“We have to have a candid national conversation about race and about discrimination, prejudice, hatred. But unfortunately the public discourse is sometimes hotter and more negative than it should be, which can, in my opinion, trigger people who are less than stable. For example, a recent entry into the Republican presidential campaign said some very inflammatory things about Mexicans. Everybody should stand up and say that’s not acceptable. You don’t talk like that on talk radio. You don’t talk like that on the kind of political campaigns. I think he is emblematic. I want people to understand it’s not about him, it’s about everybody.”
—Democratic Presidential Anointee Hillary Clinton, in an interview with KNPB’s Jon Ralston, discussing the Charleston church shooting of nine African-American worshipers
Note that this is just the unethical quote of the day, rather than week or month, and to be fair, it probably wasn’t even the most unethical quote of the day on this particular topic. Later today I hope to announce the top ten most unethical public statements on the Charleston tragedy (so far), and it is not certain that Hillary’s comment will even make the list.
It’s that bad out there.
I wonder if anyone in the Democratic Party is at all concerned that Clinton is apparently incapable of speaking without a script and avoiding saying absurd and outrageous things? Or do Democrats not recognize that they are outrageous? Which is more disturbing, that they seem ready to hand the most powerful job on earth to this awful, addled, corrupt woman knowing how terrible her judgment and political skills are, or that they can’t tell how terrible they are?
Or that there isn’t a single qualified individual in the entire party that they think is far superior? Or two? Or a hundred?
Well, like wading through day old garbage, let’s analyze this mess. Yuck:
1. To suggest that Donald Trump’s crude statements about illegal immigrants (which was, you know, literally accurate, just needlessly offensive) did have, could have had or is “emblematic” of rhetoric that might have “triggered” Dylann Roof’s act is slimy, gutter level politics at its worst. Clinton implicates Republicans in a murder by linking the party to a self-promoting fraud who is not a serious candidate. Nice.
2. She doesn’t have the guts or fairness to name the man she is sliming (the host asked her to). Who campaigns like that? “I’m not going to name names, but a certain Republican who just entered the race and said this...” Feminists should throw up: this is girly campaigning…for 7th grade class president.
3. Does Hillary not recall that the Democrats and various pundits thoroughly disgraced themselves by accusing Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin of “triggering” the Tuscon shooting that wounded Rep. Giffords, in a flagrant effort to shut down the speech of political opponents and tie them to the act of a madman? Or did she approve of that miserable, censorious tactic? Presumably it is the latter, because this statement exemplifies the same foolish, dishonest lack of ethics.
4. Hillary begins by saying that we need to have a candid conversation, and then goes on to condemn Trump for being candid. Trump has nothing to recommend in his character or leadership ability whatsoever, but candor is not a quality he lacks. Clinton can’t maintain honesty and integrity in the span of one short statement in an interview! How can there be candor on race, if everyone should stand up and say that candor is not acceptable? Hillary’s version of candor is “candor that doesn’t disagree with what my party has declared as acceptable speech and belief.”
Perhaps worst of all, Clinton made a victim out of Donald Trump, and allowed him to say in response, “politicians are just no good.” This is as close to correct as Trump will be in his entire life, except that Hillary Clinton makes other politicians look good by comparison.
Ethics Alarms 
She read your blog! T. Regina is racing Trump to the bottom.
Good one Jack. I’m so tired of people saying “we need to have a conversation about race or guns or immigration.” Give me a break. What’s to talk about? These arrogant lefties just mean they want to lecture and harangue on one of their favorite topics. Conversation my ass.
Ha ! Thanks for pointing out how even a woman as dour as her can be really funny.
Here’s the part of the speech being referenced.
“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.
(APPLAUSE) Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
It’s not “literally accurate” as you mention above. First, Mexico isn’t “sending” anyone. People are fleeing — mostly because of poverty and drug crime. (The drug crime being almost 100% due to US demand.) Re the “problems” that they are bringing, those problems are not any different than the same “problems” brought by every immigrant class to the US ever. The Germans, the Irish, the Chinese, etc. People don’t flee here because they are rich. And yes, poverty breeds crime, so there will always be some crime associated with every immigrant group. “They’re rapists?” What?????? But my favorite is his last comment, “And some, I assume, are good people.” Not most mind you, just “some.”
Re Hillary’s comments, there’s noting unethical about them, although I’m surprised she said anything at all. It suggests she is taking Trump seriously, which she should not. But the U.S. does need to have a better dialogue about race so in that sense she is right.
I just spent 20 minutes on a reply that got lost, so I’m now pissed off.
ARE YOU KIDDING? Of course it is literally true. All of these are true, if stated in a general and insultingly unsubtle manner:
1. Mexico is “sending” them: the corrupt, inept, government is doing a lousy job, and not providing a health economy or a viable society for its own people, and then its leaders lecture us about allowing their poor to pour through our borders so Mexico doesn’t have to be accountable. Construction eviction “sends” people elsewhere.
2. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems”—that’s right, and their problems, which should be solved in their country, are being made our problems. People who have no problems where they live don’t move.
3. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime.” CHECK and DOUBLE CHECK. There is disproportionate crime in illegal immigrant groups. Terrorists too. Trump was being nice to ignore them.
4. “They’re rapists.” What do you mean. “Wha?” Here: educate yourself. https://www.google.com/search?q=Illegal+immigrant+rapes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 Trump never said all illegals were rapists.
“And some, I assume, are good people.” Well, there he’s being generous. I don’t consider people who break the laws of other nations and take resources and government services they are not entitled to and then demand citizenship “good people.”
“Re Hillary’s comments, there’s nothing unethical about them…” Now there’s a “what/”, or rather a “what the hell?” So in your world, insinuating that a mass racist church murder was caused by Donald Trump’s rhetoric is ethical? How do you do that without imagining away fairness, honesty, and the Golden Rule? Would Hillary want her constant lies to be blamed for the culture of corporate fraud?
Trump is an ass, and his comment was needlessly mean-spirited, but his words didn’t “trigger” anything but an unconscionable cheap shot by Hillary, and an absurd defense of it by you, why, I don’t know.
Meanwhile, SAYING YOU WANT A CANDID DISCUSSION AND THEN WHEN SOMEONE SPEAKS CANDIDLY ACCUSING HIM OF TRIGGERING MASS MURDER BY DOING SO IS NOT “RIGHT.”
Have you taken leave of your senses?
I sympathize. I lost three papers during my last undergrad trail of tears, and I was on the brink of destroying the house and everything in it. I began following my traumatized wife’s suggestion that I put EVERYTHING I’m typing, even a thread comment, on Word, and hitting Ctrl S as often as practical. I saw what you referenced in point #1 when I was in Cuba. Castro was emptying his jails and putting the predatory scum on rafts for our Coast Guard to pick up. They terrorized the families in every conceivable way, and I have to admit that it was a pleasure for us (marines) to beat the snot out of them with clubs and drag them off to Camp Delta.
The first part of my reply wasn’t a thinly-veiled, snarky suggestion, BTW.
I had a LONG response to this — which I lost when the power went out last night. I will see if I can get the energy to re-type.
This exchange is apparently cursed for both of us….
“(The drug crime being almost 100% due to US demand.)”
Mexicans don’t like drugs now?!? Source?
Sorry, the drug thing again.
So…Mexicans are fleeing Mexico because of drug crime, which is the United States’ fault somehow, because “almost 100% of drug crime” is due to U.S. demand. Presumably you mean that Americans want drugs, and Mexicans are supplying those drugs, and therefore cartel wars in Mexico. It’s more accurate to say that the drugs come from all over the world, they enter the U.S. through Mexico, the Mexican government was fine with a drug-and-crime-based economy for decades, as long as they got kickbacks, and the crooked arrangement produced criminal enterprises so gigantic and immoral that they practically run Mexico, and the government’s far-too-late efforts to reverse this (while still being far-too-crooked) keep creating power vacuums and territory wars.
(And as it happens, Mexico is indeed slowly digging its way out of that hole, and gradually fewer people are wanting to leave. Meanwhile, Americans’ still want drugs just as much, so, yeah, that’s not really what moves the needle.)
Also, if Americans are buying drugs from Mexico, it’s clearly because the demand can’t be met from local sources, despite our massively larger, pro-capitalism population. Therefore, it is easier to get away with producing and trafficking drugs in Mexico, even with rival factions gunning for you. Again, how is that not a problem for which Mexico is ultimately responsible?
They like tequila. And peyote.
Peyote = Native American Church. Part of their religious rituals.
Anyone read about the Roof manifesto ?
I want you all to think about it.
The media’s slanted coverage of the Trayvon Martin incited the racism by Dylann Roof.
Someone explain to me what would be wrong with charging those so-called journalists with murder. After all, it can be argued that their biased coverage led to those murders in that church. One of them was even willing to edit video to distort the story. Their bias incited racism. Racism led to murder. Therefore, as the argument goes, the media, in its biased reporting in that case, coupled with “ignoring hundreds of these black on White murders”, caused the murders in that church.
Perhaps the state should control the media, requiring the permission of bureaucrats to publish the story to ensure that it is fair and balanced.
Is there any argument against regulation of media to eliminate biases that lead to racist murders? Or prosecuting those “journalists” and “editors” for murder?
Oh dear…
To counter Beth’s critique of Trump’s speech (I can’t believe I’m defending Donald Trump,)
He’s not even saying anything that Liberals don’t agree with when claiming that other countries are sending their “problems.” In his own special way, I think he means to say, without realizing it, that the United States, unlike countries that Liberals seem to love more, actually takes in POOR people.
I LIKE that we are, unlike more Leftist nations, willing to take in the “tired, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” It’s one of the many ways that the United States practices compassion and actually backs it up. However, poverty and crime tend to go together. I have no idea what Trump’s platform is on immigration, but if he’s saying we should turn away all the poor people…that’s not very American.
Still, he has a point about us taking on the world’s problems. I, for one, am proud that we do, and recognize that we can’t screen out all potential criminals if we’re taking in the world’s poor, its refugees, etc. America is a big, beautiful place filled with nice people who are up to the task of caring for some huddled masses. I just wish Liberals wouldn’t claim to agree with that, and then turn around and flaunt poverty and crime statistics while fetishizing countries that only want immigrants with PhDs.
…or make charity compulsory, thereby squelching the genuinely charitable spirit of individuals, which historically has been a much more effective means of helping people in need.