The Tea Party isn't home to a large amount of racism

Oh Herman.

Herman. Herman. Herman.

Cain speaks for nearly a half an hour and despite a couple fleeting "999" mentions, keeps his speech to topics of faith and his recent battle with cancer. He begins with a story about how he knew he would survive when he discovered that his physician was named "Dr. Lord," that the hospital attendant's name was "Grace" and that the incision made on his chest during the surgery would be in the shape of a "J."

"Come on, y'all. As in J-E-S-U-S! Yes! A doctor named Lord! A lady named Grace! And a J-cut for Jesus Almighty," Cain boomed.

He did have a slight worry at one point during the chemotherapy process when he discovered that one of the surgeon's names was "Dr. Abdallah."

"I said to his physician assistant, I said, 'That sounds foreign -- not that I had anything against foreign doctors -- but it sounded too foreign," Cain tells the audience. "She said, 'He's from Lebanon.' Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon.'"

"Hallelujah!" Cain says. "Thank God!"

Herman Cain has now issued multiple bigoted statements about a very large group of people.

I don't really care what side you think I think you're on.

Nor do I care about your beltway wisdom about how the Democrats can win.

One of our two major parties regularly relies on bigotry, the other does not.

This is a topic worthy of our attention, lest people draw false equivalencies.

whynot_31 said:

It seems I must use your terms and methods to be considered truly on your side.

It is a human trait that people can believe that they are the only ones fighting a fight, when they are actually dismissing potential allies as being their enemies as result of varying methods.

In Nov 2012, America will again decide how perceives the world, and how it wishes to be perceived by the world.

If Cain ends up being the Republican nominee, I hope his present strategy of finding an enemy fails. For the sake of the Democrats, I hope they are able to cast some group as an enemy so they may bolster their own returns.

The Tea Party? The rich? The fiscal hawks?

To keep it simple, both sides might even use the same rhetoric again...

oh, right, the linguistics question. Maybe Chomsky can help you.

You're trying to turn this into something else instead of dealing with facts as presented.

This isn't about moral superiority or electoral strategy.

Cain is saying bigoted things.

Try thinking about this fact outside of your non-Muslim privilege.

I don't think any of the equivalencies being drawn are false.

You may want to look at this in terms of what groups of people believe they have to lose and gain.

After all, aren't the arguments over who is morally superior are pretty silly, given that we would all act the same way if in the other's role?

Chomsky is a good guy, and might be able to help.

I like him.

You have the privilege of only viewing Cain's words as rhetoric because he is not talking about you, and you are not from a disenfranchised or persecuted group.

I bet Muslims feel differently.

Republicans must own their bigoted rhetoric, and neither they nor you get to pretend it doesn't have real world consequences.

I believe Cain's statements to be completely about electoral strategy, but he may coincidentally actually hold these views.

Maybe someday I will run for an election. I imagine it will be much like getting a job offer after BSing my way through interviews in which I told people what I think they wanted to hear.

Elections are much like interviews, it is tough to parse out what is coincidence vs. deeply held views. It is all just verbiage and linguistics, what really matters in life is actions.

As I look back on history, I see both the republican and democrats being willing to send our armed forces into conflicts in which people will be slaughtered. Although many of these conflicts seemed waged under the rhetoric of "democracy/freedom", they all seem to have religion, resources and race as their basis.

In light of human nature, the real questions may be:

Is the honesty of Republicans a fault or an asset?

Is the rhetoric of diversity and inclusion by Democrats a fault of an asset?

My advice to you is to stop thinking about what camp I put you in (I generally don't do that to people, esp with political persuations) and just respond to the topic at hand.