000delaydva

000delaydva

Joe Nolan

So the Left DOES care about the races–but it may be cynical in some circles and self-interest in the other.”

Posted by John Furutani at July 23, 2004 02:53 PM

I’ve got a great example from our wonderful free-market system, which levels the playing field for ALL Americans, as well!

I know a Latino gentleman by the name of Juan who worked hard in school, received his B.S. in finance and went looking for a job in a big finance firm.

He was having a hard time finding a job, and he found out why in one of those job interviews.

At one interview, he BEGGED to be giving a chance to show what he could do. “I already have a white guy working for me.” was the response he got from the interviewer/boss at one firm.

When he FINALLY landed a job (at A.G. Edwards), he had a hard time meeting sales quotas. On a dare, a fellow financier asked him to introduce himself as “John” instead of “Juan” and see how this would work out. He decided to use the name “Clyde” since he liked it a bit better than plain old “John”

Guess what happened.

Folks responded positively, “So Clyde, what school did you attend? D’you golf? Let’s meet! ” and so on and so forth. As Juan, he couldn’t keep these folks on for more than a minute. Clyde had it made in the shade.

He only tried this experiment for a week, for fear of retribution from and losing his job.

Back to being good ol’ Juan, he wasn’t faring very well, and his boss gave him an ultimatum: “Open up 10 accounts within the next month, and you can stay with us. Otherwise, we’ll have to let you go.”

He worked his butt off all month, and was able to manage opening 8 accounts. He thought, “Surely, this will be enough to get me some leeway and the boss will cut me slack!”

Guess what happened?

“Sorry, but you gotta go.”

Now explain this to me, libertarian/conservatives: Juan played by your rules which SUPPOSEDLY apply and work for ALL Americans: Hard-work, persistance, rugged individualism and personal responsibility?

Why didn’t he succeed using your model for success?

I know the answer to this question, and it’s in two words.

But I’d love to hear your take on this.

I think we’re saying the same thing though when it comes to this matter. The Left pretends to care so long as its useful. To the useful idiots, the Left seems to care. There are varying ranks of useful idiots, some middle management, one might say. Some, if not many of these folks whose acquaintance you had the unpleasant displeasure of making truly felt it was time for favor. In the same way, the Islamofascists truly think they have recognition despite the fact we know them to be pawns. Hence the term, “useful idiot”, someone who is so brained-dead they don’t even know they’re being used. Or, to borrow a line from a movie, “I see useful idiots. They’re everywhere. They walk around like everybody else; they don’t even know that they’re useful idiots. ;p

Feh, this is what I hate about ethnic politics – Asian Americans are hardly some monolithic, unified political group.

1) Former head of the state civil rights commission saying he intended to take the white man for everything he could.

2) Grant principal investigator (Black) declaring that since Asians were not under-represented in medicine, they were not a target population under his grant (since I’m Asian, I’m pretty sure his remark was not candidly logical, but veiled racism).

3) Comments by Public Health Service officials as to increasing minority representation in the health sciences–but in the context, clearly focused on Blacks as opposed to Asians & Latinos. This may have been because the overwhelming # of officials in the PHS geared towards this effort (at the time) were Black, with a smattering of Latinos.

So the Left DOES care about the races–but it may be cynical in some circles and self-interest in the other.

Also,
Chirtopher, yours was a fun read. Good form.

But…. The progressive/liberal message is that we need to:
1) Take from those who are successful
2) Give to those who aren’t providing for themselves (Everybody believes in a safety net but conservatives don’t believe that able-bodied people don’t have to work)
3) Pander the above compassion to those groups who are perceived to need it.
4) Government can provide for everyone from cradle to grave and there is no need for any more “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY”.

You see folks – there is a scale. Let’s just say that 0= Communism and 10 = Capitalism.

Being a “nation of laws”, with a “safety net”, we could (I believe be a nation on the scale between 8 or 10. The definition of capitalism is “the people choosing who gets what resources”. What that would do is make us an even MORE successful and prosperous nation that can even BETTER take care of things like the environment (the poorer a nation is the more it has to focus on JUST feeding and sheltering people and the environment suffers).

HOWEVER, we have been for approximately 4 decades or more a nation between 2 and 7 depending on what sector of the economy you are looking at. What does that do? That depresses our economic output which translates into higher prices and lower standard of living than this country is capable of.

On a scale like that the closer you get to the 0 (in your thinking), the more prone you are to play race politics because your frame of mind is to see what the government should be providing for your group. The closer you are to 10 in your thinking the more it is understood that personal responsibility matters and if you are able bodied you can provide for yourself. And as long as people aren’t violating anti-discrimination laws we shouldn’t be looking at equalizing outcomes because to try to do so would be applying preferential treatment to one group which causes racial divisions and hard feelings.

Stereotypes work both ways. To some conservatives and liberals, especially the “controversial” social pundits/commentators, Latinos are all a bunch of lazy, welfare-leeching, gang-banging, America-hating, Spanish-only speaking, baby-making, back-stabbing inept strains on tax-paying Americans incapable of self-sufficiency in American society.

One person’s “reaching out to minority communities” is another’s “pandering to whining self-serving so-called minority leaders.

Funny how that works, huh?

You are quite correct. But hey, everyone is allowed to belly-ache every once in a while.

On a good day.

And the GOP won’t pander to you, because, after all, where are you going to go? God forbid they appeal to their base. Better to run ads in Spanish to get the miniscule portion of Hispanics the left hasn’t vacuumed up with their promises of eternal victimhood and free government money than point out the GOP is the party of pro-life, pro-religion, pro-America voters.