Thursday, November 09, 2006

Sore Losers, Part 2: Bigger, Better and Uncut!

This just from my inbox:

Hey there,
so your blog page shows you with a picture of our governor elect, and I assume you are a supporter.It is good that you are a pol. sci. major, because you will be able to look back and see this election with a bit more perspective.

It is pretty tough to figure out what Deval Patrick stands for, and the things he does stand for are the same things that have gotten our european friends in trouble.

Immigrants used to want to come here to be Americans. Now they want to bring
their version of culture and government here with them and without blending in.
Moderate legal immigration is important so that our culture can be preserved. It's not about spending our tax dollars to give someone else a free ride. Europe is reeling with the islamic problem. The radical islamic strategy is Immigrate, Procreate, and Devestate. Their real, and patiently pusued goal, is to destroy every other religion and culture, and the koran gives them violence as a valid tool. That hasn't hit our shores as much as it has in Europe, but it likely will.

That is just one issue. There are a ton of others. Patrick seems like a nice guy, and
he's popular for the moment, but time will tell. A telling fact is that he went to consult with Mike Dukakis before campaining here. Wow! You should have been alive to see how bad that governorship was. Just ask your parents about no-fault accident insurance. What a dopy idea.

This is just one more indicator of the polarization of Massachusetts away from most of the rest of the country. Politics here are so inbred. There will be a national backlash to this election season, but here in MA, we continue to be dumb as an ass and put up Kennedy, Kerry, and others time and again. Let's hope Patrick isn't all that bad.

Healy just didn't have the personal appeal, even though she has the talent and the better ideas. Who would you want to run your business? I guess smooth and nice wins over talented but less appealing today.

Ciao,
Deke

This was rich: "I guess smooth and nice wins over talented but less appealing today."

Funny, I thought the same thing when George Bush beat Al Gore and John Kerry.

Oh, where do I even begin?

Ignoring his obvious prejudice against Islamic people, I went with giggling to myself as I critiqued his view on who he'd trust to run his business in a reply. Personally, I went with the one who has business experience:
It's funny that you ask who I'd want to run my business. Kerry Healey's never run a business that I'm aware of, she certainly didn't discuss it during her stump speeches or bring it up during the debates if she did. On the other hand, Deval Patrick held very high leadership roles in very large and often successful companies such as Coke, United Airlines and Texaco. So, when it comes to running my business, I'll go with the guy who was paid very well to do it.
I should have stopped there, but I couldn't contain myself. As is often the case, these kinds of people often think they have some sort of idea about how things used to be... but why study history when you can make it up?


And your knowledge of our country's past immigration is limited. Back in the late 19th and early 20th Century, when immigrants were coming to this country en masse, they typically lived in very urban, ethnic neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods sometimes even [still] exist, such as the North End in Boston. Others are different now and aren't so ethnic. However, the point is, back then there wasn't very much "cultural assimilation" either. In fact, America hasn't ever really been so much a melting pot as it has been a salad bowl. People who come to this country always identify to some extent with their past identity - be they latinos coming to this country now or the Irish and Italian immigrants of the previous century. There's nothing wrong with wanting to maintain some degree of cultural authenticity. After all, it's a free country.
Oh, wait, that's right. The rules start to change when people move to this country who the xenophobes don't like. Then suddenly free speech and limited government isn't such a great thing.

However, nothing gets me going like people talking about how talented and intelligent Kerry Healey was. I'm sure she's smart, but talented? Really? If she was so talented, why didn't she win? These people just lack intellectual curiosity.

Anyone else have some interesting letters to send me, griping about how poor Kerry Healey was so talented and Deval won because he was - I don't know - a good speaker? Please do. I enjoy the laughs. (It's almost as good as reading these sore losers.)

18 comments:

William said...

I don't really agree with his logic, but I don't think there;s anyhting wrong with being a sore loser. It just depends what actions you take as a sore loser. But I think that if you aren;t at least a little bit of a sore loser than you must not have really cared about what you were fighting for in the first place. For example, this is why I defended Reilly not appearing during the general election. He really, really, really wanted to be governor and worked his ass off for years to get there, and then was denied. I understand not showing up to support the other guy, he was pissed. On the other hand, Gabrieli shows up like an hour after defeat as if nothing happened. Did he really want it if he can turn around and stand next to Patrick that quickly?

Not sure if this anything to do with the post that I;m cxommenting on, but I'm a bit drunk and it seems to make sense at the moment.

Anonymous said...

LOL Who would you want to run your business???? It's good thing Kerry isn't judged on accomplishments or merit, she is just assumed to be competant despite her record. Wonder why.

I'm scared of immigrants, but if they act more like me I might like them. :)

Anonymous said...

This is classic.

I have learned a great deal about Islamic culture today.

This guy reminds me of uncle. No offense to my uncle, he's not this dumb, but he writes letters to the editor that are a mixture of crazy, rambling non-facts and stating the obvious as if he just discovered something brilliant nobody else has ever though of. lol

Healey must be asmart, she's as ascared of the Muslims and the immigrants with their funy talk as Zeke.

Ryan said...

Aaron, some would call it irony that you don't think there's anything wrong with a sore loser...

I'm not, but surely someone will?

That said, it's fine to be upset that you lose, but if you care about the Democratic Party you rally around it when you lose the primary. I'm pretty sure there were times when you asked if I'd strongly support Reilly if he won the primary - and I would have. To borrow a quote from Reilly, "I'm disappointed in you," Tom.

Anonymous said...

LOL Erm. I'm not touching that. :)

I agree, though, there's a difference between being upset that you lost and being a sore loser. Politics isn't supposed to be an ego trip. It's about more than someone's hurt feelings, it's about the future. If you really care about the state and the party and everyone who supported and trusted you, you suck it up.

If this race had been close and Reilly could have made a difference, then it really would have made him look bad, like he's punishing us because we "denied" him what he "deserved" or something.

Anonymous said...

Immigrants may have clustered in ethnic neighborhoods for economic and social reasons for the adults. But they always expected their children to embrace American culture and integrate into the mainstream culture. The problem with Islamic extremeists is that they believe their religious laws ( sharia ) trump the civic laws already in place.

Ryan said...

That's catagorically false.

Immigrants stayed clustered in their ethnic neighbnorhoods until the dynamics of America changed. It wasn't a desire to "integrate" that brought them out of their city neighborhoods, it was the fact that cities and highways were being built. Sadly, during later periods, some people may have been influenced out of some mass hysterical white flight too, but that was generally dependent on what exact neighborhoods they were living in.

Around the 20s and 30s there was some minor movement away from cities and into "suburbs," but at that point a suburb basically meant Brookline - which is hardly what one would consider a suburb today. It wasn't until cars were affordable and large swaths of neighbnorhoods were cleared in the 50s and 60s that you saw suburbs as we know it today - suburbs that make up Greater Boston like Lynnfield, Milton, Swampscott and Abington. Today, we begin to see urban sprawl, which manefests itself today with commuters from places like New Hampshire, Amesbury and even the South Coast.

Ryan said...

*whoops, I didn't mean to say "cities and highways being built." I meant to mention affordable cars earlier than I did. However, what I said wasn't entirely accurate as the cities were really being rebuilt at the time. The first infrastructure which allowed for suburbs wasn't highways and cars, it was public transportation - trollies and subways - which allowed for people to move to "suburbs" like Brookline. It was the first time that people lived and outside of the neighborhoods they worked in.

Ryan said...

*wasn't entirely unaccurate

gargh. I hate mornings LOL

William said...

Well, I voted for Patrick and I'm sure Tom Reilly did as well for whatever that's worth. I know that's probably not what you meant by "Support," but it not nothing.

Anonymous said...

I am mainly just glad that Tom "False Imprisonment" Reilly lost. I do wonder how the election will effect the Weston, Massachusetts real estate market though.

Anonymous said...

What is "American culture"? Drive-ins? Diners? McDonald's?

American culture isn't synonymous with Yankee white bread WASP culture or pop culture. It's an amalgamation of many diverse elements.

And while it's true to some extent that many but not all immigrant parents of the past wanted their children to assimilate to a certain degree while still retaining cultural traditions, the children often regretted it because they felt cut off from their cultures and diminished intellectually. Wouldn't you like to be able to speak your ancestors'
language?

In addition, if you look at the popular novels of the time, no matter how much recent immigrants tried to assimilate, they received little credit for it. As hard as they tried to integrate, the dominant culture refused to accept it and the constant refrain was they won't assimilate, we don't want them, their culture is unfamiliar and it's going to change ours, what's wrong with them. Sound familiar?

There's no basis to assert that the behavior of more recent immigrants has changed, and the complaints from "American culture" reflect the same old story.

Anonymous said...

Even funnier: the Margolis brothers are now saying Republicans who are willing to work with Deval aren't really Republicans.

Anonymous said...

That's no surprise, the Margolis brothers are so delusional half the time they think this is Republican HQ.

Check out their entry about how Deval consistently played down his party affiliation, because keeping being a Democrat on the QT is the only way to win here.

Why work with Deval, having power and influence is a bad thing. You're not really a Republican if you're not obsessive enough to want to move to Alabama and turn back to laugh at us suckers. LOL

Anonymous said...

But the immigrants of 90 years ago, if they were alive, could see that their great-grandchildren have assimilated. They may have influenced and changed "American culture" along the way but that is a strength of the system. Ask the Dutch if they feel the Islamic immigrants they have welcomed in are a positive development.

Anonymous said...

Yes, let's ask the Dutch, because immigration policy should be based on discrimination to satify ignorant bigots. They're obviously good people, but those immigrants, if there's any friction there they're obviously to blame. I think our immigration policies have obviously been a miserable failure since we're a nation of pig ignorant cryptofascist Christian bigots. But guess what? My feelings on the matter shouldn't dictate who comes here or how their views change and evolve over time. What are we supposed to do, impose racial, religious, ideological tests on immigrants to make you happy? Make sure we don't let in anyone who isn't a pig ignorant cryptofascist Christian bigot so our public policies will neever change? It's called freedom. People have a right to live as they choose and to attempt to influence public policy as they see fit. And what is anti-assimilationist about being a Muslim, anyway? Muslims are as diverse as any other group. Again, that's what they said about the Catholics, but that was obviously wrong. Discrimination, stereotyping, irrational fears and hatreds aren't wrong in themselves, we just need to try harder to make sure it's directed at the right people this time. A valuable lesson has been learned.

Anonymous said...

All societies have placed limitations on immigration over the years, otherwise it was known as an invasion.

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