Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Hillary Clinton Might Make A Great President . . . But We Should Always Think Before We Anoint

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Hillary Clinton Might Make A Great President . . . But We Should Always Think Before We Anoint
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I've received a lot of flak from Hillary Clinton supporters over pointing out that she worked on the campaign of Republican, Barry Goldwater, and later, she was the president of the "Young Republicans" at Wellesley College. Her supporters went absolutely berserk over my bringing that out.  But I've long since recognized that people generally attack a position not so much because they think they're right, but because the facts or a given truth being revealed, challenges their preferred view of reality.  But that's what writing is about, isn't it - challenging comfortable assumptions.
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All of the arguments put forward by Hillary's irate supporters challenging my position and/or motives were either weak, invalid, or based on gross and unwarranted assumptions. For example, the argument that when Hillary Clinton was campaigning for Barry Goldwater at 17, or when she was in college and became the president of the "Young Republicans," she was too young to have developed a fundamental political philosophy.  What evidence do they have of that?  When I was 14 I held the very same political philosophy - and attitudes - that I hold today.
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So Hillary's tender age at the time she was engaging in these activities should not only be taken taken into account, they should actually serve to bolster my side of the equation. As I pointed out in a previous article, Hillary's political activities weren't just the dalliances of a young girl following in her mommie and daddy's conservative footsteps; she took it to the next level, and actually went to work on Barry Goldwater's campaign, and then she went on to become the PRESIDENT of the "Young Republicans" when she went to college. That reflected a passion, dedication, and commitment to the conservative cause. Thus, that should serve as a useful indicator of her fundamental predisposition. Politics is like religion. As we age we may modify and fine tune our beliefs, but most people take their fundamental belief system with them to the grave.
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And the argument that Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky, was a liberal is also meaningless.  If Hillary's motive for spinning on a dime from Republican to Democrat was a cynical decision based on ambition and a recognition of which way the wind was blowing, the very first thing she would want to do would be to start building her new liberal credentials, and what better way to do that than to establish an association with someone like Saul Alinsky?  In addition, he would be invaluable in helping her to understand the progressive mindset and how to speak the language of a liberal.  And further, everything she's done since could have been in pursuit of building her liberal credentials. Just because Alinsky was her political mentor doesn't necessarily mean that she embraced his political philosophy. Perhaps what she wanted most from him was his strategic thinking, i.g., "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits, and infiltrate the system from within."  That could be exactly what she's doing.
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Now, I'm not saying that everything I've said above represent the facts, because I can't climb inside Hillary Clinton's head, but they are issues that should be pondered, because efficient thought refuses to elevate ANYTHING, or ANYBODY, above question. In fact, to think, IS to question. So those who are hostile toward questioning Hillary's, or anyone else's history, and take comfort in taking certain issues for granted, they're not thinkers; They're feelers - and one of the biggest problems that we have in this country today is that we have far too many feelers, and far too few thinkers. That's the only thing that sustains the Republican Party.
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But with all that said, if Hillary Clinton is chosen as the Democratic nominee for president, I will support her enthusiastically, because she's head and shoulders above anyone who's running on the Republican side - and one should never become so fearful of the Bogie Man that he leaves the backdoor open for the Devil.
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But of course, one might ask, if that's the bottom line, why did you even bother to go through this exercise? There's a very simple answer to that question.  Many in the Black community simply cast their vote for the "anointed one," without taking the time to find out who that person, or their opponent, really is. They tend to vote for the biggest celebrity. So I wanted to put something on the minds of such people, and encourage them to, at the very least, open their ears to the words of Sen. Bernie Sanders. He doesn't have Hillary's celebrity, but he was in the trenches with Martin Luther King while Hillary Clinton was still a Republican.
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IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO BERNIE SANDERS IS, THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT
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Eric L. Wattree
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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