Hey, Maltese... here's the problem... I'm sure people tried nicely w/you before. Are you saying that no one's reached out to you before? No one tried talking nice? Nobody gave you a nice speech about voting Democrat in 2004?
If you say 'no', I'm sorry, but there's no doubt to me, personally, that you're lying. Sorry if that offends you, but I'm not going to live in a deluded form of 'reality' in the spirit of 'outreach'.
Certainly I have spoken quite civilly with fellow Americans of a wide variety of political bents...have found many to be thoughtful people with good things to say, even when I disagreed with them. I wish our politicians could manage the same thing, our country would be a better place.
And I've managed to survive those conversations without hating any of them, much less then overlay my dislike onto another 160 million people.
Also, those statements you referred to (at least the ones made by me) aren't directed at you... just general statements, and pretty true, at that. (Skip two paragraphs below, and watch me elaborate).
What state are you in, BTW? (Feel free to respond via comment again, to that question.)
No, that's ok. Currently Tennessee. Have also lived several other places in the southeast and eastern seaboard.
Also... no need to take offense if someone says 95% of Republicans are racist. We can include you in the other 5%; if it's you we're talking about that gets offended when being called a racist, then why take it personally, when you're not being singled out? When's the last time you were with a guy of color, FYI?
Tell you what, you tell me that you know personally 100 Republicans, and what they think about race, and that you KNOW (not assume based on your own prejudices) that 95 of those 100 are racists. Convince me of that, and maybe I'll grant you that your effort to malign tens of millions of people you've never met is justified.
Otherwise, I shall continue to take intellectual offense, if not personal offense, at someone standing on a public soapbox preaching that millions of fellow Americans are biased hatemongers based on nothing more than your own bias.
Aside from that, again, sorry, but I stand by my statement. You want me to 'reach out' to you? As I said to ICO -- drop everything you're doing, go to Mississippi and/or Virginia (perhaps even both) and prevent the reelection of either Trent Lott, George Allen, or even (preferrably) both.
If 95% of Republicans aren't racist, I'm sure it won't take much effort to do so...
Anyone who declines their American obligation, let alone *Republican* obligation to make sure of the outcomes in both of their cases, frankly isn't worth nicey-nicey 'outreach'.
Enough is enough.
I've lived in Mississippi. Have you? I don't want you to go to Mississippi and affect the outcome of an election.
I just want you to go there, period, before you become an expert.
Ask Snaps if the world is that simple...he's lived there, too. The world is far more complex that some red/blue map, nor can you summarize race relations in an area of the country thats 50/50 by some binary "racist/non-racist" classification based on your perceived statistics.
The South is guilty of history of tremendous hatred and evil. Some people there still are. Others never were, and still others have learned and changed. And look at the changing demographics...do you think it's one of the fastest growing economic areas of the country w/o a few people from elsewhere moving in? And given the history, do you think modern day dislike of people of a different color, regardless of who they are, is limited to the white segment of the population? And yet, given all of that, I see more hope, more interaction between black and white in Mississippi than I have seen when I have been living and working anywhere else. It's a very different place than it was in 1964 - and while I have no clue how old you are, it's all too obvious that's when your perception of the South originated.
Regardless, my hope in this board and in life is that Americans will believe the best about those whom they have never met and who they do not know, and not reduce them to some characature based on the last media article they read. That song ought to be sung to Mississippi Baptists about New England liberal gays.... and to New England liberal gays about Mississippi Baptists. They'd both be horrified to hear how similar they sound.
