‘Precious’ vs. ‘The Blind Side’: The System, Worked
by Mr. Wrestling IV“I don’t blame nobody. I just want to say when I was twelve, TWELVE, somebody hadda help me it not be like it is now…. Why no one put Carl in jail after I have baby by him when I am twelve?” — From “Precious,” Based on the Novel “Push,” by Sapphire.
From ABC’s 20/20 segment on “The Blind Side”:
Deborah Roberts: There are some black people who feel a little uneasy about the notion of the wealthy white family comes in to help the poor black kid…
Michael Oher: I don’t understand why people would feel that way because as long as somebody’s, uh, somebody’s helping somebody and taking, you know, somebody off the streets, I don’t care, you know, black or white, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Two powerful and very different movies dealing with the problem of neglected and abused children in America were honored at this year’s Golden Globe Awards. Precious is a very difficult and painful movie to watch, depicting the utter devastation wrought in the horrible life of Clareece Precious Jones, a fictional but utterly believable character with countless real-life counterparts, while The Blind Side is perhaps the prototypical feel-good movie of the year (and a crowd-pleasing $200-million blockbuster), dealing with the success story of the real-life Michael Oher, who was adopted by a middle class white family and went on to play college football and become an NFL star. But the two movies starkly show two distinctly different approaches to the problem.
Bluntly stated, Precious presents the liberal solution — let the government do it — and The Blind Side presents the conservative solution — do it yourself.
Precious, an illiterate, pregnant sixteen-year-old girl, trapped in a public school system that passes her along even though she has learned nothing, raped repeatedly by her father resulting in a mongoloid child at age 12 as well as her current pregnancy, beaten and humiliated her entire life by the sick beast who bore her, is the end product (sadly, one of thousands upon thousands) of one of the greatest liberal crimes of the 20th Century: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
When the Johnson Administration expanded the AFDC program (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) in the early 1960s to include any household with children in which a male breadwinner was absent (theretofore it had been restricted to widows with children), the devastation it brought to inner-city family life was pervasive and undeniable. As Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen described it in A Patriot’s History of the United States, “The war on poverty managed to destroy black marriages and family formation at a faster rate than the most brutal slaveholder had ever dreamed.” (p. 688)
By creating an incentive for poor women to remain unmarried so that they could receive taxpayer-funded subsidies, and by further increasing the amount of aid for every additional child they birthed, government assistance from 1965 to 1975 nearly doubled the illegitimate birth rate among blacks from 28% to 49%, reaching a staggering 65% in 1989.
By making black men irrelevant to the support of the children they fathered, and attempting to replace their contribution to the family with a welfare check, liberal policies inflicted nearly permanent damage to the very people they sought to help. These policies have metastasized into a permanent underclass, dependent on subsistence level funding from taxpayer monies, and forever after terrorized by exploitative politicians tightening their grip on power by promising their payments would decrease or stop altogether if they did not continue to vote for them.
And so we get Precious. Trapped in an apartment with her government-subsidized mother, who allows her boyfriend (Precious’ own biological father) to do unspeakable things to her from infancy onward; lost in a school system that ignores her, and bound by her own ignorance, she escapes the horrors of her life by living in a fantasy world of pop culture dreams that flicker across her television, and she is utterly failed by every government system created to save her. The government monopoly on public schools fails to educate her; the Social Services Department fails to protect her; the welfare system fails to lift her out of poverty.
But if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was instead the secretary of Health and Human Services, undoubtedly she would say, “The system worked.” It certainly worked for Precious’ mother, who knows exactly how to work the system, as we see whenever she bats her eyes and plays the victim for the social workers who fall for her act and keep the checks coming.
And in fact, in Precious, the system does work in exactly the way it was designed. The system was created by liberals to make themselves feel good, not to bring any actual benefit or relief to victimized children like Precious. She and her countless counterparts are doomed by dangerously mistaken liberals who think:
“I will vote to create taxpayer-funded bureaucracies that will fix this problem by taking up a forced collection from all my fellow Americans, and I will never have to get my hands dirty or do something disgusting like open my home to her, or actually do anything to help her myself. I will let the government take care of her, and since I vote for Democrats who create these bureaucracies, I have helped her, and I am better than those selfish Republicans.”
And if you think that assessment of liberals is too harsh, just remember: these are the same people that define their goodness by their Prius and their mulchers, and the way they meticulously sort their trash into different colored bins. When you think you can save the planet just by carrying your reusable bag to Trader Joe’s, there’s really no need to do anything really difficult or icky like becoming a Big Brother or a foster parent or adopting a child.
Which brings us to those awful conservative Christian Republicans in The Blind Side. Michael Oher, one of thirteen children born to a drug-addicted mother living in public housing, whose life up to that point had probably been somewhat similar to Precious’, is walking down a freezing cold Memphis street in only a T-shirt when Leigh Anne Tuohy drives past him and says to her husband Sean, “Turn the car around.” His life is changed forever, by an awesome act of love and kindness from a private citizen.
The insane and utterly racist backlash from some quarters against The Blind Side seems to boil down to this: rich white people shouldn’t be adopting poor black kids. And as usual, this stupidity does not come from the right, but from the bigoted statists on the left, who want to protect the government mechanisms they have constructed to keep these problems out of their sights.
Left out of The Blind Side, apparently, were the long lines of black families that the Tuohys elbowed out of the way in order to get their white hands on Michael Oher. What sort of person could argue that Michael Oher — or Precious, for that matter — would be better off staying in the system if the alternative is to be taken care of by white people? And what kind of an idiot would think that a family would take on the responsibility of another human being and feed him, clothe him, pay for a tutor to help him learn, all just to get him to play football for their alma mater?
The best way to deal with this hateful nonsense is to dismiss it completely, as Leigh Anne Tuohy demonstrated, in her inimitable style, on 20/20:
Deborah Roberts: What do you say to people who say they feel a little offended that this white couple took this black kid in and tried to kind of mold him into what they wanted?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: No one has the guts to say that to my face. No one has ever said that to my face and if they did I would tell them don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
At the end of Precious, a bracing dedication comes up on the screen: For Precious Girls Everywhere. Perhaps the saddest fact in the comparison between these two films is that this might be one instance where the fictional character is more real than the true-life character. After all, there is only one Michael Oher, adopted and loved by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, now the Baltimore Ravens’ left tackle.
But how many Precious girls and boys are still out there, trapped in a system that works only to keep them in it, waiting for a Leigh Anne Tuohy to say, “Turn the car around?”
Ed. Note: This post has been updated to repair a broken link.
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167 Comments
Hollywood's business is making fortunes off the blurring of the line, between fiction and fact, fantasy and reality. The liberals make it their business to exploit both.
The conservatives simply believe in picking your own azz up, and making something of yourself.
Too many, unfortunately. And until we work to bring real education and intact families back to poor areas, even a hundred Lee Anne's won't be enough.
You hit the nail on the head: the liberal view is selfishness; the conservative view is compassion. Not at all surprising that libs give so little to charity and so much to government causes.
"What sort of person could argue that Michael Oher — or Precious, for that matter — would be better off staying in the system if the alternative is to be taken care of by white people?"
The answer is simple. Anyone who's livelihood and political power are derived from convincing poor black people that "Whitey hate you. Whitey only gonna keep a brotha down. Gubmn't is gonna get even with Whitey for you."
Yeah I'm pointing my pasty white finger at you; Sharpton, Jackson, Obama and the rest. Shame on you.
I am a student of Larry Shweikart's (quoted above), and I JUST got out of class a few minutes ago. Loving it, and the University of Dayton as well.
Too bad his colleagues are a bunch of capitalism-hating morons, though.
individual effort x responsibility+ accountability= success…
Pretty simple, ain't it? Seems to be pretty much color bind, as well. Look at Oprah. For a former druggie/welfare recipient she's done pretty well. Guaranteed outcomes do not exist, other than in the febrile minds of liberals…
Great column. I only wish we'd get actual Liberals here instead of the occasional Liberal troll to actually try to defend the success vs failures of the government system.
Excellent article, well written with compassion for those trapped on the Welfare Plantation. What isn't pointed out is that welfare and liberal good intentions have managed to destroy a people strong and resilient enough to survive slavery and discrimination. Doesn't bode well for the rest of us under Obama's ministrations.
There are too many Preciouses and too few Tuohy's. How does this country ever solve this problem?
Just remember that the republicans haven't stopped the gravy train either….
Remember "compassionate conservatism"?
Cure liberalism.
Point taken. I used the term "mongoloid" because it was used in the movie, and should have used quotation marks. My apologies.
Only glaring mistake in this post is in the Blind side, the family that adopted Michael was clearly not middle-class, but rather upper class. Considering Sandra Bullock's character drove a brand new Mercedes Benz, and the family donated thousands of dollars to Ole Miss.
Mr WrestlingIV,
Great analysis, Great piece!
As a former special needs teacher, what I find offensive is the ever-shifting PC involved.
"Retarded" was the preferred term until "challenged" and "special needs". What will the next preferred term be? Children use terms of derision. When "child with Downs Syndrome" itself becomes a term of derision by other children, then the term will change to something else. People will write "PUH-leese don't refer to children with Down's Syndrome as "children with Down's Syndrome, refer to them as "fill in the blank".
The most offensive thing is that people think by changing terms they can sanitize a situation that will never change: children will refer to those differently at times by terms that we wish they wouldn't use.
This is very exciting, as I read these posts I realize that American's are waking up to the fascist left who have dominated the conversation for decades!
And I don't think that the writers "assessment of liberals is too harsh." (Maybe not harsh enough) This is exactly the conversation we should be having!
Can you provide any documents or studies or evidence that people on welfare or public assistance think "getting a government check is a career"? This sort of extreme oversimplication of poverty or welfare issues does sort of contribute to the perception that *some* conservatives are indifferent to those down on their luck. I think that the "gravy train" argument has been repeated so often, that it's accepted as gospel without any actual proof.
Here's an idea. If you want fewer people to be on the public dole, then trade these cuts off with eliminating the tax benefits businesses get for moving jobs overseas, and stop all this talk about eliminating a minimum wage that people can't live on.. There's no point in cutting off assistance to people if there are no jobs to be had to live on.
Progressives empower themselves by making others dependent on them (the government). Conservatives empower others by making them independent from the government.
You are absolutely right. The poor have been pawns for politicians forever.
No, they are wealthy. Upper quarter per cent. Easy. Owned about a hundred fast food restaurants. You can make a really good living with a couple. But So what?
Thank you for your er thoughtful essay, devastating but sadly true.
Agreed. What I want to know is exactly when some one from the GOP is going to stand up and yell "enough is enough!"
I'm waiting……
"…And as usual, this stupidity does not come from the right, but from the bigoted statists on the left, who want to protect the government mechanisms they have constructed to keep these problems out of their sights…"
That's almost right, but not quite. Liberals may not want to deal with the results of their skulduggery on a personal and/or daily basis, but they sure as heck don't want these 'problems' to become invisible. The real game is to secure all blacks as DemocRAT voters by painting Republicans as racists. Here's how it works: first, you give blacks something for free using tax dollars. Then, you wait for Republicans to howl about it. Finally, you tell blacks, see, Republicans are racists because they don't want blacks to have this free thing we DemocRATS gave you. You see? No discussion of the merits of the free thing, no talk about who is going to pay for it, just, DemocRATS are for it, vote for us, Republicans are against it, they are racists. The same, effective plan is followed with women and abortion, Hispanics and amnesty, and Homosexuals and gay marriage, among myriad other examples.
How to solve it? Easy, people like Michael Oher need to show that their gratitude and courage matches the size of their athletic ability by calling the DemocRATS who would rather he had stayed in the 'ghetto' what they really are: racists.
Yeah…talking in a fake black dialect really helps the GOP overcome the perception that they don't really care for African-Americans.
…while making them completely dependent on the corporations. Sort of a lateral move if you ask me.
Um, you do understand that there are numerically more white people on public assistance than any other group in this country. You would have to think that portraying welfare as being almost exclusively a black thing has a lot to do with the GOP's image problem with African-American voters. Less dog whistles would do volumes to help the GOP moving forward. In a weird way, GW Bush was very astute about that, and avoided a lot of the extreme rhetoric like what you employed. As a result, he polled better with African-Americans and Latinos in 2000 and 2004 than any Republican presidential candidate in a generation.
Respectually, BOTH films were rather paternalistic. Blind Side got criticized because the main character, Michael Oher, was relegated to a guest cameo in his own biopic.
Oh, yes…we live in an amazing meritocracy. Why GW Bush got wealthy through his own hard work, not because of family connections. Mitt Romney never ever ever took advantage of his dad's political connections to get a leg up. Yep. Up by their bootstraps.
Ironically, the whole purpose of this website seems to be for that exact thing. If you can say with a straight face that you don't dehumanize people who aren't conservative…..
Liberals could read this well written, thought provoking article 100 times, and they still wouldn't GET it. Never will. They can't grasp that though my daughter is eligible for SCHIP because of my disability, I do without other things in order to buy her a private health insurance plan instead.. My liberal friend actually told me, "but, it's free". Needless to say, we don't speak often.
Thank you for your service. I'm glad that you're a FORMER special needs teacher….Or do you not like the term "special needs". Calling you a retarded teacher might actually fit better.
So Joe Mama, that's the best you can do to tell all of us racist, white, "Republicans" just how good the liberal philosophy has been for America in general, and black Americans in particular?
I read both books the movies were based on. . .So far, all you've challenged is the language that states the basic premise ( which belies your charge that the article was unfocused) : Government has not helped the lot of black Americans. . .but individuals have.
That's the basic premise of conservatism. White Saviors is your word – - race wasn't even a focus of the article. The system was.
Race Card play: Denied. And you may plant your lips on my dark conservative posterior.
*MissQuinn*
President Obama has lambasted Black people for not doing enough to improve their own communities.
The difference is that unlike Republicans Obama's words are just rhetoric to distract the "easily led" from how he want to maintain the liberal re-enslavement of Black people. Hence, Obama will encourage Black kids in Washington, DC to get a quality education, but then kill the voucher program that enabled said kids to do just that.
No wonder even Black Democrats in DC are starting to openly criticize Obama:
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0909/657267.html
"I saw "The Blind Side" and I didn't think much of the "white savoirs" theme of the movie…until I read this article beretting black people."
Just to be clear, I have never advocated putting berets on black people, or any other color people, for that matter. I decry all beretting as unfashionable and pretentious, and think that noone in our country should be beretted.
"Joe Mama", go back to school. Nothing you have to say will ever be taken seriously if that's how you express yourself. Your high-minded liberal anger and misspelled words discredit you completely.
Sincerely,
A public school teacher
Cowboy,
Precisely correct. My take on it is the Hollywood/Liberal line is that it does not matter what you are DOING, it only matters what you SAY.
Therefore theyr sort their trash, and we actually go out there and DO SOMETHING that matters.
Perhaps if you learned to articulate your thoughts, people would take you a bit more serious.
I don't know.
I like berets, especially on Che' and Fidel.
If we could only get Hugo and Achmedenijad to wear one, with a little gold star………………
I do agree with Mondo that the terms change with the wind. As a mother to a former child with a disability, and as a "former" special needs teacher, I can see both sides here. To be honest, the name calling needs to stop. When all is said and done, the child is a child is a child. Please don't be mean.
Reverse psychology. Give them what they want.
Tell liberal women we think they should get abortions so that they can't raise liberal children.
Tell the hispanics they have to become citizen's and pay our taxes.
Tell the homos they have to get married so that they can be sued by their spouse for abuse/non support/divorce.
Don't allow welfare recipients to work or go to school, tell them they have to recieve the benefit forever and we don't want their situation to improve.
Or a target.
You shouldn't point out his flaws in articulation. It's so "beretting."
/sarc off
Hmmm.
We have witnessed the same name change for Blacks over the past thirty years. What is it now, changed about six or seven times? Purely parsing words, and semantics does not change anything other than making the "special descriptive terms police" feel better about the venacular of the day.
/sarc off
Social Workers will not allow white famalies to adopt african-american children even if these children are older or have special needs. That is one of the reasons white families adopt over-seas.
Concise, excellent comparison. Some great lines throughout your piece, Mr. Wrestling – good job!
Finally B.H. takes an objective look at Precious.
I'm afraid these are the actual liberals. *sad face*
The Left is evil. And so what? Over a half-century of its horror created world and the overwhelming majority of Americans still see liberals as "compassionate" and conservatives as mean. I was born into this and will die with it still going full steam ahead. And no,there is no happy ending to this post.
"and think that noone in our country should be beretted."
I must disagree. Like it or not, Gen. Shinseki's order still stands and the beret is standard US Army headgear.
Race wasn't a focus of the article at all….
"Left out of The Blind Side, apparently, were the long lines of black families that the Tuohys elbowed out of the way in order to get their white hands on Michael Oher."
Yep. No black family would help Michael Oher…although before the Tuhoys, the movie shows a black man that takes in Michael for a short time and tries to get him into the school (unless that was just a cut to please liberals). Of course, that isn't cited in the article at all…the Tuhoys are. In defense of "Hack" Hogan or whoever wrote this, that man wasn't half as sexy as Sandra Bullock with her affected southern accent (I apologize…she actually did a good job of playing a Republican even though I would hope that she is likely too bright and talented to be one). And the passage I chose came before the "writer" cited a thinly veiled defense of slave owners! I'm sorry…it was a thinly veiled defense of slave owners only in comparison to a Democratic government. Apparently slavery…not as bad as taking welfare! Nothing to do with race.
And I would kiss your ass, MissQuinn. However, since you implied that you are a black Republican woman, I'm sure there are many people in the Republican party already standing in the long line. After all, Republicans love a self hating black person. Tell Thomas Shallows I said hello.
AN OUTSTANDING COMPARISON!!! THE LIBERAL WAY VS THE CONSERVATIVE WAY…. WHICH IS BETTER??? WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH…. LIBERALS WANT CONTROL SO THEY BUILD THE MECHANISMS
TO KEEP THE POOR [SEE: BLACKS] ON THE PLANTATION… IT IS LIBERALS [SEE: DEMOCRATS] THAT FAIL THE PEOPLE, THAT HOLD THE PEOPLE DOWN, HOLD "THEIR" PEOPLE DOWN… ALL IN THE NAME OF POWER. THIS POST IS OUTSTANDING FOR SHINING THE LIGHT DIRECTLY ON THE HYPOCRISY OF THE LEFT AND THE DESTRUCTION THE DEMOCRATS PRODUCE….
I'm sorry…who's noone? Did you mean "none in our country"? But that doesn't sound right.
It's great that I'm criticized for spelling…in a sentence with a misspelled word! Gotta love that double standard. It sure keeps Connie going strong!
Oh yea, Kennedy and Obama never took advantage of their political connections? Fail!
Yeah, Joe. Your a looser.
Jack Kemp's 'compassionate Capitalism' was all about creating prosperity and opportunities. It wasn't welfare or the entitlement mentality.
First off, there are millions of jobs to be had out there. We know this because there are millions of illegal aliens crossing the border to get them. Which is also the proof you need that many suckling at the public teet are quite comfortable doing just that FOREVER. Why go out and get a job when the government will pay you to stay at home, eat and breed?
In my area, all menial labor is being perfomed by citizens of Mexico, while the underclass blacks and whites who fill our section 8 housing and trailer parks contribute nothing beyond crime, addiction and teenage pregnancy.
The problem isn't some complex intersection of underlying causes, but the simple rule of supply and demand: what you pay for, you get more of.
Have you ever actually come across anyone who ever used the word "whitey"? Frankly, the only times I've ever seen the word "whitey" used is when misguided people of the conservative persuasion fling it around while pretending to know how black people think and what they say.
Where do you stand on Pat Buchanan's assertion that America is a "country built entirely by white men"? Is Pat a "liberal"?
A half-century, eh?
So, in 1960, America was just peachy keen, and there were no problems for anyone? Sure you want to go there?
Hey, Titov! Who said it was a black dialect? You did, racist!
His assessment was brilliant.
We don't dehumanize people who aren't conservative. How's that for straight?
Exactly, Ed. Be suspicious of people who are suspicious of genuine kindness. They can't wrap their brains around it.
Your source, sir?
Bread and circuses……..
On New Year's Day, my relatives and I had a debate over the Blind Side. My aunt was not thrilled with the idea of a White family once again adopting a Black child. Before I caught myself, I blurted out "If you're concerned about Black orphans, why not adopt one yourself?"
That killed the discussion right there.
It also made me reflect how its the conservative Black relatives like my brother-in-law and his wife who actually are going through the hard work of adopting a Black girl. Too many of my more liberal Black relatives complain about the problem or point at easy scapegoats (e.g., White people) to feel less guilty about their in action.
So, you as well as some of my relatives vindicate Mr/ Wrestling's point that liberals complain about the epidemic of Black orphan but lack the guts and love to become adoptive parents themselves. In short, they want to pass the buck as usual.
Here you go….
http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-11-18/film/the-blind...
THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG! WHO'S NEXT?
I graded a high school student's essay today in which the student wrote about Nelson Mandela's struggles to help "African-Americans." The author stated that Mandela was president of South Africa, but she probably didn't know what else to call the black people. I actually feel awkward typing "black people" because I know some people get offended, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but if I'm white, and I need to specify someone's race (i.e.: apartheid in South Africa was bad because black people were treated unfairly) why can't I call people black? Or maybe I can. I don't know!
Liberals and their policies are racist in the extreme.
It's ALL about separating people into identity groups for political exploitation.
That would mean cutting off welfare from those that think getting a government check is a career. Good luck with that while democrats and liberals are in charge. You'd be attacking their voting base.
We'd be labeled monsters that want poor people to starve and freeze. Of course that's a lot of hysterical bullshit, but hysterical bullshit plays in liberal land.
Excellent perspective on the stark differences in approach (and results) between the statists, well-intentioned though some of them may be, and free-thinking, generous individuals who simply roll up their sleeves and do something. Thanks for the good read.
You weren't reading very carefully. The author was answering back to the racist critics of the movie who are outraged that white conservatives would actually take on the responsibility of caring for a black teenager and giving him a chance for a better life. It punctures their self-gratifying myth that white Republicans are uncaring racists. In their small minds, since no black families had yet stepped forward to help Michael, therefore nobody should. If the Tuohys had happened to be a black family, the author would probably have applauded the story in exactly the same way.
Disagree with Movie Bob on Precious. The social worker doesn't give her strength or inspiration; just a venue or forum for Precious to actually talk to her mother. After that, Precious says, "I never knew what you was until this very day." That's why Precious never stood up to her before.
Nurse John was more about Precious feeling normal and having 'girl-talk' like a normal 16 year old. The government can't give you that sense of normalcy.
The lesbian-archangel teacher is simply a dedicated teacher. It's been done to death in movies, but someone had to teach Precious to read. A mediocre public school education isn't exactly the government coming to the rescue.
In the end, Precious walking away with her 2 babies is powerful scene of self-determination and ethics.
George Carlin said it best: "They think that by changing the WORD they are changing the CONDITION". Calling a crippled person "handicapped" was good for a while. But then someone decided handicapped wasn't good enough, so now they're "handi-capable". Ol' George's take was that eventually you get from "retarded" to "minimally exceptional". I can see it now; teenagers in twenty years saying "Dude, you're so minimally exceptional".
See how it is?
See what you just wrote?
You are a teacher, yet society, conventional wisdom, and contolling the discourse and venacular has allowed "them", to control "US."
Personally, I won't be controlled, not dictated to. I prefer to call a spade a spade, and even using those few silly little words, people today find offensive. I find them ridiculous.
I come from a different place than most folks, a different culture. It is different in the west. I spend alot of time on the Rez, in Indian country. They still call themselves Indians, and I am their token cowboy. I have witnessed racism and bigotry first hand, and it is ugly.
There are white folks, and red, and yellow, and brown, and black. Those are what we are, not a bunch of hyphenated-Americans. At the end of the day, all we can strive to be, is better Human Beings.
"The Blind Side" is not designed to reassure any group. It's designed to tell a true story, about someone in a terrible situation who got a chance because SOMEBODY cared. They just happened to be white conservative Christians in this case. And that's what has the haters' panties in a bunch. They can't stand it when white conservative Christians puncture the myths about their supposed uncaring bigotry.
Let's face it, the Liberals agenda, is to keep those folks on the plantation, waiting at the mailbox for the gubment check. Everything will be allright now that Obama is in da House. Gonna get that free stuff from da Obama stash.
Until that mindset is changed, nothing will change.
I need to get away from this freakin' coast. There's not a cowboy or Waffle House for miles.
Fairly juvenile of your to call it a double-standard. The poster was making light of the fact that you misspelled berating and ended up using a different actual word, which happened to be a silly hat. So he comes across as a smart-ass, while your "double standard" comment makes you come across as whiny.
Now that was funny!
What do you teach? The Rez always needs good teachers,and good people, if you don't mind living in a third world type atmosphere, and it the wild, wild west. Drugs addiction, alcoholism and juvenille suicide are at epidemic levels.
But people will treat you nice, and say M'am, and hold the door for you, and there is always plenty of depression soup and fry bread.
Doesn't sound too nice though, does it? Why do people like me stay in places like this? Kids need guidance.
You are an amazing person. Thank you!
I got the joke the second time I read it! Nicely done sir! Great article and a great reply, thank you!
Your right. Romney never saved any companies and he never saved a Winter Olympics that looked like perhaps the last one ever. Lazy rich guy sitting at home doing nothing with what he's got. Your just jealous that you aren't as rich as him. Bush, well, I can kind of see your point if you throw in J.F.K. into the same painting.
Yes I have. Many times. Most of them black Hollywood or Comedians, but a few regular black folk.
What is this strange fascination with assigning superlative motives to everything you disagree with? I see this from liberals AND conservatives and frankly it's juvenile and counterproductive. Why must a movie you don't agree with need to be demonized? Is it not enough to dislike the film and say you dislike it? I am amazed at how many postings here seem to treat one film as evil (liberal/conservative) propaganda and the other as a shining (conservative/liberal) beacon of hope and joy. Can't they just be stories? One of them is based on a true story, yet it's continually derided here as being Conservative lie. The other is fiction but fairly accurately represents a very real and unfortunate situation.
I suppose we could say it in a fake Irish accent. Would that be more culturally sensitive?
Blacks need to stop hating whites as much as they believe whites hate them. Liberal whites need to stop presenting hand-outs to failed black inner cities instead of really cleaning up the mess.
That reminds me of the word "special" in school. At first it was one of those "feel good" terms. Now, we all know what that means and it isn't special to be special.
Now if only we could talk about this rationally at Huffpo. Instead all you'll get is childish name-calling and bad language.
PUH-leese refer to children with Down Syndrome as children with Down Syndrome. The term "mongoloid" is as offensive and outmoded as the term "retarded."
Even MORE ironically, both the original comment and your reply are gross generalizations. Granted lumping all liberals together and calling them racist is an asinine thing to say. Your reply is slightly less asinine, but still very much so. This site is a forum for anyone…ANYONE….with an opinion. the fact that you're here and able to post your comments proves that.
Exactly. It's like calling a blind person "vision-challenged"…COME ON. Does that make me vision UN-challenged? It's an exercise in counter-productivity. Rather than spending time teaching people with handicaps how to function, far too many people feel the PC need to be offended on their behalf and make sure everyone is using the latest PC terms. Calling a handicapped person "handi-capable" doesn't make them the tiniest bit less handicapped, it just makes you a PC nazi.
Terrific article, very thought-provoking. I haven't seen "Precious," but "The Blind Side" one I won't soon forget.
I actually think we do need to be in some of those other countries – if not us in Haiti, who? Chavez? He's getting all pissy about our military being there; probably jealous he can't take it for himself.
I might be taking my career in another direction, although now you've got me Googling "teaching on Indian reservations"! Certainly something to think about.
Oh, and I love being called ma'am! Around here, people -GROWN people who should know better- call 70 year old women "miss." I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something when the person doing it is a kid – I think SOMEONE should tell this kid that's not okay! But it's what people do here – it's normal! And it's weird.
Regarding Chavez, he is done. His regime is crumbling around his ears. He just doesn't know it yet, and the MSM is not reporting one thing about it. He is nationalizing industries, and rationing electricity. if he survives the next year, without ending up like Che' Guvera with a bullet in his head, I'd be surprised.
You must be in Kaliforn-i- yah!
The irony here of course being that my comment ALSO had a typo.
I don't. I usually let those like yourself just be yourself. No need to dehumanize anyone, the sheer ugliness in your soul just comes out and does all the work.
Thank goodness I'm not – I don't think my state's doing quite so badly!
This reminds me of an incident when I was in 6th grade (I am 26 now so it left an impression on me). I was doing a report on I think the Democratic Republic of the Congo or whatever it was called then. Anyway I had to list the ethnicities of the country and in the text it said Negro so I put Negro on my list. One of the students in the class got upset with me for using that term. And I said something to the affect that well, that is what the book said the people were called. I don't remember the teacher saying anything really educated about it either, but this is the same teacher that didn't know that Greenland was a part of the Kingdom of Denmark and that Iceland was its own country. (and yes I know now that Greenland was its own country but still under the kingdom of denmark, but this teacher didn't know enough to explain this to me when it was part of a quiz. And she taught social studies)
Its not just a black white issue. I worked with some "problem" kids and almost all of them were white and they have similar attitudes about hand outs and such. They are just transferred from race to poor vs. rich or some other excuse for their poor condition. Parents on drugs (or more often parent), poor living conditions, many kids in some cases, getting pregnant multiple times before the age of 16, etc.
Upper middle, maybe.
What about Green Berets?
And what kind of an idiot would think that a family would take on the responsibility of another human being and feed him, clothe him, pay for a tutor to help him learn, all just to get him to play football for their alma mater?
That's easy: a modern liberal.
Um, "the system" was also responsible for saving Precious. If it weren't for the Each One/Teach One program, she would have never escaped her mother's clutches.
I noticed something similar in all those adoptive parents happily greeting their children coming to the US from Haiti. Not a single black couple in the place. NONE! They scream about not wanting whites to adopt black children, but where are all the black couples wanting to adopt?
One sentence. You are drawing this out of ONE. FLIPPING. SENTENCE. The Pharisees would be proud of your camel swallowing abilities.
You didn't cite the passage supporting slavery. because only a race baiting, broad brushing, walking stereotype like yourself could see it. I mean, I could try, but I am not enough of a rhetorical or real contortionist to force a colon-cranial inversion upon myself.
Self hating? Wow… way to tell me off. By the way, I think you're leaving your projector running.
*MissQuinn*
Victicrat (Damn it Feels Good to be a Victim)__Featuring James "The ACORN Shaker" O'Keefe and Buddy Sosthand. Zo's in there somewhere too! __http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPqmJynQPU____I grew up on welfare, and spent three years in a foster home. The best people I ever met were my foster parents. They wanted to adopt me, but my dad wouldn't sign the papers. I always want to pay it forward and I got the chance to do that.
____I bet this happens more than people think. ____
I raised a boy starting at age 14. He is white, but came from the same entitlement class of welfare and drug abuse. Instead of being inner city, the local is the appalachian hills where meth labs are their choice of income to supplement the welfare. He was in fifth grade getting all A s, but could not read words with more than three letters. I had him privately tutored for a year, then I home schooled him. His 19th birthday is today.
It's interesting. I saw "The Blind Side" and I didn't think much of the "white savoirs" theme of the movie…until I read this article beretting black people. Every angry stereotype Con rant from black people not doing enough for "Precious" and Michael Oher, to my favorite being that ONLY the rich white Republican Tuhoys would and in fact did turn that car around. Angry? Yes. Unfocused? Sure. Racist? Indeed. Republican? You betcha!
Each One/Teach One appears to be a charter school of some sort. The bane of the leftist education machine.
She 'escaped her mother's clutches' after Monique tried to drop a tv on her and her newborn.
There is little difference between the character Ms. Rain and Leigh Anne Tuohy. I don't know why people call one a Liberal and the other Conservative. They both did the same thing.
Has anyone wondered why the book is called Push?
It's because Precious has to constantly push herself. Not 'let the government do it for you' as Mr. Wrestling purports.
My favorite lines . . . Ms. Rain asks Precious what she's gonna do. She says, "I guess I'll get on welfare. That's whay my momma did." Ms. Rain says sarcastically, "And how did that work out?"
I still can't get over people saying this is a liberal movie.
The charter school received public funding. It wouldn't have existed without the government's backing and, thus, Ms. Rain wouldn't have had a job otherwise, which enabled her to give Precious the hope and confidence she needed to leave her situation. Monique wouldn't have tried to drop a TV on Precious and her newborn unless Precious gave her a reason to. Monique also threw a frying pan at Precious and knocked her in the head, but Precious still stayed. She remained after the pan incident, because, at that time, she had no reason to leave. She had no hope, nor confidence. Then, the public school official intervened, reached out to her and gave her an opportunity. That opportunity led to Ms. Rain.
But, even though we disagree, the system still sucks. Nothing ever works the way it should, unless you have the right people doing it. That's rare.
Are you kidding me? Up until Each One/Teach One, Precious was "pushing" herself to just survive in her stagnated environment. She wasn't going anywhere. She wanted to, but she didn't know she could, until someone else showed her she could.
Yes, she had to rely on herself, but she also got help.
This is not a liberal movie. And it ain't a conservative one either. Who on earth is saying it's liberal?
Just wait. In a few years liberals will realize that those Haitian orphans adopted by white parents are being robbed of their 'heritage'. They will then try to force these children to be given to some poor Haitian refugees that are subsisting on handouts.
If you call saving Precious teaching her to read at age 16 after she has two children by her father and contracts HIV, then you have a very low threshhold for salvation, brother. But, hey, the system worked! She got saved!
She learned how to read, she got both her kids, she got the hell out of her toxic, abusive environment and she did so with the belief that she could make a better life for herself. If that was one option and the other was rotting away with her mother and quite possibly carrying on her torch, and it was me in her shoes, I choose the former.
She was probably also dressed provocatively when her Daddy raped her.
Message to abused children: just take it, don't provoke your mean old Mom, and hang on for 16 years or so, and the system will save you.
That's also pretty much a paraphrase of this that cowboy logic has recreated:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19v5Kjmc8FI
I guess Hillary Clinton doesn't care for blacks then.
I don't feel no ways tired
Hmmn. Okay. Under the circumstances she was born into, she didn't know any different. Most children born into her situation wouldn't know any different. When one is abused, demeaned and crushed from the get-go, how likely/realistic is it for them to fight back and get out? Where are they going to go? How exactly are they going to overcome all that unwarranted shame they feel to speak up? That's why abuse is so prolific. Children don't know they should and can fight back. It would be awesome if they did, but strength and independence aren't within us full force when we're born. Most kids need examples and nurturing in order to develop their confidence and abilities. That usually comes from strong, tightly knit families that look out for their children. Precious was born into an environment that was quite the opposite. And, it wasn't in her nature to fight. That's why she took it and didn't fight back to where it really counted. She didn't have examples. Most people need examples, encouragement and support in order to be successful in life. It doesn't just come naturally. What do I know? Maybe it does.
Precious was fortunate enough to have external forces work in her favor after they worked for so long against her. She was a resilient person who wanted to do right and she still had a small flame lit within her to keep going. And, finally, the right people came along and encouraged that flame to become a fire.
IPrecious was abused from the beginning. She didn't know any different.
That's as dumb as asking why anyone would become a doctor or nurse and work in the worst health care system in the industrialized world.
Stick to HuffPo, where critical thinking skills aren't necessary.
I think he's referring to LBJ's expansion of welfare and the ensuing destruction within the black community. Did you read the article?
I'm so glad that a disturbed person that reads this site and takes it seriously is in charge of the education of children. In case you couldn't tell (perhaps I misspelled something), I was being sarcastic. Tell me why a person that apparently is against big government chose to teach at a public school rather than a private one (although I know the answer). Way to stand by those convictions!
The criticism I've seen and read concerning the "offensiveness" of "Blind Side" showing a white family take in a black youth has never made sense – maybe that argument would hold water if the story had been totally fictional, but it wasn't. It WAS a white family. It seems even acts of kindness and goodwill can now be construed as racism. If I hadn't heard this ridiculousness prior to the earthquake in Haiti, I probably would have never taken notice of the similarity of both the Local and National news coverage of the Orphans. Every horrified adoptive parent in waiting, that was interviewed, was white.
How long have you been waiting to write that nonsense?
You obviously didn't read the article.
Inaction is one word if we are being spelling police today. It's just interesting that the mounds of grammar and spelling issues by those with agreeable points are never pointed out. But I digress (and I realize how terrible that is to do on this site).
Something tells me that at least 80% would call Madonna a liberal monster for doing the same, though. Would you care to address that? Wasn't that the response by the New York Post? Can't win.
So in order for black liberals to even discuss the problems in the black community, all they need to adopt black children? Wonderful! If you're white? All you have to do is be a Republican and imply that all the damage done to some neighborhoods can be cured by….wait for it….the marketplace! And the Tuhoys, of course!
No. I didn't cite the passage supporting slavery (sorry, not supporting slavery but slave owners…those brave souls only trying to help black people) BECAUSE THE AUTHOR DID. Do I have to cut and paste it for you, or did you forget it? It was written in some piece of trash masquerading as an alternative history textbook written by some loon trying to defend everything from Indian massacres (which according to some on this site where just blown out of proportion) to the witch trails ("Hey, if they knew magic, they could use it against us)!
LOLOL
And I'm drawing it out of the tone of the entire piece, not just one sentence. The entire piece focuses on the good that whites do for blacks (and how blacks are so ungrateful for being brought here…kidding) yet how blacks are too weak to stop accepting help from the government and cannot help each other.
It's white (sense of) superiority and you're great at defending it.
I'm not especially fond of either film, though "Precious" would have the edge since it has at least three out-of-nowhere spectacular performances from the cast. Fundamentally, they're both primarily audience-reassurance fantasies aimed at (respectively) liberal do-gooders and conservative christians using the broadly-simplified stereotype of a poor black person incapable of self-help as a plot device.
"Blind Side" is essentially designed to reassure white christian conservatives that their goodness and charity is the ONLY thing that can rescue a Michael Oehr from the abyss. "Precious" is pulling the same thing for liberals: According to the film, Precious never even THINKS to stand up to her mother until (in order) a lesbian-archangel straight out of Alice Walker ("My favorite color is purple"? C'MON!!) health-food slinging male nurse and an omniracial hard-case social worker give her the strength. In neither case is the subject actually capable of rescuing themselves until Magical White People or Magical Government come along.
Great article! Please, more.
Black people, since they are people, think pretty much like I think. Or like you think, or like some other INDIVIDUAL. Way to lump an entire spectrum of people into a small slice of pie.
What makes you sure he was supposed to be the main character? His story is compelling and uplifting and I hope he is as fine a person as the movie made it seem he might be, but the rags-to-athletic-riches story is not all that uncommon.
Maybe the more compelling, less depicted story was of the family and their actions. Maybe the mother was intended to be the main character. Is that racist?
I also enjoy your description of a homeless boy finding parents and a family as 'paternalistic'. I sense irony!!!
I've always wondered if you can call an Afrikaaner immigrant to the U.S. an African-American. Or for that matter, one of Libyan, Egyptian, etc. decent.
Right tackle for the Ravens
Great article!
Problems exist in every community and no one is claiming welfare as being almost exclusively a black thing.
What I have noticed is your incessant need to redirect from the fact that the black community, as a whole, has very serious problems. Highest out of wedlock births. Highest drop-out rates. Horrific black on black crime. Heck, maybe the African-American voters should worry about their image problem. Or since they mostly vote Democrat and the Democrats (cough, cough) take care of the black community, maybe they should worry about their image as helpers.
But that would bring us right back to the point of the post. No wonder you keep trying to run interference.
Darn, beat me to it!
And you've yet to prove that you do anything other than complain about the issues in the Black community.
You're a great example of a Good Samaritan. /sarc on
Since you brought the Bible into this discussion…
“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.”
— 1 Timothy 1:8-10
So, as also demonstrated by Exodus, God doesn't condone slavery. Let's put this lie to rest, especially since you'll otherwise violate one of the Ten Commandments.
A great article, well thought out, constructed and written. I would like to point out a glaring difference between the two movies: One is based on a *true story* – the other is completely invented. Whatever salvation Precious finds in the system ("precious" little to be sure …) is an entirely concocted event. Meanwhile, Oher is *actually* playing right tackle for the Ravens.
I'm sure stories of state-sponsored salvation akin to 'Precious' actually exist. Don't they? But I have hard evidence privately-sponsored salvation works. We do what we can, warts and all, and it ALWAYS will turn out so much better than charity on other-peoples'-money.
'Blind Side' was one of the best movies I have seen in my life. I judge the morality of any movie by what it does to my character: When I left the theater after watching 'Blind Side' I had a renewed faith in ALL mankind, both black & white, and wanted to build a better world. After the likes of 'Precious' all I feel is despair.
You wanna' save humanity? Support movies that lift us up, not keep us down.
Sweetie, I think you're responding to the wrong article…you're the one playing the slavery card. It's not mentioned in the article, and the reason you can't cite it is because IT'S NOT THERE.
Go back and turn your projector off. And I'm sorry you're dumb enough to confuse confidence with a color.
*MissQuinn*
"Can you provide any documents or studies or evidence that people on welfare or public assistance think "getting a government check is a career"?"
Why yes since you asked. My parents, aunts, family friends. My step father and my mother realized that you could survive off of what the government gives you as well as the kindness of churches. We lived in the projects, mom got food stamps and presumably medicaid even though my brother and I rarely saw a dr. My parents and aunts sat around discussing how to act when you would go to the Social Security Dr's so that you could get disability. I don't doubt my stepfather was a little mental but all of the bunch were more intelligent than people thought. They took the time to learn the system and then resigned themselves to begging for the rest of what they needed. Don't tell me that people don't understand how to make a career out of getting welfare.
To Andrew Breitbart – this is a excellent piece about the movie Precious. Perverts preying on little girls. How about showing some class and taking the porn images off the sidebar in advertisement? Blue Mountain State ad shows a woman straddling a football. You don't think there is a connection in how women are objectified and how they are abused? People comment on here all the time about the state of the country when sites like Big Hollywood perpetuate it with their silly comic strips showing women oozing sex appeal or showing the tight shirts with big Pam Anderson want to be's. I have made comments on here before about this issue. It obviously meets deaf ears. You talk about the liberals using the poor for their agenda. You allow women to be used to bring in revenue for your sites. Double standard in a big way. You have lost a reader for life. I have visited all of your sites – especially Brietbart almost everyday. Not anymore though. I would rather wait for the Washington Standard to come in my mailbox once a week.
Ouida Garcia
You're a very sad woman. Take care of yourself and I hope that the defense of old time slavery works out of you. It did so well for people in the past, of course.
[DavidAttenborogh]The liberal, his facade ripped to shreds, and his lies exposed, resorts to the personal attack as a last stand to defend his fading point in the face of the unimpressed conservative, who is left wondering how a population of people can live under such self delusion for so long. [/DavidAttenborough]
*MissQuinn*
I can agree with most of that, but the characterizations of "good people" in both films strike me as overly on the nose and archetypal, designed to make the target audience feel like "they" (or, in Precious, "people and types they like") are the answer to the problem. Not really a disqualifier, but "there." Did you think it's an accident that we're informed that Ms. Rain is a lesbian and are then IMMEDIATELY told that Mary – the worst human being in the world – dissaproves of homosexuals?
"Blind Side" is working the same kind of cheap pandering with the meanie NCAA agent who makes Big Mike sad in Act 3 by pointing out what sounds like a wholly-plausible conspiracy theory about the Tuohys. We know she's bad because she speaks without affectation (in "Blind Side," good people either have rural accents or stunted speech like Michael) and because she's wearing the "female villain in a heartland movie" uniform of short hair and a pantsuit. Not at all like Leigh Anne, who might as well be "running for Jesus" in this film.
Couldn't agree with this article more as I witnessed what happened to my neighborhood (Spanish Harlem) in the '50's. I watched husbands hide on the fire escape when the home relief inspector came to check the premises. Eventually, he just never came back. Those on welfare back then are still there and their children and grandchildren as well. No men in sight.
You are far kinder than I am in attributing good intentions to people who think the state ought to take care of people. If rich liberals, and that is who we are talking about here, don't have to look at those people, they don't exist. If the government is taking care of them, they can feel good about paying taxes, because that is so often their idea of charity. Look at the disparity between charitable contributions of conservatives and liberals. Liberals are most comfortable giving away other peoples' money.
………and why is that distinction so important? The point was that they opened their home to an unwanted young man. Whether they were middle class, upper middle-class, or flat out wealthy doesn't matter.
Did you see this movie. The Michael character was in most scenes of this movie. He was not a "cameo"…geez….
Not true…one of my best friends has 2 black adopted children, 1 bi-racial adopted child (Thai and black), and 1 white adopted child. I don't recall her having any problem at all adopting any of them.
Gee, MovieBob, I am so glad you told me why I liked "Blind Side". I had no idea that it was to reassure me that White Christian Conservatives need to be reassured of their goodness…LOL I stupidly thought I liked "Blind Side" because it was a movie I could take my children to. I wish you'd given your insight before I bought tickets to this one. Wow.
Sorry, but it is true, and it is provably true with a simple google search. The National Association of Black Social Workers has long been against transracial adoption. I have experienced resistance from the se social workers myself firsthand, and if your friend didn't have trouble, then she either got VERY lucky or she just didn't share it with you. Here's the link: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~mmcman1/
And here's the crux of it: "The National Association of Black Social Workers has hindered the transracial adoption process by calling it "cultural genocide" (The New Republic, 1994)…..The National Association of Black Social Workers is one group opposed to the placement of black children into white homes. This group is opposed to transracial adoption for these reasons: 1)to preserve African-American families and culture; 2)to enable black children to appreciate their origin by living with a family of the same race; 3)to enable black children to learn to cope with racism and learn how to function around it; and 4)to help make it easier for African-American families to adopt."
Sounds like they're against it to me!
One interesting difference between these two movies is that one is at least based on a true story, while the other is based on a novel. So, the family helped Michael in Blind Side WAS white, and the movie makers saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
All in all, i loved the "excessive blocking" line from The Blind Side…
So, what are you doing to solve the Black orphan problem in Black communities?
Joe just needs a hug……?
One of the best articles I've read lately. Simply outstanding.
I think conservatives fail to show their hearts and thus liberals win the perception game…that they are the compassionate and truly caring people.
As a group, we fail to articulate that our way is the compassionate way. Our strategy has always been to just make the claim that we ARE compassionate! I believe we should be pointing out the absolute cruelty of liberalism as you've described in your piece above.
Even at the most generic level, I have watched in my daily life as victims of our liberal education can't write their names or even perform a simple banking function. It is cruel and we should be challenging liberals on a daily, even hourly basis to defend such cruelty.
You say: "Precious never even THINKS to stand up to her mother until (in order) a lesbian-archangel straight out of Alice Walker ("My favorite color is purple"? C'MON!!) health-food slinging male nurse and an omniracial hard-case social worker give her the strength. In neither case is the subject actually capable of rescuing themselves until Magical White People or Magical Government come along."
Are you familiar with the term "child"?
Ah, but white Canadian and European families adopt black American babies. It's apparently cheaper and easier than finding white babies. I'm not even sure I have words to describe how screwed up it is that white Americans can hit some serious roadblocks when trying to adopt black American babies, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of wailing over shipping our children off to other countries.
I have NEVER understood how the people in the black communities have allowed people like Jessie and Al and Charlie Rangle WALK ALL OVER THEM! These men..just a very few that are so VISIBLE have made TONS of MONEY on the backs of these people. WHY is it they can't SEE that happen to them.
My other problem is TEACHERS…well I do indeed USE THE TERM LOOSLEY. The students that are not able to read or do much of anything else…why is it they get to go on?? IS there a pattern here with teachers that can't teach?
WHY is it that our teachers have to be UNIONS as well. The purpose of unions is…to….WHAT….. make sure their teachers don't WORK to hard or what? IF the PRESSURE was placed BACK on these TEACHERS that can't or won't do a good job of TEACHING kids then WHY are they STILL THERE?
The gov seems to think that IF we can jsut GET enough money to the schools we can FIX things. WELL for decades money money money has fallen into the hands of schools and YET our kids still can't read or learn? SO BY ALL MEANS save THOSE teacher jobs.OH YEA. Toss them some more money maybe the teachers will TEACH better. Maybe they will be INSPIRED so they can INSPIRE the kids. HOW is that working out?? IT'S NOT!
It is amazing that HOME SCHOOLED kids are smarter than any one in OUR school system! WHY IS THAT. A person that had NO education as a TEACHER and IS NOT UNION but these kids EXCELL……..SUREPASS test scores and can be a grade or two aboue ther age level. YET everything the gov has done for the schools HAS NOT worked as WELL and just HOME SCHOOLED kids?
SOMEONE please tell me why that is. BY the way…using books that the SCHOOL system tell the home schooler what they have to use.
NON Educated teachers (you know college stuff)TEACHING home school kids
NON union PEOPLE teaching kids at HOME…kids LEARNING and exceeding expectations!
LEARING more from HOME SCHOOL than EVER learning from the 4 walls the gov provide?
Calling you a hypocrite also fits better.
[...] are similar uncomfortable undercurrents to The Blind Side, as Big Hollywood points out: There are some black people who feel a little uneasy about the notion of the wealthy [...]
It's more about hypocrisy rather than whether one is a conservative or a liberal. Some liberals take people in and some conservatives take people in. Some liberals are phony assholes; some conservatives are phony assholes. Do it yourself is a great idea but how many people do it? The government systems are inefficient and not worked out but if the government does nothing at all and leaves it entirely to unregulated laissez faire capitalism,hoping everyone will just "do the right thing" that's like leaving New York City without any police force, hoping the serial killers will be taken care of by home grown street protectors. People need to make individual efforts and collective ones as well. Healthcare is a perfect example. We should take as much individual responsibility for our own health as possible but we should also have a collective system in place that is there for everyone not only the rich. We can afford it. If we can afford to spend billions a year on nuclear build up and questionable wars we can afford to provide health care, education and proper training to our people, in addition to obeying the scriptural commands to "take care of the widows, and heal the sick."
I very much doubt that Jesus was a conservative. He was also not a hypocritical liberal. By all accounts he was a radical who urged people to give everything they had to the poor and follow God so as to receive the blessings of heaven. Amongst his group everything was shared a la communism at its most radical, not communism at its most hypocritical as in the former Soviet Union. Its never about the damn ism you believe in — its about what you do — individually and collectively. It's also how you do it — with a patronizing, ignorant, racist, sexist attitude — or with a heart of humility, because arrogance always leads to trouble, and pragmatic kindness always makes the world a better place.
There are girls like Precious who live in rich, conservative white families who are just as physically and emotionally abused as she was who have no independent financial resources to immediately fight their way out of the situation. Incest, rape, poverty, slavery, exploitation by whites and disruption of the black family existed long before LBJ's great society ideas. Implementation of his ideas may have exasperated some of the problems, and alleviated others, but the truth is that these problems are the aftermath of a long history of self acclaimed privilege by one group that does not give a damn about the other.
Take incest for example. A male who commits incest cares nothing about the well being of his conquest; he only cares about himself. He does it because he CAN. The same goes for slavery. Whites and other groups throughout history were slaveholders because they COULD BE. There was no regulation; there were no laws, and there was no society that taught that it was wrong.
You cannot do anything "collectively" without the point of a loaded gun. It's much simpler than you think, Jaffee. Either you think the government has the right to take property from certain citizens and give it to others they deem more worthy, or you do not.
And you are wrong as you can possibly be about slavery. It was legal. There were laws, regulation, and society that upheld it. And the laws were morally wrong, and they were changed, at great struggle and tremendous loss of life. If the capitalist system could not have eradicated slavery, we would still be living with it. The reason we are not is because of the rights guaranteed to us in our Constitution, not in spite of it.
A totalitarian, authoritative system cannot change. Thankfully we live in a system that can change. And the more power you give the government over the individual, the less chance you give for justice to be done.
Take your ideological blinders off. Jaffee was not arguing for totalitarianism but for government in its proper scope and role, which is a classic CONSERVATIVE argument. How do we support our military, prisons and police? COLLECTIVELY with taxes just like everything else. Also, Jaffee was advocating voluntary communalism – using early Christianity as a POSITIVE example – as a specific contrast to communism, using the Soviet Union as a NEGATIVE example. People engage in VOLUNTARY COMMUNALISM all the time. It is the perfect antidote to self-absorbed materialism. Many of the original Protestants (i.e. Anabaptists and Moravians) practiced it.
Jaffee, a non-ideological person, made some great points.
You say communalism, I say charity, let's call the whole thing off.
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