Jimmy Carter’s brain, racist as well as clueless

Years ago, the late George Carlin created a comedy routine in which he satirized the Seven Dirty Words that could not be uttered in broadcasting. The routine drew its humor from Carlin’s exaggerations and clinical explanations that made the words sound harmless, if, in the case of a couple, somewhat crass. Carlin was not the only one who used the psychology of repeating words to “desensitize” the listener to their shock value.

I was reminded of that when I heard America’s worst former President, Jimmy Carter, expound on his scientific conclusion that the overwhelming portion of people who oppose President Obama’s policies do so out of racism. Clueless as Carter has proved himself time and again, he is somewhat of an expert on racism. His own. I attribute his accusations to what psychologists, Freudians as well as Jungians, have referred to as projection, a psychological defense mechanism through which we avoid dealing with our own problems and biases by projecting them onto others.

Carter has a substantial and documented history of blaming the ills of the Middle East, and beyond, on specifically Israel and, albeit more ambiguously, on Jews. For Carter, as well as many other leftists, the code word for the latter often is “Neocons.” His scribblings have produced endorsements from some unsavory characters, such as Osama bin Laden. They have produced several challenges from Professor Alan Dershowitz for Carter to debate the latest anti-Israel book, challenges that Carter has wisely declined to accept. Then there is Carter’s infamous race-baiting 1970 campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor of Georgia against Governor Carl Sanders, the details of which turn one’s stomach.

So, I recognize that, due to his expertise as a racist, Carter’s opinion deserves some consideration. However, ultimately his judgment in this matter is the product of the “clueless” hemisphere of his brain, not the “racist” one. And that goes for the rest of the Democratic politicians and commentators, and the liberal media and useful idiots who have trumpeted this theme along with their accusations that opponents of ObamaCare are un-American, unpatriotic, Nazis, brownshirts, domestic terrorists, and so on and on.

To return to the racism theme. Does it not strike any of these people as strange that Americans who oppose ObamaCare also opposed HillaryCare, the slightly less massive transformation of the American health care system promoted by the Clinton administration in 1993? I remember well the press’s “analysis” of the 1994 mid-term elections as the return of the “angry” conservative males. As far as I can tell, the Clintons are Whites, though I remember that many liberals in the 1990s proclaimed Billy Jeff as the first Black President. That honorific is heard no more. Instead, the Clintons themselves were targeted by the O-bots as “racists” during the 2008 primaries. So, if people who now oppose ObamaCare also opposed the health care socialization proposed by the now-revealed racists who are Bill and Hillary, wouldn’t that make such opponents anti-racists? Boy, this racism metaphysics is almost Hegelian in its density.

Moreover, how can Americans who oppose ObamaCare to the tune of 56%, according to a reliable poll (and more if only those who take a position are considered) be racists, when 53% of Americans voted for Obama? I don’t recall a large campaign effort directed at mobilizing “Racists for Obama.”

Returning to the Carlin routine. The word racist has lost much of its force by overuse. indeed, a reader may get a sense of that just by reading this post, which has made liberal use of the word. Democratic efforts at race-baiting reek of political desperation. I always know who has won an argument when an opponent resorts to ad hominem, particularly comparison to racists or Hitler. The last one only works if you have some very careful analysis of policy and rhetoric that is beyond the ken of the vast majority of, say, anti-war demonstrators who routinely compared President Bush’s policies to protect national security to Hitler’s policies. Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is such a careful and scholarly work that draws very nuanced comparisons and distinctions. But bumper stickers on Priuses and Subarus, and outbursts by MSNBC talking heads are not.

So, go ahead, liberals, and call opponents of Obama’s policies racist. It only provides evidence of your intellectual bankruptcy. As far as I am concerned, the word is flatus vocis, verbal flatulence. And it makes the less ideologically opposed to Obama mad and loses you even more supporters.

On a related topic, Nancy Pelosi bemoans the use of harsh and over-the-top language. Democrats have, after eight years of lunatic ranting about George Bush (examples of which I have posted before and which include contributions by Pelosi), Bush assassination chic, Bush Derangement Syndrome, and vicious political attack ads on Bush, Cheney, and Republicans, rediscovered the virtues of civility. But civility apparently means not opposing Obama policies, since to do so is racist. Oh, and Madame Speaker equates opposition rhetoric with the assassination of Harvey Milk. Not harsh and over the top, that comparison, is it?

Jonah Goldberg at NRO sees Carter’s and the Left’s racism fits through the same prism.