Sitting with Intellectuals on the Subway

It has recently come to my attention that people like Jamie Kelso exist beyond the abstract, that they actually go to CPAC and have YouTube supporters. At least 12. It's also come to my attention that the conservative youth are about as repulsed by visible vocal racism as the liberal youth, and putting myself in this position I think I'd just tell Kelso to go fuck himself and walk away, so props to these kids for actually trying to debate him. I don't want to hate on any of them; this is a teachable moment.

One thing though, sort of off topic; what did Haley Barbour say about amnesty? He doesn't support it, he just worked on it to get paid? Oh he didn't say that? He couldn't? People would find it uncouth? That a Washington lobbyist shirked the ethics of his party for a paycheck? For his slice of the pie? For the American dream? The Barbour situation underscores, to me, how irrational political foundations always are. And that's not really a criticism, just an observation. But once the self-proclaimed fat redneck said he didn't see people in terms of color. Later he said he didn't think Mississippi had been all that bad for black people. Then he said he couldn't denounce anyone, not even a founding member of the KKK, not even one that's been dead for 130 years. Then he went to Iowa to run for president.

My take on the Barbour situation isn't that he's racist like Jamie Kelso, or willfully ignorant like Steve King. He's too shrewd for that. I think he's seasoned, and cynical, and he doesn't really care if people think he's racist. I don't really care about it though. I like him as the governor of Mississippi. To be honest I like him. I like Mississippi. Faulkner lived there. It's way better than Oklahoma, which sucks. Fuck Oklahoma. And fuck white supremacy. But then there's this moment in the Kelso video about 8 minutes in where he makes a point about Irish unemployment and how it's exacerbated by Nigerian immigration to Ireland, and the young Republicans God bless 'em fumble for a minute because he's put the issue into a context they support. Republicans don't like exodus immigration because it hurts the native populace. White supremacists don't like it because it dilutes the ethnicity of the native populace. But a legitimate issue came head to head with an illegitimate one and everyone in the room was faced with the task of tracing their reasons to their logical ends. Again, opinions always end irrationally. Why did Haley Barbour represent a Mexican amnesty group? They paid him tons of money. Why is he a Republican? I don't know. I really don't, and I like him, but the racial gaffes and the amnesty charge he'll have to defend probably do indicate above anything else that he lacks empathy for the disenfranchised races, and the people that support him, particularly the young ones with the good intentions, are going to have to address that. What I mean is, they're going to have to trace their support for the cynically apathetic to some logical end. They might not be able to. They might just end up ignoring it. Which is when things get messy. And again, that's not a criticism, just an observation.

One more thing; if I were there, I'd probably have told Kelso to go fuck himself and walked away, but I hope now that I wouldn't. I like those kids, a lot. Dragged into the immigration debate though I'd be screwed. I don't have thoughts about amnesty or immigration. Not good ones anyway. It's one of the issues I defer to the party on.