The public should cry out to Heaven for Daley’s crimes! Letters should be written. Explanations demanded. Apologies should be sought—but not accepted. Nothing less than David Daley’s resignation will clear the turgid waters stirred by his repulsive words.
I ask you: what is worse than racism? What sinks as low as assuming a person’s race has any bearing on his person? It does not and cannot, which is why women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Racism hurts peoples’ feelings.
David Daley distrusts whites, the racist. Now this is bad, but it could have been worse. Still, it is bad. Daley thinks whites have occult biases and nefarious motives, that they are slippery creatures intent on sowing disharmony. Not only that, but he spends his time, and his employer’s money, seeking out whites who don’t fit his standard of racial purity.
Daley’s latest victim is Emory University president James Wagner. The story is that Wagner wrote one of those 600-word fluff pieces which appear at the beginning of alumni magazines, titled something like “President’s Corner.” The leader’s picture and signature occupy as much space as do his words. Nobody reads these, nor is anybody expected to. They are hastily produced (I do not say written) by an assistant, and sometimes by the president himself; some suspect they are generated by computer.
Wagner’s piece in the Winter issue of Emory Magazine was about comprise in Congress. He opened with, “During a Homecoming program in September, a panel of eminent law school alumni discussed the challenges of governing in a time of political polarization—a time, in other words, like our own.”
At this point most readers will have nodded off, turned the page, or found something useful to do with their time. Not the racist David Daley, who picked up the scent of ideological impurity. He read on—and now, so must we. Wagner wrote, “One instance of constitutional compromise was the agreement to count three-fifths of the slave population for purposes of state representation in Congress.”
He continued:
As the price for achieving the ultimate aim of the Constitution—“to form a more perfect union”—the two sides compromised on this immediate issue of how to count slaves in the new nation. Pragmatic half-victories kept in view the higher aspiration of drawing the country more closely together.
Daley pounced. He likely reasoned, “Here is a white person who is trouble because he is white. His column is dangerous, the product of a deranged mind.” Daley wrote in a Salon column, for all the world to see, that Wagner’s article was “shockingly horrible”. He accused Wagner of having a degree in electrical engineering. He claimed Wagner’s historical views “strange.” He mentioned slavery and intimated Wagner wasn’t sufficiently against it.
Word of Daley’s racist screed reached Emory and Wagner and the press. Panic set in. Hands were wrung. Antacids were eaten. Wagner decided to fall upon his knees and grovel, the standard remedy. He re-opened and preppended (sure it’s a word) his article with these words:
Certainly, I do not consider slavery anything but heinous, repulsive, repugnant, and inhuman. I should have stated that fact clearly in my essay. I am sorry for the hurt caused by not communicating more clearly my own beliefs. To those hurt or confused by my clumsiness and insensitivity, please forgive me.
In fairness (unusual in cases of racism, I know), Wagner did write of the notorious compromise that Southern slave owners wanted to count slaves as whole people and that it was northerners who said slaves should not be counted for the purposes of Congressional districting. But he did not initially include the necessary incantations to ward off racist busybodies like Daley. (This post does not suffer because I opened with the truth, which I repeat here as reinforcement, that racism is bad; slavery, too.)
Wagner’s piteous plea did not satisfy the racist Daley, who preppended his original piece with hints that the “university’s trustees” will “react”. He rejected Wagner’s protestations that racism was bad; Daley believed that because Wagner is white he still must be evil and is not to be trusted.
This is clear evidence of racist behavior. On Daley’s part. I ask you to join me in calling for Daley to repudiate his racist actions in the same public forum he used for his sickening attack. Salon’s contact page.
Too many people these days don’t understand the true nature of the rule in the constitution of counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person.
This was an ANTI-SLAVERY measure pushed by the free states. Counting slaves in full for the purpose of the census and determining representation in Congress, which is what the slavery states wanted, would have given the slavery states an unbreakable lock on the House of Representatives.
By his picture, David Daley also appears to be a large, soft, doughy creature with a whiny voice and has one of those carefully manicured beards that some people grow because they think it makes them look ‘intellectual’.
In short, David Daley has the look of someone I would like to trip, push into a locker and take lunch money from.
Steve Martin says all that needs to be said: video link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zANvYB93u2g
I was one of the people who didn’t get it. I remember in college attending a seminar on the constitution and learning that the constitution was extremely racist. The 3/5 clause was in there, and that seemed to be a little bit of a bloody toe, but the rest of the document seemed to go out of its way to avoid description. Even the 3/5 clause is just a little bit obscure. There is nothing in the document I could find that prevents women, blacks, hispanics, gays, etc from being treated equally. The 3/5 clause is specifically limited to the counting of people in a region.
Is this line,
“Here is a white person who is trouble because he is white. His column is dangerous, the product of a deranged mind”
meant to be a quote from Daley? I don’t see it in the Salon article.
Luke,
You won’t find it there because Daley is a racist. It’s false but true because racism is real and a problem.
This makes McCarthyism look benign.
Mr. Wagner obviously needs to take some lessons from Larry Summers on how to grovel and whine piteously. Of course, that didn’t save Summers from the PC mob.
But McCarthyism, as practiced by McCarthy himself, was a good thing. It bears almost no resemblance to what people think of as McCarthyism.
So, Sheri, I think you’re on to something here, since the “racism” of Wagner is bad the way McCarthy’s “McCarthyism” was bad. If you’re the only one hearing the dog whistles of racism, maybe the problem is that you’re a racist. At least Wagner didn’t write, “Chicago.”
So, as an ignorant reader, can you please show me the lines from Daley’s article which are evident of his racism.
Lex,
He’s clearly guilty. It’s the seriousness of the charges which counts, and there is no more serious charge than racism. Plus, anybody who hints of or directly accuses somebody of racism always does so with cause. Why would anybody make up or imagine or be mistaken about such a thing? Therefore, Daley is a racist.
Stating vague insinuations based upon flimsy public evidence is also a good to expose racism, as we have done here.
Are you with me in calling for Daley’s dismissal?
I don’t think Daley’s comment are racist, although he did react too strongly to Wagner’s piece.
Wagner could have found a better example of compromise than that of the 3/5 rule which belong to another era.
At no other time in history did the filibuster rule was abused and distorted. Than in the last 4-5 years.
Republicans complain that the President doesn’t want to compromise, while they are adopting the Murdauch rule that the only good compromise is when the others come to my view of thinking.
Reps say that the president propose no cuts but where are the cuts that the Reps propose.
The ‘debt crisis’ in the USA is a revenue crisis. This is where the USA crises can be compared with Greece. The Greece crises is caused by the inability of the government to collect its taxes. Their debt/capita ratio is much lower.
It is interesting to see that periods of prosperity always happen when the tax in the USA were the highest and the 2 biggest recession/depression followed the biggest tax cut.
Misanthropism is surely worse than racism.
And much easier to get away with, too.
Mr Daley is in the same company as certain people from Wales. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1353904/Paediatrician-attack-People-dont-want-no-paedophiles-here.html
The status of victim-of-offense is clearly now so sacred that even those whose ignorance and stupidity lead to them taking offense they must still be pander to and mollified.
Incidentally, the Daily Wail article linked to above has some clear-headed comments on it.
Sylvain,
I think the 3/5 compromise is a pretty big compromise over a pretty big issue. What’s a better example of a compromise? Daley is convinced that bringing it up as such is racist. I cannot, for the life of me, follow his logic. He’s either projecting his own racism or just a very stupid person. Or maybe he simply dislikes Wagner for other reasons and is trying to hurt him. None of the alternatives make him look good.
MattL
Nowhere in Daley’s text can you find the word racist. Maybe it was a big compromise in the early 1800s when the subject was discussed, but it is now disgusting to suggest that some people are worth less than other. Factoid like this should not be forgotten but they should be left in the past and more importantly they should not be use to compare with recent situation.
Where you okay with comparing Obama to Hitler? With the tea partier who dressed Carl Rove in nazi uniform? I don’t see anyone in the USA political arena that can be compared to any nazi, Lenine or Mao, yet these comparisons are everywhere.
I still have not found anything racist in Daley’s text. Briggs, you are saying “anybody who hints of or directly accuses somebody of racism always does so with cause. Why would anybody make up or imagine or be mistaken about such a thing? Therefore, Daley is a racist.”
So you are saying that if somebody accuses a person of racism – justified or not – the accuser is a racist.
I don’t buy this.
I do not know Daley or have any links to him, but if you call somebody a racist, you need to do better in convincing why.
Sylvain,
I’m sorry that you are too sensitive to study history and learn from it. People like you and Daley should not prevent the rest of us from being able to study the past and learn from it. Can you give us a list of acceptable and unacceptable things in history to study? Please stop advocating ignorance.
I think there are a lot of similarities between Obama and Hitler, though genocide is not among them. The automatic emotional baggage that comes along with a Hitler reference typically overwhelms the point of the comparison. Still, should we simply ignore the common roots and philosophies of American Progressivism and European fascism? Because that’s basically what you’re arguing. How awful.
Lex,
As society shows us, any connection, however tenuous, which supports charges of racism is perfect proof of racism. There is no defense to these charges because the charges, once made, prove the charges, such that if proof didn’t exist before the charges were made, they certainly exist after. Daley is therefore a racist.
All that is left to him to is to grovel and issue his mea maxima culpa tearfully and with promises to attend sensitivity training. He must be fired in course, and no longer trusted to wield a pen lest he re-comment his heinous offense in the future.
I’m a claims rep with the U.S. Social Security Administration. Most of my working day consists of taking and processing disability claims, SSI retirement claims, etc, but on occasion I help the Service Representatives process applications for new or replacement social security cards. At the end of the application for a social security card, there are questions about race/ethnicity. Maybe I’m not being conscientious, but out of principle, I don’t ask the applicant for an answer to those questions, I just check “decline to state”. I figure that asking the questions is racist.
MattL,
Unlike what you may think, I’m not too sensitive to study history and learn from it. I only have a few courses left before obtaining my graduate degree in history and the USA his the country I studied the most.
For example, for none zionist jews the real cause for the holocaust (Shoah) is the refusal by other developed countries to accept them in their country. Having nowhere to send the jews the nazi developed the last solution. In the 30s early 40s both Canada and US send boats filled with jews back to Germany.
The 3/5 solution happened in another time. In the early 1800 the blacks and women were not considered as persons, they were commodities own by white male. When a women was rape, monetary compensation were paid to the husband or father of the victim to cover the loss of value of the victims.
The 3/5 solution today is something unimaginable since every person is at least supposed to have the same right and liberties. There is no similarities between the 3/5 solution and what is happening in congress now.
When historian makes comparisons they are careful to compare apple with apple. For example, there are a lot of similarities between the 1929 depression and the 2008 depression/recession.
Both events were preceded by tax cut and deregulation. Both events were preceded by a growing gap between poor and rich. Both event followed a devrease in government investment, etc.
“because the charges, once made, prove the charges, such that if proof didn’t exist before the charges were made, they certainly exist after.”
Don’t have to prove anything, just make charges.
Really scary McCarthyism.
Lex,
You are beginning to understand.
Sylvain,
You obviously don’t understand the 3/5 compromise, and you definitely haven’t made a case for why we shouldn’t study it as a case study in political compromise. Just because you lack the intellectual ability to look at a political process doesn’t mean we all cannot do that.
Likewise, I question your definition of deregulation and decrease and investment. In fact, there are similarities with our current economy and the Great Depression, but it’s mainly in the opposite direction of what you say. I’d recommend reading some of Amity Schlaes’ work.
MattL,
With the 3/5 ‘compromise’ no one had strong feeling about the value of black people on both side of the issue, they had none, they were a commodity, a property. The conflict was about representation. Those who had the black wanted them to be counted to have more of it, the other side wanted the same thing. That compromise wasn’t that hard to achieve since the 3/5 brought represation at 50/50.
A good example of compromise is the presidence stance where he ask for revenue and he is ready to accept cut in social security, which is anetema to democrats. This is what a compromise is. Accepting that you can not have everything you would like to have. The level revenue versus cut could be a compromise that could be compared, though carefully, to to the 3/5 solution.
This is not the current situation. The current situation is refusal to compromise by the GOP who is taking the population hostage in give us everything we want or we kill everyone.
Sylvain,
Wow. You mean like how the GOP refused to compromise on raising taxes and then compromised by raising taxes? I would rate actions as being louder than words. The President can “promise” anything he wants when he knows there is no chance of it actually happening.
I think you should ask for your money back on those history courses. It sounds like they were broken. I’m not sure where you get your current events information, but that’s not working, either.
MattL,
You mean when they concluded a deal to make permanent the Bush tax cut for the first $400K. The US deficit is mainly a revenue problem, and partly a spending problem. You are simply refusing to collect the revenue to cover your expense, and that is exactly what happened in Greece.
The present revenue asked for is on loop hole. How much money were you able to deduct on your last taxe return from your private jet?
Sylvain,
There you go. Move the goal post, but thanks for admitting that you were wrong. Anyways, we were promised that these taxes were going to solve a lot of problems! The rich! Fair share! Bush!
You’ve also ignored that payroll taxes went back up. Of course, this is in addition to the fine ObamaCare taxes starting to kick in (without compromise, even!).
I’m not sure how you can look at the US government and decide the spending isn’t the biggest problem. I suppose it requires ignoring history and economics and math.
It’s very difficult to discuss things with someone living in their own reality. Please let us know when you come back to the real world.
MattL,
I only have a few minute. I don’t know where I admitted I was wrong. The GOP didn’t vote a tax hike they voted to make permanent tax cut that were supposed to expires.
I don’t remember the GOP fighting really hard to prevent the expiration of payroll tax. Can you provide anything that would show that the GOP tried to prevent it?
I’ll come back later on the spending.
MattL,
Here is why the USA doesn’t have a spending problem but a revenue problem. Europe has the same problem as of late.
Since the years of Ronald Reagan the gap between the richest and the middle class has never stopped growing. His presidency is when everything started. At first, taxes were progressive, the more money you made the more taxes you paid. Under Eisenhower the tax rate even reached 95%.
Back then, and since the Second World War, the US government was spending enormous amount of money in the economy, in the late 40s early 50s, they even spent about 4-5% of GDP (13 billion (11 billion given) in Europe to stimulate their recovery so that in return they could afford to buy product made by US worker. Eisenhower invested mainly in the national highway system, airport and research. Back then the government also took the revenue they needed in order to not make a deficit.
The average people were 4 times richer in the 70s when compared to the average people in the 40s.
This chart is very clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008_Top1percentUSA.png
Do you think it is a coincidence that the 2 years where the income disparity was the greatest were followed by the 2 biggest depression of the century?
When government are taxing they spend in the economy. When they give tax break to the rich the money the rich are saving in taxes is secured and not invested. There has been $3.2 trillion removed from the economy since 2008; money that is not spent but saved because it is not needed by the people who have it. If the government had that money they would invest it in roads, schools, research, etc. This would give money to people so they could by house, cars, tv, clothe, etc. and create jobs. The expanse in for unemployment and other social expenses would decrease because less people would require help.
Sylvain,
Thanks for the non sequiturs. Here’s a hint: look at the percent of public spending vs GDP. It’s historically high.
To be fair, I would say that the regulatory burden has become at least as much of a problem as the fiscal insanity, and is helping to prevent revenue from coming back up to historical norms.
MattL,
Wow what a brilliant, over simplistic, and wrong view of the situation.
Should anyone be surprised that in the biggest recession in 80 years, when the GDP doesn’t grow and millions of people lose their jobs that a government will spend more as a portion of GDP. But it doesn’t mean they spend too much. It means they don’t spend enough.
What happened in the US since the Bush tax cut?
The government has reduced its investment in infrastructure and maintenance; to the point that 70,000 structure are below safe level and 500 are considered critical.
Since 2008, for care to balance budget local and state government have reduce their workforce; less teachers, less cops, less firemen; public less safe and kids less cared for in school. More people qualifying for unemployment and requiring food stamps. More people looking for works also means lower pay and more worker requiring food stamps (food are subsidies to employer to give the smallest salaries).
Local and state government firing their employees didn’t eliminate the expense they only transferred it to the federal level and removed money from the economy since people on unemployment cannot borrow money to repair their house and often lost their house because they couldn’t afford their payment since many couldn’t find work before the end of their unemployment benefit.
Did maintaining the tax cut to the rich stimulate the economy? No, it removed over $3 trillion from the economy since wise people don’t invest in uncertain time. The money is left at the bank where in collect small amount of interest, instead of being put in the economy to create jobs.
Canada has fared a lot better than most other countries in this recession. We created smaller deficit and had stimulus to help renovate houses and build roads.
Apologies should be sought—but not accepted. ??????
I think you need to think on the roots of this sentiment.
This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read. You have no idea what racism is. You cannot be racist without a history of structural oppression. It’s like saying that lions are oppressing deer or something. You misunderstand the idea.
My IQ dropped twenty points just reading this horrible blog.
Mike M,
Considering you didn’t have far to drop, this is a tragic loss.