’re still infantilizing black people. Black people don’t take emotional cues from Al Sharpton any more than you take emotional cues from Newt Gingrich. Black “leaders” aren’t leaders, they’re spokesmen. They’re bullhorns. They’re weather vanes. They’re very good at figuring out where the wind’s already blowing. But they’re not the wind.

  21. I don’t have clue about what it is like to be a black man in America. I admit that. But I do know what it is like to be singled out in a purely discriminatory way…

    My friends who are black and Republican know full well the truth of “driving while black.” Which shows the problem to be 100% true, not an invention of Progressive Political BS (or Republican Political BS, for that matter).

    Rich, middle class or poor, driving while black is a real thing happening daily to all regardless of status or income. Of course, the poor are definitely targeted the most…

    Driving while poor is another truism that I experienced years ago. So I can understand that driving while poor AND black is vastly worse…

    So, being a white guy, I do NOT have personal experience about driving while black, I DO have personal experience of driving while poor, having my car towed because of expired plates, paying 3 weeks of minimum wage just to pay the rent and having just enough for food and gas other bills and NOTHING left over to pay a $500 ticket and the moment I foolishly complained was the moment I was CUFFED and placed in the back of the police car.

    This was in Coronado way back in 1993, but I am sure that driving while poor is absolutely still a crime today, same as it ever was…

    And now I have learned about driving with the “wrong” hair length, driving with the “wrong” car, etc. etc.

    And since 911, the de-facto Police State we all live in is definitely more heavy handed than ever…

  22. @Mike Peterson
    I don’t seem to be able to make clear what I’m saying here. I’m saying that in these specific incidents that set off the demonstrations – Brown, Garner, the kid with the pellet gun who was killed – the alleged racism that many seem to think is so clear is not clear to me. I don’t doubt that the incidents you refer to above, Mike, are true. I’m not familiar with them. But in the Garner, Brown and the pellet gun incidents I don’t see the racism. Maybe they were motivated by racism and maybe they weren’t, but I don’t see the evidence of it. We can’t read the minds of the cops involved. I am definitely NOT saying that racist cops aren’t out there doing stupid racist things. I just don’t see it in these cases that have set off so much emotion and anger… I do believe many of these so-called racist cases are not about racism but are examples of cops reacting to people who resist arrest or point what appear to be loaded guns at them. Anytime someone, white or black, resists arrest or disobeys a reasonable request, that person is immediately in the cop’s mind a danger and he had better impose his authority quickly or it could lead to something tragic which is what I think happened in these recent incidents.

    @Darrin Bell
    “…They?re bullhorns. They?re weather vanes. They?re very good at figuring out where the wind?s already blowing. But they?re not the wind.”

    Exactly. It’s good to hear that many black people take what these guys have to say with a grain of salt. However, many more repeat their demagoguery, cheer them on, and get emotionally worked up as blocked freeways, burnt-out businesses, and dead cops prove… (by the way, Darrin, besides “Candorville” do you also write for publication? Just curious.)

  23. @Mike Peterson and Darrin Bell

    I forgot to address the question of why link to Thomas Sowell. Besides the reasons I gave above, it is liberals I’m addressing on this thread. It is liberals who put so much weight on skin color. Liberals see racism everywhere. They find it hard to believe a white conservative is not in some way, deep down, a racist or his views must be (pardon the pun) “colored” by at least some modicum of prejudice. So I asked myself would these liberals put more weight on an argument on race made by a white guy or a black guy? That’s not even close – of course they would put more weight on the black guy’s argument. Ergo, Thomas Sowell, or Walter Williams or Jason Riley or name a black conservative writer… there are actually quite a few and more coming all the time.

  24. Heh heh. Okay, you realize you can’t read the minds of black people.

    Thank god you can still tell exactly what liberals are thinking!

  25. @Carl Moore:

    As a racial outsider to the situation, this is my best attempt to break this down.

    (@Darrin Bell: Therefore, your mileage may vary.)

    Regarding protests about racism, wolf-criers exist. No one will argue with that. But what also exists are wolf-deniers. Part of what drives these protests is that people are tired of being told that what they experience firsthand is not real.

    The Garner incident is viewed through a racial lens for several reasons, not the least of which is how quickly and unnecessarily it escalated into a physical confrontation highly out of proportion to what was appropriate when no officer was being physically threatened, and no one was “resisting arrest.” (You’re about to protest that he was. He wasn’t. No one told him he was, and all he did was recoil when someone tried to grab his arm out of nowhere.) As many will attest, this is a common outcome between white officers and black civilians, as opposed to white civilians and sometimes even what are clearly dangerous white criminals.

    The Tamir Rice tragedy wouldn’t appear, in and of itself, to be a racial incident as opposed to a general instance of extreme recklessness, until one is shown how it compares to many other situations where the police were called on a white adult waving a real gun around in public. In many of these situations, the officers arrive on the scene and try to REASON with the person, talk them down, get them to drop the weapon and surrender. Nothing like that happened here.

    Tamir Rice was not only a child, he wasn’t even carrying a real gun, and the original 911 caller even stated this was likely. But the cops dispatched weren’t told this. And when they pulled up onto the grass at high speed, it took that troubled officer exactly two seconds to shoot the boy dead. No words. No talking down. Not even tasering. No anything. Just bang. The contrast with some other recent incidents involving whites is hard to ignore.
    Another thing—–the police were apparently under the impression that Rice was much older than he was, and this is another consistent problem. White officers are on record as often mistaking black boys/teens as being several years older than they are. As you can imagine, this does much to color their on-the-spot perceptions, and influences how they’re going to react to a situation.

    The other most egregious example we know of right now is Levar Jones in South Carolina. Jones was guilty of nothing but a seatbelt violation back in September when that officer went after him, and within seconds had shot him for absolutely no reason. He told Jones to show him ID. Jones had left his wallet in the car. When he reached for it, immediately the officer thought he was going to get a gun, and bang.
    Unlike so many other alleged instances of wildly out of control police shooting black men recklessly, this one was captured on camera. If it hadn’t been, the officer could have made up any story he wanted, and in fact tried to anyway!

    Do you really think that if Rice, Crawford or Jones had been white, they would have been viewed with the same kind of suspicion and alarm that caused these officers to panic?

    And if that “2nd Amendment rights” bully down in Georgia who scared everyone out of the park with that taunting display of his gun had been black, do you think the police would have just shrugged and walked away as they did?

    Regardless, wolf-deniers need to stop constantly invoking “Jesse n’ Al” as their go-to boogeymen. They really, really need to get with it. Their minds are stuck in 1991 and it’s kind of embarrassing to watch. Jackson is practically irrelevant, and Sharpton is not the same firebrand who pushed Tawana Brawley on the city and contributed to the explosive tension in the Crown Heights riots. Sometimes people change, and he has. I don’t agree with everything he says or does, but to remain stuck viewing his actions through the same lens as 25 years ago is willful blindness.

    Thomas Sowell is one of those pundits whose sharp intellect is hard to reconcile with his often bizarrely simplistic viewpoints. That a mind of his caliber can come to the achingly banal conclusions that it does is one of those examples, ironically, of emotionalism trumping rationality. (His sadly warped view of the Garner situation is proof enough of this.)
    More important than that, however, is the authoritarian mindset the linked column betrays, which is egregiously common on the American right.

    Boiled down, Sowell’s column implies that you are compelled to obey a police officer, or else get shot.

    He is hardly alone. This is the thread that unites virtually all rightwing and conservative opinion on these issues, and you see this conviction reiterated in various ways again and again, regardless of the individual circumstances.

    Do I really need to explain what’s wrong with this point of view? Does it really need spelling out why, in a free society, this thinking is highly dangerous?

  26. Another thing we should consider is our culpability as a society that tolerates extreme firepower readily available for civilian use.
    We literally sell semi-automatic combat weapons at that grocery store. Could this contribute to a police force who would rather shoot first and ask questions later? Discuss

  27. @JLG

    “Boiled down, Sowell?s column implies that you are compelled to obey a police officer, or else get shot.”

    No, you are compelled to obey a police officer or you will risk a serious confrontation that could escalate. And if you continue to disobey that officer the risk increases. And if you reach for his weapon you are asking to be shot.

    Cops are trained to react immediately if someone – anyone – is pointing what appears to be a real gun at them. The cop must assume the weapon is loaded and he’s facing death if he doesn’t quickly shoot that person, be they a young kid or an adult.

    “Regardless, wolf-deniers need to stop constantly invoking ?Jesse n? Al? as their go-to boogeymen. They really, really need to get with it… Jackson is practically irrelevant, and Sharpton is not the same firebrand who pushed Tawana Brawley on the city and contributed to the explosive tension in the Crown Heights riots.”

    This is a fair point. But isn’t it obvious that Jesse and Al’s demagoguery has been replaced by many other equally loud blowhards that are working up the mob and being eagerly sought after by drama-seeking journalists sticking microphones in their faces?

    “Thomas Sowell is one of those pundits whose sharp intellect is hard to reconcile with his often bizarrely simplistic viewpoints. That a mind of his caliber can come to the achingly banal conclusions that it does is one of those examples, ironically, of emotionalism trumping rationality. (His sadly warped view of the Garner situation is proof enough of this.)
    More important than that, however, is the authoritarian mindset the linked column betrays, which is egregiously common on the American right.”

    Let me boil this paragraph down to the nub – all conservatives are stupid.

  28. “Let me boil this paragraph down to the nub ? all conservatives are stupid.”

    Sigh.

    They didn’t used to be. It’s really a matter of how you identify yourself. It used to be that saying you were conservative didn’t put you in bed with paranoid, hateful people who deny reality and advocate a police state, as long as the police only enforce the laws they like against the people they don’t.

    But decent people have backed out from under the tent labeled conservative. I’m not sure where they’ve gone but, as the theme song sort of goes, “Mister, we could use a man like Henry Jackson again.”

  29. ?Let me boil this paragraph down to the nub ? all conservatives are stupid.?

    Translation: I can’t refute the accuracy in JLG’s post.

  30. It’s interesting how the notion that anyone who disobeys the police deserves to get shot goes out the window when it comes to, say, defending Clive Bundy.
    It’s also worth noting that Carl Moore’s insistence that all racial conflicts in America are merely the result of “race hustlers” riling up otherwise untroubled minorities could be just as easily said of the Right. Clearly, the aging white folks who constitute the majority of “conservatives” in this country have would be happy to quietly collect their Social Security and Medicare payments were it not for the demagogues Limbaugh and Hannity stuffing their heads with fear and hatred. Turn that stuff off, Carl. I’ll bet your blood pressure will drop 10 points overnight.

  31. @Terry Laban

    Thanks for the kind words, Terry. Let’s see, I’m a defender of Clive Bundy, I believe all racial conflicts are due to race hustlers riling up otherwise untroubled minorities, and my head is being stuffed with fear and hatred by right-wing demagogues. Gee, Terry, thanks for those insights. I didn’t realize I was saying or even thinking those things.

    @Mike Peterson

    “… It used to be that saying you were conservative didn?t put you in bed with paranoid, hateful people who deny reality and advocate a police state, as long as the police only enforce the laws they like against the people they don?t.

    But decent people have backed out from under the tent labeled conservative…”

    Do you really believe Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Dan Henninger, Rich Lowry, Mona Charan, etc., the writers and editors of The Wall St. Journal, National Review, The Weekly Standard, Townhall, etc., are paranoid, hateful and not decent people? Wow! Who knew?!

  32. @ Carl,
    On a side note, is Charles Krauthammer made out of plastic?
    I’m just saying….

  33. @Keith Brown

    “On a side note, is Charles Krauthammer made out of plastic?
    I?m just saying?.”

    Keith, I assume you are unaware that Charles Krauthammer is paralyzed from the neck down. He dove in a pool when he was in college and broke his neck. He finished his studies, became a licensed doctor and psychiatrist, got tired of it and made a new career as a conservative pundit and columnist. He’s considered one of – if not the – best conservative thinkers out there. Not bad for a guy paralyzed from the neck down.

  34. @Carl,
    No. I was not aware of that. Thanks for the clarification,

  35. Speaking of ‘clarification,’ I went to the Wiki page about Michael Brown and was astonished at how different the witnesses’ stories were from what was reported.

    It is normal for a Policeman to grab a suspect’s head and pull him into a police cruiser? I would hope that would never happen, but hatred makes people do terrible things…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown

  36. I think I’d rather face honest truncheons than endless sophistry.

  37. “Let?s see, I?m a defender of Clive Bundy, I believe all racial conflicts are due to race hustlers riling up otherwise untroubled minorities, and my head is being stuffed with fear and hatred by right-wing demagogues.”

    Actually, Carl, I didn’t say you personally believed any of those things, except for the part about the minorities being unduly influenced by “race hustlers”, a point you’ve made here repeatedly. But if the shoe fits…

  38. @ Terry LaBan

    Actually, Terry, your sentence in #30 reads, “… all racial conflicts in America are merely the result of ?race hustlers? riling up otherwise untroubled minorities could be just as easily said of the Right.” I’ve never said ALL racial conflicts in America are merely the result of ‘race hustlers’ riling up OTHERWISE UNTROUBLED MINORITIES… ” I have consistently said I was referring to these recent incidents and I’ve never said minorities are “otherwise untroubled.” If you’re going to respond, why not be accurate?

  39. @ Mike Peterson

    “I think I?d rather face honest truncheons than endless sophistry.”

    Sigh.

  40. @ Carl Moore:

    “Do you really believe Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Dan Henninger, Rich Lowry, Mona Charan, etc., the writers and editors of The Wall St. Journal, National Review, The Weekly Standard, Townhall, etc., are paranoid, hateful and not decent people? Wow! Who knew?!”

    Actually…yes. To many of those.
    Lowry is the embodiment of tone-deaf, clueless privilege. Krauthammer is the worst kind of armchair hawk. The National Review and The Weekly Standard consistently align themselves with those who have consistently, ceaselessly, unfailingly latched their political fortunes to the demonization and “otherizing” of just about every possible demographic in this country besides straight white males, and who have, in the spirit of pure undistilled ideology, chipped away at everything that protected working people from the ravages of unchecked avarice. As for Townhall, it’s a despicable group of paranoiacs who are only a couple of notches above World Net Daily.

    Why do I say these things? It’s a simple litmus test. The test is whether your words and actions hurt people. And unfortunately, that’s what the words and actions of these people have done for many years.

  41. “I?ve never said ALL racial conflicts in America are merely the result of ?race hustlers? riling up OTHERWISE UNTROUBLED MINORITIES? ? I have consistently said I was referring to these recent incidents…”

    So, race hustlers don’t manufacture ALL American racial conflict, just the latest. Oh, well–that certainly makes your argument a lot more convincing. Thanks for clearing that up, Carl.

    Actually, the person who’s probably inspired the most people to protest isn’t Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or anyone else who could be plausibly identified as a professional “race hustler”. It’s Michael Brown’s mom.

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