Actually and Factually

By Shannon

According to Wikipedia, "In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which demonstrate that a person is proper, polite, and refined. They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike laws in that there is no formal system for punishing transgressions, other than social disapproval. They are a kind of norm."

Yesterday I saw a headline that said something like:  "Mom upset over teacher's form of communication."  I thought to myself, "Get over yourself!  People are so dang sensitive!"  Then I read the story.  The teacher stapled the disciplinary notice to the child's shirt.  Teacher said she did it because she didn't believe the child was taking notices to his mom.  Has she ever heard of a phone or the postal service or email or fed ex or carrier pidgeons or smoke signals?  Even if the child was failing to deliver the notes, does the "norm" of behavior permit the teacher to ruin a child's shirt and embarass him before his classmates?  Bad manners.

Some people are too sensitive.  Most of us have been watching Charlie Sheen's breakdown... too sensitive AND bad manners. 

What about the vitrol in this nation towards fellow citizens over political matters?  Sure some are just in good fun - like Palin parodies on Saturday Night Live.  Some are even earned - like Palin parodies on Saturday Night Live.    However, some are just bad manners.  Some are just name-calling and I hate to break it to you, but name-calling is nothing more than the mark of a feeble mind.

"Pinning the 'racist' label on a powerful group of people is a highly effective means of deflating their influence, regardless of the veracity of the claim.  So the carefully crafted and desperately clung to image of the Republican Racist remains at the top of the liberal tool box, and it doesn't take much (of any real substance) to get them to whip it out."  ~ S.E. Cupp in Why You're Wrong About the Right

FACT:  Lincoln was the first Republican president and led the victory over the slave-owning Confederacy.

FACT:  Republicans passed the first Civil Rights Act after the Civil War.

FACT:  Republicans passed the 14th Amendment which gave all people equal protection. 
                                    Every Democrat in Congress voted against it.

FACT:  98 % of Republicans voted for the 15th Amendment giving blacks the right to vote. 
                                    97% of Democrats voted against it.

FACT:  The following were Democrats: 
                     George Walllace (Gov. who raised the Confederate flag above the capitol in 1963),
                     Hugo Black (KKK and Supreme Court Justice),
                     Robert Byrd (KKK and Senator),
                     Ernest Hollings (Senator) who made racist statements in the 1984 presidential primary.

FACT:  President George W. Bush appointed the first and second black secretaries of state in history.  (If a Democrat had done it there probably would have been more press about it... maybe even a parade.)

Deroy Murdock, a nationally syndicated columnist (see picture below), stated:  "The Republican Party and conservatives generally have spent the last 147 years trying to liberate black Americans and make them self-reliant, while Democrats and liberals have spent most of that time either trying to hold blacks behind or making them dependent on big-government solutions.  While the Right generally has tried to create a society built on equal opportunity where race matters less, the Left usually has tried to amplify the importance of race while apportioning power and privilege on the basis of skin color."  First person interview quoted in Why You're Wrong About the Right.

Pic of Murdock from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deroy_Murdock

America, let's drop the racist label unless it ACTUALLY and FACTUALLY fits the situation.