Bill Clinton Goes Full Trump in 1995

Just stumbled upon this.  Amazing stuff.

Amazing in the sense that I'm amazed at how slippery politicians can be, with Bill Clinton later stumping alongside his wife while advocating Barack Obama's complete disregard for federal immigration laws, and demanding that border agents break them by not capturing and deporting the lawbreakers.

Count this among the myriad reasons Donald Trump won in 2016.

The Fishy Thing About Stephen A. Smith’s Kaepernick Tirade

Like me, perhaps you woke up this week with friends on social media applauding ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith for excoriating Colin Kaepernick for not supporting a candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

“He comes across as a flaming hypocrite,” said a very angry Smith.  “And as far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in a damn word that he has to say, and quite frankly, I hope he goes away.”

Welcome to the club, Stephen.  But I have a hard time joining my friends in giving you kudos for now, and only now, voicing your discontent with him, because there is something incredibly suspicious about your outrage.

Here’s why.

Smith, headlong into his angry tirade, said this: “[Kaepernick] of all people, because of the position he took, because of the attention he brought to the issues.  The fact that you don’t even have the decency to go to the poll and activate yourself in this election, as our president said, is a damn shame.”

Most people hear that and think, “Well, he’s right. Everyone should vote, because that’s what I’ve been told since I was a kid. It’s your duty.  Right on, Stephen A. Smith!” 

Then, if you look a bit closer at the words he chose, it should become clear that the broad “everyone should vote” message isn’t really what he’s getting at.  He cites that he should have “activated” himself, “as our president said.”

The president did say that the black community should “activate itself,” but the context of that statement that he cited is important.  “I will consider it a personal insult,” Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus gala, “if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this this election.  You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.”

The president wasn’t saying everyone should go vote for whomever they please because it’s our civic duty to vote.  He was saying he would consider it a “personal insult” if black voters didn’t turn out to elect Hillary Clinton and thus preserve his legacy, specifically.  So it’s extremely unlikely that Smith’s anger is predicated on the fact that Colin didn’t participate in the election process, as his supposed civic duty might require of him, though I admit, that appears to be the impetus for the rant on the surface.  After all, I don’t think Smith would be applauding Kaepernick if he came out saying that he voted for Trump.  Smith is most likely angry, based on this curious reference, because he didn’t get roused enough to “get his butt to the polls” to vote for Hillary, whom I’d wager dollars to donuts that Stephen A. Smith believes black Americans should have “activated” themselves to vote for in response to the perceived institutional racism that Smith thought Kaepernick meant to highlight.  This is a tantrum, and little more. 

But here’s the real kicker, for me.  Let’s climb out on the limb and assume that Smith really is outraged on principle, and that he really thinks Kaepernick not voting at all, not even having “the decency” to write in a candidate of his choosing (which would have been ultimately futile and a waste of his time, let’s be honest) makes him a “flaming hypocrite” and that he “betrayed his cause.”  That’s still not entirely accurate.  Kaepernick’s refusal to vote is actually pretty consistent with the purpose of his stupid “protest.”

First of all, Kaepernick has been extremely critical of both candidates, calling Trump “obviously racist” while suggesting that Hillary Clinton is also a racist, and should probably be in jail to boot.   

Fact is, he’s actually painted Hillary Clinton in a less favorable light than Trump, which as I’ve noted, really upset those among the left that were paying attention.  Furthermore, the underlying statement Kaepernick has hoped to make was that there are systemic problems in America that go beyond who may or may not be the president.  Just as he refuses to stand for the time-honored celebration of the national anthem, his refusal to take part in the time-honored American election process could be considered part and parcel of the same ideological position of protest.

“To me,” Kaepernick said of Clinton and Trump, “it didn’t really matter who went in there.  The system still remains intact that oppresses people of color.”

Now, I will say that he is completely wrong in that position, and that he remains the uninformed idiot that he has always been.  And personally, I believe when uninformed idiots do not vote, the country is the better for it.  But to call him a hypocrite for it isn’t really fair, either.

Point is, there’s really not a lot to be impressed about in Smith’s angry rant about Kaepernick.  It’s a tantrum disguised as middle-of-the-road criticism, and at the very best, an expression of his disappointment that Kaepernick didn’t fall in line to do the one thing that Stephen A. Smith thinks all black people should have done in response to the perceived institutional racism Kaepernick highlighted with his protest -- i.e., he didn’t vote for Hillary.

William Sullivan can be followed on Twitter. 

Time off... But what a time it is now!

To all readers:

We've taken far too long a hiatus in loading content to the blog, thank you for the continued readership we've experienced.

I've continued to write sporadically for American Thinker since our last post, and for those interested, recent columns can be found at the link below:

http://www.americanthinker.com/author/william_sullivan/

We will look to begin adding content regularly, as the times ahead are sure to be interesting.  As always, thank you for your support and participation.

William

Rich Lowry's Brilliant Excoriation of "Hashtag Heroism"

In his recent article at the New York Post, Rich Lowry gave Westerners a much-needed reminder that, while hashtag campaigns and the tri-colored filter on your Facebook profile pic may make you feel better, it's really not very useful beyond that.

From the article, referencing the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag fad from earlier this year:

After the slaughter at the offices of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hedbo earlier this year, it was “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie.”

It was a well-intentioned expression of solidarity, so long as you overlooked the absurd presumption of it.

You are Charlie? Oh, OK. Then draw a sketch of Muhammad and post it online. Better yet, do it over and over again, until you get constant threats and your office is firebombed, just as a warm-up.

No, you aren’t Charlie. (For that matter, Charlie isn’t even Charlie anymore — it’s given up on mocking Islam for understandable safety reasons.)

Last year, when the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 200 schoolgirls, Twitter exploded with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. First lady Michelle Obama held up a sign with the phrase on it. If Boko Haram was shamed by its Twitter feed, it showed no signs of it. The only girls who were brought back escaped on their own. The Nigerian military has rescued other girls, armed with weapons considerably more powerful than a hashtag.

[...]

Spare me the #PrayforParis hashtag. Forgive me if I’m unmoved by lighting world landmarks up in red, white and blue, or your putting a tricolor filter on your Facebook profile picture. And please don’t tell me, in the words of the designer Jean Jullien, that “in all this horror there’s something positive that people are coming together in a sense of unity and peace.”

Nothing positive comes from innocents getting shot down in cold blood for the offense of going to a concert on a Friday night. It [sic] there aren’t going to be more — and worse — attacks in our cities, the path ahead won’t be one of unity and peace. It will be the hard, thankless work of protecting civilization from its enemies.

Lowry's piece couldn't be more necessary or timely, and I definitely suggest you give the whole thing a read here.

-- W. Sullivan

White Mom Blogger Doing Her Part to Fabricate Fear of Racism and a Fear of Cops (They're Gonna Getcha!)

I happened upon an article on Yahoo! Parenting which struck a chord with me as a father.  "A Mom Called the Police on My 3-year-Old Son After a Playground Accident," the title read.

Sounds ridiculous, I thought.  Cops called on a three-year old, what nonsense!  So like a dope, I read beyond the Yahoo! tease, which includes this provided picture:

I'll spare the bulk of the details, because as I discovered, they really don't matter.  Long and short, the mother of the little girl whom the author's young boy accidentally knocked over while riding bikes decided to call the cops over the incident.

The other mom requested an ambulance for her daughter, and sought to press charges, presumably because the young ruffian was allowed to roam so indiscriminately.

The cops were as forceful as you might expect human beings to be in response to a three year-old boy accidentally knocking down a two year-old girl:

"Look," the other police officer tried to explain to the other mother,  "I can see him crying from here. It was an accident.  It's not like he did it on purpose.""

The little girl got a ride to the hospital in an ambulance. And to calm any concern you might have up to now, the young boy is fine, too, despite having been a bit shaken up by the incident.  He's "back on his scooter and hasn't mentioned the incident again," the author says.

And while that cop likely had a "You wouldn't believe these silly suburban moms today" story to tell his wife when he got home, the author, on the other hand, is traumatized.

She's still furious.  She's scared.  Her "black son just had his first police interaction at age 3."

And just like that, it became clear that this story wasn't about her son or that other mom at all.  They were just avenues to write a hip new #BlackLivesMatter article.

She goes on:

I'm glad the police were reasonable and straightened things out. Perhaps in this instance, it was best they were there to handle what was obviously a touchy situation.  In this instance.  This time.

Geez, she's not even trying to hide her contempt for cops.

"To be the mother of a black son," she continues, "is to be scared for them, constantly."

Being a parent is to be scared for your child, constantly.  Not a day goes by where I don't fear for my own children's lives, many times over.  It's part of the human condition, and mothers with black sons certainly don't have a monopoly on it.

I guess we can thank her for at least presenting these cops in a somewhat positive light, "in this instance."  But she's definitely worthy of derision for perpetuating the dangerous, and completely untrue, myth about bloodthirsty, racist cops being out to get poor, defenseless, and innocent black kids.

I don't expect that any facts will change author Emily McCombs' mind.  I wouldn't expect that any more than the facts of the Michael Brown case, having thoroughly destroyed the bullshit "Hands up, don't shoot!" narrative, could change the minds of other people so devoted the myth that they took the opportunity of the incident's anniversary to protest the epidemic of white, racist, murderous cops.

But I will say this, Emily.  If your young son is ever arrested by a cop, it will most likely be because he did something wrong.  So if you're really worried to death about him getting arrested, you should probably devote all your energies to teaching him to not do things that are wrong.

And if he grows up fearing the phantom specter of a cop that's out to get him at every turn because he's black, it will be your fault.  Not society's.  Not the cops'.  Yours, and yours alone.  Because you have the opportunity to teach him something different to help him become a better person.  And you will have squandered it in order to keep your fabricated worldview alive.

-- William Sullivan

Christianity, Islam, and Insults

Last month, two gunmen opened fire at a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest in Garland, TX.  They were apparently driven to a murderous rage by the thought that the prophet, all powerful though he may be in the afterlife, might be offended by people drawing his picture.  Thankfully, their opposition to the First Amendment was answered by a devotee of the Second, as a traffic cop shuffled them off this mortal coil with a few well-placed bullets.

If you find drawing some silly cartoons a sad and stupid reason to be targeted for murder, join the club.  It got me thinking, though, about the context of all this.  And no amount of media spin can make the contrast between the contemporary followers of Islam and Christianity any less stark.

As a young Christian child circa 1992, I was first made aware of this stimulating piece of art:

That's a picture of Jesus Christ submerged in "artist" Andres Serrano's urine.  Believe it or not, I wasn’t taken aback by the fact that my mom and dad weren’t demanding the death of the guy who put the likeness of my Lord and Savior in a bowl of piss and called it art. 

This was, early on, a lesson in life: There are those who believe in things other than my beliefs, and even those who would ridicule my deepest convictions for fun. 

Then, and over the years, I’ve learned to laugh at it.  And why would I not?  They're sad little people, those who would insult me and my innocent choice to find faith in God -- the God of peace and love and tolerance for one's fellow man.

In my religious conviction, I never even considered that Andres Serrano should die for his insult, nor did I ever wish ill will toward anyone else who disagrees with my faith or would ridicule my personal beliefs in such a way.  Why?  Well, two reasons.  One: Because I am right, and they are wrong.  Plain and simple.  God will vindicate that choice, so I have no need to spur worldly recompense in His stead.  Two: My God's instruction doesn't entail directives to harm anyone who might disrespect His image.  Blasphemy is sin, but I am not the judge in that ethereal and prospective Court.

In hindsight and in consideration to those other faiths that require worldly justice for such insults?  I just count myself lucky that I'm not a savage, indoctrinated to commit hateful acts for such trivial nonsense. 

And the furor over a Muhammad cartoon is just that.  Trivial nonsense.  Look:

There are millions of Muslims who would kill over that innocent picture (which is the unveiled message that the image conveys).  Millions more would not kill, but would understand the impetus to kill over it.  

Would Jesus Christ truly care about Andres Serrano putting his likeness in a vat of urine, or the millions of people who celebrated it?  Or some unbeliever casting his likeness in ink?  Would my God have me murder someone else in His name for something so insignificant?

No.  And as for Muslims who would either commit violence or sit silent as their religious cohorts attempt murder over something so stupid as a Muhammad cartoon, well… they are threats to a pluralistic society and/or complicit fanatics which must be removed from our culture with which they and their beliefs are not compatible.

William Sullivan

The University of Oklahoma Signifies the Death of Free Speech in American Universities, and Defines Its Newly Accepted Limits

As we all know, a video has surfaced showing students of the University of Oklahoma singing a racist chant.  They were members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and while on a bus carrying them to a formal fraternity function, the students were captured chanting “There’ll never be a ni**** SAE! You can hang him from a tree, but he will never sign with me.  There’ll never be a ni**** SAE!”  

The chant was undoubtedly racist, and insensitive to the shameful legacy of racial lynching in America.  Those involved are worthy of derision, and the community has resoundingly trumpeted its disapproval, as has the entire nation.

The question at hand, however, has never been about whether what the boys did was ethically reprehensible.  It clearly was.  The more pressing question that we must confront now is whether such an act is worthy of expulsion from a state-funded university, and what that means for the state of education in this country if it is.  And beyond that, we must consider whether freedom of speech is anything more than a mantelpiece in America which, though fondly remembered and often superficially revered, has become little more than an old, dusty concept in a culture which is bent on cultivating homogenized thought.   

At the University of Oklahoma, two of the students involved in the chanting were indeed expelled.  Most disturbing for me is not that such sentiments are uttered within such fringe environments as this.  Honestly, can anyone say that these boys would ever consider weaving a noose with the intent of hurting someone?  Yes, that's rhetorical, because it would be an entirely stupid suggestion which would recuse the accuser from any intellectual forum.  The real problem, however, is that so few Americans seem outraged at the frivolous decision to derail these youths’ lives over something as practically inconsequential as their offensive, yet presumptively protected free speech. 

University president David Boren announced a decision to expel the youths via Twitter, where he is cited as having said:

I have emphasized that I have zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma.  I hope that the entire nation will join us in having zero tolerance of such racism when it raises its ugly head in other situations around the country.  I am extremely proud of the reaction and response expressed by our entire university family – students, faculty, staff, and alumni about this incident.  They are “Real Sooners” who believe in mutual respect for all.   

Perhaps most troubling about Boren’s statement is that not only is he making explicit efforts to regulate the content of speech on his own campus, but he is imploring all other universities to follow suit.  

These boys are meant to be examples, make no mistake, and the punishment for their offensive utterances is being exacted without the courtesy of a show trial.  Boren and the university have cited no specific part of the conduct code that the students had violated to justify their decision.   After all, their words didn’t hurt anyone (aside from hurting some people’s feelings), nor did they explicitly threaten to physically harm anyone in particular.  Consider that members, and indeed the president, of the Muslim Student Association at UCLA have been caught leading chants of “Death to Israel! Death to the Jews!” with no such punishment as expulsion handed down by university administrators.  (Such events are commonplace, by the way, extensively documented by Daniel Greenfield here.)   By contrast, rhetorical salvos against SAE by OU officials and media sensationalism have yielded death threats against the fraternity’s members.

The message to other college students at OU and around the country is clear, however.  There are some things that you just can’t say, if what you say sufficiently offends others who share the views of your school’s administration.

David Boren’s statement overtly seeks to replace the notion of “freedom of speech” enumerated in our First Amendment and repeatedly upheld by our courts, supplanting it with “free speech which is subject to limitations determined by the state.”  The latter is fascism, not freedom.

Freedom is a messy thing.  But the purpose of learning, and ostensibly, our universities, should be to seek the truth amidst the clutter. 

In a letter to William Roscoe penned December 27^th, 1820, Thomas Jefferson spoke of the purpose of the newly founded University of Virginia.  “The institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind,” he writes, “for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” 

This is the best way to achieve intellectual progress, not the suppression of thoughts contrary to perceived norms and a social status quo.   As Robby Soave at Reason.com explains:

A school is exactly the kind of place where evil views should do battle with moral and logical views, and lose.  We have everything to gain by confronting racism head-on in an intellectual setting that a university purportedly provides, and a lot to lose by trampling students’ rights in a misguided rush to do the opposite.

In short, bad ideas are more consistently destroyed in an open marketplace of ideas, if one has any faith in humanity’s potential for reason.  But that reality ceases expression when our institutions of learning disavow the ambition to cultivate reasonable individuals in favor of becoming factories which produce fascists, blindly supportive of singular viewpoints. 

There is clear substance warranting litigation against OU, and the lines in this social battle are being drawn.  The SAE fraternity is reportedly preparing a lawsuit against the university, and OU has hired a former federal judge to investigate racism within the fraternity.  The PC thought police of the left are celebrating the university’s decision to expel these students and eagerly awaiting the coming witch hunt, while constitutionalists and libertarians are rightfully condemning both. 

This may seem a small and insignificant story, but in the trenches of cultural warfare, inches matter.  Instead of being allowed to go back to class, and hopefully educated as to why chanting racist songs about murder is wrong, the pillorying of these boys in the public square could go a long way toward further homogenizing thought in the state-sponsored indoctrination camps that we call universities.

William Sullivan is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.  He can be followed on Twitter.