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    But, Log Cabin Republicans Are Uncle Toms!

    By Michael Maiello on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 8:34pm | Politics

    The Internet is great, in part, because it reminds you that some of the old arguing rules from high school are useful in real life.  If I call you Hitler for disagreeing with me, I am wrong.  Because you are really Pol Pot.

    Oh, wait.  I'm not supposed to compare you to any dictator.  Or divisive historical figure, right?  I'm not allowed to say, of the Log Cabin Republicans, that they are a lot like the literary figure Uncle Tom, as Barney Frank did.  Apparently, we can't say this even if Frank is right that the Log Cabin Republicans are "nice people" who are being nice to "the wrong people," just like Uncle Tom.

    Can't say it even though Uncle Tom and the Log Cabin Republicans have a cabin in common.  Can't say it even though it's the Republicans, homosexual or hetero, who have been lecturing the country about the stupidities of political correctness since the 1990s.

    Sometimes, an unkind comparison is apt.  In this case, a group of people have chosen fiscal conservatism over their own civil rights.  How can you not criticize that decision in the harshest of terms?

    What the right wrought with the PC argument was a massive culture of taking offense.  Racists can't be called racists because it's mean.  Homophobes can't be called homophobes because it's mean.  People being victimized by other people's bigotry are not allowed to use harsh language in response.

    There's no sense of proportion here, at all.

    You're no Hitler if you disagree with me.  You're not Pol Pot, either.

    But the Log Cabin Republicans are a bunch of Uncle Toms.  Barney Frank got that right.

     

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    Although I don't know if they are Uncle Tom's like you say, but I will agree with Michael Musto, Log Cabin Republicans are selling their fellow gay people down the river with lies!

    Don't be such a Hitler Pol Pot umm Ho Chi Min, Marcos and Mao.. who am I missing?


    by tmccarthy0 on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 9:59pm

    Quick, somebody call Godwin. Then somebody else call a historian. I realize yours was just a quick flip remark, but do you really equate  Ho Chi Min with Hitler and Pol Pot?


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 10:19pm

    I think you don't have much experience with internet snark.


    by tmccarthy0 on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 12:15am

    This argument has strayed into Idi Amin territory.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 8:38am

    Yeah, sorry I started a diversion early before your blog got its proper response. I'm heading out for a few hours, maybe I'll have something productive to add later about the massive culture of taking offense. 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 8:55am

    Nah, I just wanted to say "Idi Amin."  Don't worry about it, you're fine.  We're all fine.  And TMac ain't a fella.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 9:57am

    Whoa, big fella. [Don't let your head explode, that aint personal, it's just something us ignernt cowboys say sometimes] Do you mean on that internet where I could make a snarky statement that included saying women like Ayn Rand, who was crazy, and Phyllis Schlafly, who is crazy, and tmccarthy0, who I know very little about, share a view of the world and you would recognize that comparison as snark and not bother to respond to it? Cool. Glad I found out.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 8:50am

    Don't call me fella, I am still a woman.


    by tmccarthy0 on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 9:07am

    I don't want to ever get in a folding chair swinging match with Barney but the the thing about the Log Cabin set that has always struck me is that they speak as if they have already won the culture war over discrimination against alternative sexual orientation so the fact that their economic policy preferences have caused them to join a coalition with folks who would have them burn in Hell is not really that much of a problem for them.

     


    by moat on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 10:16pm

    I get more of a Stepin Fetchit vibe, but the general point stands.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 10:16pm

    Think Progress reported a disturbing piece about Mitt Romney's interaction with the LGBT community. His focus appears to be whether the business community believes that supporting Civil Rights is good for business.

    The economic argument that Log Cabin Republicans makes fails the smell test when you consider that the stock market tends to to better under Democrats. Job creation is also greater under Democrats. If you like rhetoric on the economy, vote for the Republican. If you actually care about your personal income, vote for the Democrat.

    The late Peter J. Gomes, a black, Gay, theologian Of the Harvard Divinity School was a registered Republican for most of his adult life. In 2006, Gomes switched his registration to the Democratic Party. He was conciliatory in his comments about Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright flap. We miss his perspective on the current Republican Party.

    I think that one good thing that appears to be happening among church-attending blacks is that the GOP can no longer go into Ohio cry "Gay marriage is coming" and expect black votes. 

    There was a subset of blacks who advised Martin Luther King to wait and not press the issue of Civil Rights. King's response was a book, " Why We Can't Wait". As the rights we take for granted extend to the Gay community because of their ongoing resistance, the Log Cabin Republicans can be counted on to tell us how they were the real reason that things changed. They are in a bubble.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 09/12/2012 - 9:16am