They haven’t changed much. After all, before health care, they were protesting about taxes (the reason for the name “Tea Party”, in fact)… after the Obama administration lowered taxes for 95% of Americans — and, since there are probably no billionaire teabaggers, for 100% of protesters.

If they were honest, they’d admit that what they’re really protesting is “the President is black, and black people scare me”. What else explains that they protested about taxes after they were lowered?

Does that mean that they are voting for McCain only because they and McCain are white? The racist bastards!

In fact, if we take this absurdity to its logical limit, the only non-racists out there are the whites who’re voting for Obama, and the blacks who’re voting for McCain. Everyone else is just voting according to skin color, nothing more. Racists!

And to think these creeps have millions hanging on to their every word…

From the article:

Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think.  “His name is so close to Osama I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn’t recognize Christ,” Pastor Byrd said.

and:

Pastor Byrd told News Channel 7 he would ask his congregation to vote on whether to keep the sign.  They voted unanimously to keep the sign up Sunday night.

Jonesville Church of God does not have any African American members.

You know what really infuriates me about this? Not that these assholes do this, but that it works. A good percentage of Americans probably “have a feeling” that Obama might be a Muslim, simply because of his name. How stupid can you get?

(via Friendly Atheist)

Excerpt:

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

But what most people don’t know is that there is another kind of racism – and that, indeed, many people attempt to fight racism with racism.

You see, the thing is, unlike what you probably believe, not all racism is about hate. Racism, in is simplest form, in the word’s original meaning, is the belief that people are defined by their “race” (ethnic group, etc.); in other words, that “race” matters. (I put the word “race” between quotes because the human race is in fact a single one – “race” only matters to racists.)

One of the best examples of racism is Affirmative Action (AA).

Racism is but one of the many forms of collectivism. Much like all the other forms, it says that people aren’t really individuals, that all our actions, our personalities, our achievements are defined by something else, something we can’t control – be it our skin color, our nationality or our gender. A racist, be it one of the “hating kind” or not, will always believe that people should be judged and treated differently, that they are in fact different, according to their “race”. To a racist, laws that protect a group, or harm a group, or try to “ensure fairness” by harming one group to the benefit of another, are not only acceptable but necessary. The idea that it isn’t skin color that really matters, but one’s own individual choices, is alien to him or her.

Back to Affirmative Action. AA, which is in practice in several countries, including the USA and the UK (it may have different names in each country), is a group of laws and policies which attempt to ensure “fairness” to “minorities” in terms of employement in workplaces. (it can also apply to other fields, such as education) Thus, it imposes “racial quotas”, which mean that there must be X% of “minority” employees in a company.

To AA supporters, the idea that an employer will choose the best man or woman for the job isn’t enough – it may not even be believable. Minority groups must be artificially “supported”, even if that means that an employer will be forced to turn down a more qualified candidate. To such a supported, “fairness” does not mean that everyone will have a shot at getting a particular job, without being discriminated for “race” – it means, instead, that people will be hired or refused according to their “race”. Because, to their racist minds, “race” is the only thing that matters.

AA supporters don’t see, however, that this is demeaning, even insulting to minority groups – they’re being told, basically, that they couldn’t ever get a particular job by themselves, on their own merits, and that they’re only getting it artificially, to ensure “fairness” and “equality”. They’re being told that their achievements, their personality, their qualities, their choices don’t matter – in a way, that they’re no different from anyone else with the same skin tone.

Would you like to be told “you’re only here to fill our quota for whites/blacks/asians, if it was up to us we wouldn’t have hired you”?

We are the choices we make, not something which was determined before we were born.