Many moons ago discrimination was a good thing. It meant that we had the ability to differentiate between that which we deemed good and that which we deemed bad, or at the least, bad for our own particular tastes. There was a term to describe the perfect gentleman: “A man with discriminating taste”. (Remember that one, ye who have walked the earth for a while?) Then…things changed.
Discrimination became the buzz word for the civil rights crowd and suddenly that perfect gentleman was a lout. It mattered not what he was deciding upon, whether it was coffee beans or the most superb wine, the fact was that he was discriminating, which all at once equated to something evil. It had to be stopped for the “common good”. Then, something else happened, something quite unexpected by at least the unsuspecting, bewildered gentlemen of the world; discrimination returned to vogue, but only if you were not a white, Christian gentleman.
The Boy Scouts were attacked as exclusionary (read discriminatory) because they didn’t allow girls. Duh, it’s the Boy Scouts. Men’s clubs came under attack while women’s groups were allowed to flourish simultaneously. American Bandstand was on television where every race who cared to dance was welcomed, but Soul Train only welcomed blacks. Sorry, African-Americans. I have never gotten used to hyphenated-Americans.
Today, we have the CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus (notice that they have yet to rename it the CA-AC). This caucus has teamed with Fox News to sponsor a few Presidential debates. Kudos to them for that, but it seems that the Democratic participants scheduled to appear at these debates have begun to, um…discriminate! Yes, they apparently don’t like Fox News or to put it more aptly, they discriminate against Fox because the network fails to toe the party line of the Democrats.
There was a debate scheduled in Nevada for August that Fox was to co-sponsor, but MoveOn.org was successful in convincing Democrats to avoid those debates simply because they were being sponsored by a media outlet with which they didn’t agree, or for the discriminating mind, “thought was bad”. Now, we have John Edwards pulling out of debates sponsored by Fox, and most recently, Barack Obama pulling out for the same reason; discrimination.
Does anyone think there may possibly be a backlash against these cowardly political wannabes, or will they be permitted to engage in the practice that they build their platforms upon railing against? And with the fact that Fox News is the highest rated cable news program in the land, how can these Democratic candidates claim to represent the “wishes of America” when they refuse to expose themselves to her largest audience? What are they afraid of? Being the victims of discriminating taste?
-Woody
