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In
Chicago, we have a long line of judges to vote for. Because most voters know
very little about any of the people on the list, we tend to check the names
from our own ethnic lists. I suspect that the Irish were the first to start
this process. If we stand before a judge, it's always reassuring to be able
to say, "Hey, doesn't my mother know your mother?"
This is a purely pragmatic procedure. There is no implication that one's own
guys have been victimized more than other people's guys, and therefore we
are entitled.
However, in an era of political correctness, it is essential that one
reflect on who is the most correct victim. In this presidential election,
the most vigorous argument is whether African Americans or women have first
claim on politically correct voters. I think that to ask this question may
be a mortal sin. |
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If women want to vote for a female
candidate, that's fine. Similarly, if African Americans decide to vote for
one of their own, hooray for them.
Indeed the stubborn determination of many to reject Sen. Barack Obama
baffles me -- their claim that the senator isn't really black enough is like
the claim of some Catholics back in 1960 that JFK wasn't really Catholic
enough. It will be a long, long time before they get another chance.
If one is to play the victimization game, however, there are far more
deserving candidates. Given the genocide of Native Americans, they certainly
have a claim prior to African Americans' or women's. Given all the suffering
that Jews have endured down through the millennia, isn't it time to have a
Jewish-American president? If Mayuh Bloomberg chooses to run, he would be
way ahead of almost everyone else on the victimization scale. Or what about
a gay candidate, would one have even a higher score on the victimization
criterion? Or what about a transgender person? Has anyone been treated more
cruelly than they have? |
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Because arguments like these are made
routinely, I'd better assert that I am not serious in the last paragraph.
Rather I am reducing to absurdity any argument that white women should vote
for Obama or black men should vote for Hillary Clinton in order that they be
approved by the political correctness board of review or that either
candidate has a prior claim on politically correct behavior from electors.
The task of a democratic society is not aided by the creation of certain
groups (usually of spokesmen) who are authorized to make claims on others
because of past injustices for which the others in question share no
responsibility.
The proper goal, it would seem to me, is to concentrate on present
injustices. Thus, the constant threat of rape to women in the military is
more important than protests about rape in ages past and wars past. The
ending of sexual harassment in the workplace and the schoolyard is an
absolute condition for a just society.
Attacks on male candidates because they are men is no more acceptable than
ridicule of female candidates because they are women.
At this writing, it seems likely that the Clinton machine has destroyed
Obama -- inexperienced, idealistic, naive, unlikely to respond to
terrorists, cocaine sniffing, insensitive, teller of fairy tales, deficient
by his own admission in orderliness. How can one role the dice on such man?
As a result, the Republicans are likely to win the election, the war will
continue, perhaps for another decade, Hispanics will continue to be inkblots
for racial hatred, and attempts to begin a new political style will be
postponed indefinitely.
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A Stupid, Unjust, And
Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007
Father Greeley calls to task those who justified, planned and
executed the war and reminds us that God weeps at the destruction of war,
whether lives lost are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs.’
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