Joe Wilson, Abraham Lincoln and the consequences of the racism meme

A PERFECT PERFECT UPDATE FROM JIMMY CARTER AT BOTTOM

Joe Wilson ... the prosecutorial case for functional racism:

Member: Sons of the Confederacy

Defender: Confederate flag as part of the State flag and on the Capital

Accuser: (illegitimate) Daughter of Strom Thurmond claming to be his daughter after his death is a 'shame and a smear'

Shame: HE is from South Carolina, 1st state of the confederacy

Thus his acting out in shouting 'you lie' is an outgrowth of subliminal or not so subliminal racism, and those who defend this in any way are functionally racists

The defense case:

FACT:Sons (and daughters) of the confederacy is an organization no different in function than DAR, and some people are proud members of both.

FACT: the vast majority of southerners had no slaves and were fighting, as one told a union soldier, "because you're down here".

FACT: the vast majority of northerners did not believe blacks were equal to whites

FACT: Abraham Lincoln said in the Lincoln Douglas debates that he had 'no purpose to introduce equality between the white and black races', and that blacks were 'not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment'. We are the descendants of people just like this and outbursts from us may mean nothing more or less than Wilson's

FACT: Having gone to school in the south, I can say DEFINITIVELY -the southern flag, Dixie, Bonnie Blue Flag, Yellow Rose of Texas, represents to MANY simply southern spirit, as it represents to many slavery and racism. Being INSENSITIVE AND A JERK is not equal to being a racist. If anything it is a reminder to THEM about YANQUIS, not the 'inequality'. Plenty of southerners have died defending the rights of black men and women here and on foreign shores, and still stirred to Dixie and that flag whether we are comfortable with this or not.

I can argue that Dixie might be as offensive as the Horst Wessel to jews or those who died fighting the nazis, but I can't say the same for a Kant, or for a Longstreeet.

Finally ... there are racists among conservatives, hiding, but they are no conservatives, and there are communists (and jew haters) among TRUE liberals, but no one would think of them as liberals.

But to argue functional racism one must be prepared for the other edge of the blade.

For Barack Obama and the liberals who support him, including those who might be described as self hating if such an argument is to be accepted as valid, can EASILY be painted (Wright, Mcpeak, Powers, Zbig, Walt, Mearsheimer et al) as being insensitive to the safe and secure existence of Israel on this planet as the ONLY ULTIMATE HAVEN FOR JEWS, and therefore as functionally racist as they believe Joe Wilson to be, and so would be every supporter and defender of his administration, plans, and political philosophy, black, white, jew, protestant catholic, buddhist, muslims, asians, bahai, every single one ... if it can be claimed Joe Wilson and those who defend him right now are functionally racist. And yes (SOROS, CHOMSKY, FINKELSTEIN) there are plenty of those the outside world thinks of as jewish who care nothing for Israel, or the existence of, as they would put, the jewish people.

Who better that Jimmy Carter and his attitude about Israel and the jews to make my pitch the edge of the ball on the black