If Obama actually Does win this Election...

He'll try to

Take ur guns away

Take money from you to give to other people based on what one bunch of dead people did to another bunch of dead people more than 140 years ago.

Suck up to the middle eastern shitholes 1000x worse while giving the Middle East's only western democracy (hint it begins with "I") the cold shoulder.

And a bunch of other shit.

In that case there should be 'record voting' every election, not just one where a black candidate is running.

Maybe I just want to believe the best in people, but i don't think that either scenario is very likely.

On the Black side of the equation, Barack Obama has made no promise or pledge that has caused the black community to speciffically invest their hopes in him....

On the white side, The broad range of support that Barack is able to garner makes me beleive that he is at least palatable to at least all rational people... There are white supremicist to consider, but I don't think that most of them are crazy enough to try and take out a sitting president.... or even capable.

I hope nobody tries any bullshit on any President. It shows the world "democracy doesn't work". That democracy is dangerous.
If you don't like the President, blame those who elected him/her.
Let them remain in office to expose themselves as idiots or charlatans.
But to assasinate one is flat out treason against the American system IMO.

When I look at that image, I'm somehow reminded of Sloth from The Goonies.

I think there technically has been record voting as absolute numbers in the last few elections, just not as a percentage of eligible voters voting.

I'm NOT one saying he's gonna get killed BUT just to argue your premise...I don't think those who say AA isn't necessary and that racism isn't widespread any more would deny that there are still fring nut groups like White-Supremacists and skinheads and whatever who number in the thousands....and it only takes one skilled guy to do the deed.

As for the premise abour racism, I'll acknowledge there are still some people, mostly older folks with little actual power, who are still very bigoted, but beyond that, I would suggest that what remains in the area of prejudice and discrimination is more broad based than simply a matter of race.

I think that human beings now, and forever more, are plagued with a tendency to catagorize certain other people as beneath them...

I think there is prejudice and discrimination against:

Blacks
Hispanics
Asians
Women
men
gays
rednecks
yankees
fat people
short people
people with beards
people with long hair
people with tattoos
some people who wear glasses
people with less than perfect teeth
people who are not as well read as "you" are
people who did not go to college
people who work in manal labor
people who don't have to work
people on disability
people who speak with an accent
people who have scars

and on and on and on......

it's not RACISM that's still the problem (although as I said, the last of the racial bigots isn't gone) it is that human beings, in sub-concious knee-jerk fashion insist on having someone - anyone - they can look down on.

sometimes it's justified (if you look down on a person who hasn't bathed in six months and goes everywhere barefooted - i know a guy like this - that's kinda understandable) sometimes it's stupid.

But you ain't never gonna be rid of it.

Tell me the last time there was a viable black candidate for President.

Jesse Jackson doesn't count.

Obama doesn't count either, according to Bill Clinton.

Even more strangely, according to some, Bill counted...

And to a few other morons, since he's lived overseas and he supposedly doesn't know the real struggles of the black man...?

Tell that to Lincoln. And I really don't think society has come as far as you'd like to think. But then, I'm pessimist by nature.

I dunno, I don't fear being lynched if I'm out alone at night, or ever faced rejection at school for my skin color.

If you're gonna go back to Lincoln as precedent than you have bigger problems since it suggests the Southern states will soon take up armed revolution.

Or maybe that was a different time.

Fascists usually are.

A low assessment of human character and progress is essential for fostering the impulse to dominate and punish.

1) There are certainly a few people around here who feel that racism no longer exists on a wide scale. But I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that "most" WordForgers think that. In fact, I think the opposite is almost certainly true.

2) Those of us who oppose Affirmative Action do not oppose it because racism doesn't exist but because it is racist. We are not about to approve the very thing we are fighting against: taking the color of a person's skin into account in making decisions about whether or not to accept him for a given position.

I think you have failed to make your point.

Alan Keyes, IMO.

But there will be more and more as the pool of applicants (blacks involved in politics) grows. Out of 100 whites, how many have "what it takes?"
Very few indeed. So you would need a potential pool of many blacks (or any grouping of people) before one would be ready for the position.

Same goes for Asians, females, Jews, whatever.

Yes darling, but you aren't running for president either.

Institutional racism is a thing of the past. The laws make it too expensive for employers to take that chance.

Personal racism still exists, and likely always will in some form or the other.

The question is if the laws exist to stop institutional racism, should affirmative action be put in place to try to compensate for personal racism?

Especially as like Async pointed out taking a person's sex or race into account is the one form of institutional prejudice that's allowed.

To do so would imply there's something bad about having a non-institutional opinion. If you used that basis for race, where would it stop. Can of worms.

Have you ever been to the United States? I'm not referring to the Civil War revolutionary character, I'm referring to the tendency to kill presidents when they go out of their way to offend racial extremists. It's amazing LBJ made it through those 4 years.

Viable? I dunno...

Keyes is really a bit over the top to be taken seriously from what exposure I've had to the man. He will tell you what he thinks, I'll give him that.

Keyes, viable?

He got 20% in Minnesota 8 years ago.

Oh?

Better than the argument that he lived overseas and thus understands the international community better than Hillary.

:lookatme:I lived overseas!

Pull all troops out of Iraq!

I fail to see many redeeming points about the species at this period in time, true.

Yeah. I know.

A black candidate that doesn't do the whole 'entitlement' scene.

What the hell was I thinking?

To be fair, he'd probably be shot before lynched.

I voted for Keyes in the 96 and 2000 primaries and I'd do it this time if he was running.

I knew people who worked in the porn business could be cool.