Liberal racial hypocrisy

[DonViejo]

Killing people of color just for being a suspected threat is a total outrage for liberals. Well, sometimes

BY FALGUNI A. SHETH

Since the reelection of President Obama, liberals have made some bold admissions. Commentators like Touré Neblett of MSNBC’s The Cycle have enthusiastically and repeatedly defended the president’s authority to launch drones against anyone, including American citizens, if he suspects that they are “trying to kill us.”

At no point in his several defenses did Touré reconcile his position with once-popular Constitutional precepts that every person should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and know the charges and evidence against him, and have the right to a fair trial. Neither did he explain why ordinary Americans should suspend their longstanding skepticism of politicians in power or withdraw the demand that the president and Congress be accountable for their actions, especially the taking of someone’s life.

Sadly, Touré isn’t alone in trusting the president’s complete discretion to decide which individuals are threats to American safety. Other liberals, from Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, to Touré’s MSNBC colleague Krystal Ball, to liberal bloggers also admit to a higher level of comfort with President Obama’s overseeing of otherwise troubling policies such as secret kill lists, targeted killings, and preemptive detentions of suspected terrorists. They are joined by 54% of Americans, who agree that the Obama Administration should have the discretion to kill anyone alleged to be senior al-Qaeda members.

The hoopla has been described by other pundits, liberal and conservative, as hypocrisy or, more accurately, shameless political double standards. Why exculpate a Democratic president for the same troubling, and extrajudicial, policies once engaged in by a Republican president? They’re right, of course. But there’s another double standard to worry about: one that assumes brown/black foreigners shouldn’t receive the same benefit of the doubt about their guilt that is regularly given to other Americans. It can only be ascribed to a racial double standard, one consistent with an aggressive jingoism.

more
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/23/liberal_hypocrites_on_race/

[Laelth]

1. Rubbish.

Plenty of Democrats support the unitary executive theory of government and are comfortable with the President having unilateral authority to execute American citizens, but the liberals I know do not.

Big difference between a "Democrat" and being a "liberal." Some Democrats are liberal, to be sure, but not all.

-Laelth


Edit:Laelth--sloppy proofreading.

[geek tragedy]

7. Actually, virtually no Democrats support that.

The rule is no killing of US citizens, with exceptions made only for those who have joined up with an enemy organization engaged in planning and executing armed attacks against the United States.

[Laelth]

9. I hope you are right.

It appears to me that the rule is very fluid at this time.

-Laelth

[geek tragedy]

10. The rule is fluid because the Executive is acting in a vacuum (to mix metaphors).

Congress has shown very little interest until recently in putting some actual restraints in place, Democrats out of partisanship/worries of helping Pugs undermine the Preznit, and Republicans because they never object to killing people unless it involves white nationalists or separatists like Randy Weaver or David Koresh.

[msongs]

2. obama believes he has the right to kill anybody, regardless of race. equal opportunity indeed n nt

[CheapShotArtist]

4. Bullshit.

[geek tragedy]

6. Very chilling, if it were remotely near the truth. Unfortunately, this is the cartoon version

of the discussion of targeted killings of terrorists abroad--if you think it's okay to kill bin Laden, you must think it's okay to bomb little old ladies in shopping malls in Connecticut.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. msongs, prove your bullshit claim or shut the fuck up.

I am tired of your pathetic posts that offer up phony hyperbole and absolutely nothing of substance. You're the most flimsy poster on DU because of your tired rhetoric that brings hardly any dialogue to an important issue. Instead, you duck your head in, rattle off what you assume is a snarky, or funny, comment, end it generally with a 'lol' and then leave to do it in yet another post - almost certainly slamming Obama. It's tired and stupid and absolutely unintelligent.

You're the like kid whose comeback to every joke is, "I know you are but what am I?" ... seriously - and I know this sounds dickish - but you rarely ever bring anything of worth to the discussion here. It's almost entirely one-dimensional bile. Is there anything tinkering around inside your head that says, "hey, maybe I could have a legitimate and decent debate on subjects I care about." ... ? Or do you just feel this incessant need to post ridiculous, and lame one-sentence accusations that are flimsier than a 90 year old shed?

[geek tragedy]

5. So, Obama was RACIST to kill Osama bin Laden?

After all, he was a person of color whom we denied some alleged due process of law while he was hiding in Pakistan under the presumed protection of that government's intelligence services. As part of this alleged kill list which is nothing but racism, according to the author.

I guess if you think that was okay but that Trayvon Martin was murdered, that makes you a half-racist or a hypocrite or something.