The Roanoke Times: RoundTable

Comments

# 1

[June 17, 2008 2:44 PM]

Other John

While the pin depicted in the picture is sad to see, I will completely agree with the "Press 1 for English" pin, because I am sick and tired of having our country slowy turned into a semi-Spanish speaking country. While it's nice because I get to brush up on my 5 years of Spanish language education I received in school, this is the United States and English has been our language since our inception. I am not anti immigration, but I am very pro-English as the spoken language in this country when it comes to communication and business transactions. In the past, this country was a melting pot where everyone brought their unique culture and heritage to the mix, but we all had a common American identity and English was the common language for people of all backgrounds. Now with all this multiculturalism, we have fractured into groups of immigrants who keep their native languages and fail to identify themselves as Americans...and frustrated Americans who see this country being slowly degraded from what we used to be into little hotspots claimed by people of various backgrounds who don't come together in any meaningful way other than that we're all inside the U.S. borders.

# 2

[June 17, 2008 4:41 PM]

Anthony

To me thats very week to even call that racist....Im so sick of politcal correctness I wanna puke.get a life radmacher

# 3

[June 17, 2008 4:50 PM]

Dan Radmacher

Ok, Anthony, I'll bite. If that button wasn't making a racist point, what point was it making?

# 4

[June 17, 2008 5:05 PM]

Anthony

To me its a play on words...Black guy ,White House get it..To me its gotta be more overt than that to be racism...i mean let me ask you this......If I say a Black person likes water melon or chicken is that racist?An Italian liking spaghetti?A Nebrascan liking corn?...Dont know if this person who came up with the button is evil or good.But too me this ia very iffy example..And not worth blogging about..And mean where do we get off this boat..

# 5

[June 17, 2008 5:20 PM]

Josh

Question; Which percentage will be far lower? The percentage of whites voting for Obama or the percentage of blacks voting for McCain?

Nuff said about who the racists are.

# 6

[June 17, 2008 5:46 PM]

Josh

Anthony is exactly right. Racism is the view that people from one race are inherently superior to those of another. This button is nothing more than a play on words. You liberals diminish true racism when you labeling everything racist.

Shame on you!

# 7

[June 17, 2008 5:49 PM]

Josh

Liberals don't understand the definition of racism. Racism is the belief that one race is genetically and inherently superior to another. This button was a play on words. Nothing more. Nothing disparaging.

You diminish true racism by labeling every reference as racist.

# 8

[June 17, 2008 6:51 PM]

Henry

Yo guys.

Obama is white as well. The button doesn't make sense.

# 9

[June 17, 2008 7:00 PM]

BUBBA

I'm totally on the side of Josh and Anthony. This newspaper and so many other media outlets just have no real sence of values, judgement or humor for that matter. I recall being in a conversation with George Allen when he was running for Gov. I was really just an "attendee" so to speak in the conversation, but another unknown person who also was there made some comment or attempted to make what I suppose was taken as an off color remark about some minority group. Allen was very much engaged in the dialogue as it developed but when it became apparent where the discussion was going a couple of his youthful UVa aides actually pushed the speaker away from the future Gov and Allen ran into a different area of the room. You know I really don't know why I tend to keep looking at this web site. Cannot wait until this paper is sold and then only hope it is purchased by a responsible media organization...if there are any.

....now, where did I put my beer?

# 10

[June 17, 2008 7:25 PM]

BUBBA

I'll do a double here like Josh IF the message board GODS see fit to post the first one. Let's see now. Take middle names for example. Willian Jefferson Clinton. John (????) McCain. This IS who they are, right? I don't even know John's middle name. When someone calls him "John", does the public snicker at the notion of that place we do our business? When they call William JEFFERSON Clinton are old timers thinking about that spunky little dude that moved up to the east side with Weezie...or maybe that old statesman and founding father TJ? Beats me what anyone "thinks". But then when we call you know who by his full name, including the "Hussein" part, it instantly is attack by all you liberal types as an attempt to smear him. Go figure. Me, I'm going for another beer!

# 11

[June 17, 2008 7:49 PM]

Wil

Ok ok I wanna play! I think it goes like this, as long as people keep telling you and making you believe that things like this button and other under lined little pharses doesn't mean anything. the sooner they will be able too say it too your face instead of hiding behind things like this. Oh, about the chicken thing,it is a hit below the belt type of thing. This type of thing was said at a party which they that was very funny. This person turned too a small group of his friends and said, it's a good thing we are not serving watermelon & chicken or their would be more of them here. I guess that was just a play on words also? hmmm.

# 12

[June 17, 2008 8:22 PM]

Blue John

If the button means nothing, are we to assume that the Texas GOP is dumb enough to buy anything?

# 13

[June 18, 2008 12:31 AM]

40ozDistrict

Goofball Republicans. The name "White House" has nothing to do with the race of the people living in it.

# 14

[June 18, 2008 7:33 AM]

Rob Miles

It seems Radmacher and the rest of you are missing the point of the button. Of course it's a racial message, but it's not racist. The point is, will the Country be so politically correct and oversensitive that it will be considered racist to call it "White House" once a Black man is in there.

Bubba: Barrack Obama has made it clear that he prefers to go by that name, and that is (as far as I know) the name he has gone by his entire political life. There is no reason to include his middle name when talking about him, so it's obvious that when conservatives use that middle name, repetitively, that they are trying to draw an unwarranted connection between him and Muslim terrorists.

Of course, you can claim that conservatives are doing no such thing, and that they are simply using the man's middle name, but we're not that stupid. What would be the point of using the name that he doesn't use in public otherwise? There's nothing wrong with my middle name, but I don't use it personally or professionally. If someone were to constantly use it to refer to me, despite my not using it, it would be obvious that person was doing it in an attempt to insult me or bother me in some way.

# 15

[June 18, 2008 10:28 AM]

Michelle

Dan,

I think you left out one other very important button being sold at the convention. The Trailblazer blog also noted that a "I will hold my nose when I vote for McCain" button was being sold at the same booth sponsored by Republican Market. Sort of puts a different spin on things doesn’t it?

I took a look at the Republican Market website. It was no more or less than I expected. It is not affiliated with the RNC. They aren’t in it to make a political statement. They’re in it to make money. The majority of their buttons are tasteless, crass, and/or crude. Their Monica Lewinsky button included a picture of Monica and the words “I’m voting Republican. The Democrats left a bad taste in my mouth”. There is also a button that states that “A Woman’s Place is in The House, The Senate, and The Oval Office” (there is no charge for the innuendo). I will admit that I was rather fond of the “No Hill-Billy in the White House” button (I thought it was clever) and the “Jihad This” button which depicted the American Eagle flying “The Bird”. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

In this particular case, I think that the “White House” button was not intended to be taken as racist propaganda. Sadly, it was a poor attempt at humor. There will always be equal opportunity offenders. We all know them. To them, every race, gender, denomination, nationality, and profession is fair game. Chances are we’ve all laughed (at least silently) at their cracks once or twice. Chances are also good that we’ve all been offended by them more than once. The entire world needs to lighten-up.

# 16

[June 18, 2008 4:26 PM]

Other John

How about the Obama campaign showing religious discrimination in Detroit by telling 2 Muslim women that they were not permitted to sit behind Obama since the cameras would show them wearing traditional Muslim headscarves? Add that to their campaign telling an Asian female student that she could not sit behind the area where Michelle Obama was speaking and it's pretty apparent that racism and bigotry is pervasive in his campaign.

# 17

[June 18, 2008 4:38 PM]

Dan Radmacher

The Star City Harbinger picked up on this post, and solicited reaction from Rep. Bob Goodlatte and others. You can read it here.

# 18

[June 20, 2008 12:46 PM]

Michelle

Dan,

I have an update for you. Apparently RepublicanMarket.com and DemocratMall.com are owned by the same person. They share the same the fax number. Not surprisingly, the merchandise being sold on DemocratMall.com is equally as offensive and disgusting as the merchandise on RepublicanMarket.com. For example, the “Son you should have pulled out of Iraq early . . . just like I should have pulled out of your mother!” button or the “Never trust a dick with a gun!” button. There is also a “No one died when Clinton lied” button. If I’m honest, I must admit that I did laugh at the “Dangers of Cloning” button. As I said before, this is just someone with poor taste out to make a quick buck. He doesn’t care who he offends as long as he’s getting paid for it.

# 19

[June 25, 2008 8:28 PM]

Jim

If Obama is elected, then I think we can call it the Kremlin.

# 20

[June 25, 2008 9:24 PM]

Blue John

"If Obama is elected, then I think we can call it the Kremlin."

I guess that would make the majority of voters Comrades then.