Have We Evolved Beyond Racism?

No.

First, consider the biological reason. The brain physiology underlying our minds has not evolved appreciably since the stone age. Not only every race but every tribe considered itself chosen by God to kill the others. There has not been enough time for our brains to have undergone significant biological evolution. We have their stone age brains.

Second, the cultural reason. Surely we have evolved beyond ancient mindsets by cultural evolution? I am afraid that the answer here, also, is no. Certainly, we have made progress in the past 150 years. But we have not left racism behind. Instead we have just pushed it into our subconscious minds. It still calls the shots in many cases, and often determines what we do, but we may not be aware of it.

The major example of which we Americans, and observers from around the world, are aware is the utter determination of the Republican Party (which is disproportionately white compared to the American population) to destroy Barack Obama. They were confident that Mitt Romney would win the 2012 election. When Obama won re-election, the Republicans went to Plan B: destroy Obama. I consider their subconscious motivation to be racism. Here’s why.

Obama is a lame duck. There is no political need to destroy Obama; if Republicans succeed, they will have President Joe Biden. (Similarly, Democrats held back from impeaching George W. Bush, not wishing to have President Dick Cheney.) If there is no political reason to destroy him, then there must be a personal reason.

How do we know that the Republican attacks on Obama are not merely politically motivated? We know this because we can scientifically test this hypothesis: If the Republican hatred of Barack Obama were politically motivated, then they would hate him less than they hated Bill Clinton. But, as it turns out, they hate him much much more.

And the evidence for this? There are, as I see it, three differences between Bill Clinton (while he was president) and Barack Obama. They are as follows.

First, Barack Obama has high ethical standards than Bill Clinton did as president. Instead of having a Monica Lewinsky hanging around him, Obama is a morally upright husband and father. The Obama family is the picture-perfect American family. (In this way Obama also compares favorably to John F. Kennedy.) This should be a reason that Republicans, who claim to be God’s representatives of purity and morality upon the face of this sordid planet, would like Obama better than Clinton. Therefore the ethical difference between Clinton and Obama cannot be the reason for Republican hatred of Obama.

Second, Barack Obama is more politically and fiscally conservative than Clinton. Republicans decry Obamacare as socialist, but it is much, much less socialist, and incorporates more market forces, than did the ill-fated 1993 health care plan proposed by Bill Clinton. Republicans reacted strongly against the Clinton plan, but not with the ferocity of their attack on Obama. Obama’s comparative fiscal conservativeness should be a reason that Republicans would like Obama better than they liked Clinton. Therefore the political difference between Clinton and Obama cannot be the reason for Republican hatred of Obama.

A third difference is race. Clinton is white and Obama is black (actually, biracial, but he identifies with his black heritage). This is the only reason that I can think of that would make Republicans hate Obama worse than they hated Clinton. And it is clearly a personal, intense hatred.

Of course, Republicans forced a government shutdown during the first Clinton Administration also. The federal government shut down all but emergency services twice: from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, a total of 28 days. As of tomorrow, the 2013 government shutdown will have reached the same number of days as the first shutdown, in November of 1995. Republicans appear resolved to continue the shutdown even if it means defaulting on contractual funds on October 17. And this time, we have all seen evidence of the extreme antipathy that Republicans have showed toward Obama. They have shown him the kind of disdain that slavery advocates—from the Union states, the confederate states having seceded—showed Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

As further evidence that Republican antipathy is not merely political, consider that the Republicans could achieve their aims in a constitutional manner. They could pass a bill repealing Obamacare in both the house and senate, and have the president sign it. He won’t, because he won re-election in 2012 largely on the issue of Obamacare. The constitutional way for Republicans to have their way would have been to win the 2012 election. Instead, they pass laws creating programs then refuse to fund those same programs.

I believe that in the long run American history will evaluate Obama the same way as it depicts Lincoln. At the time, many strong voices attacked Lincoln as a dictator who wanted to ruin the United States by giving black people the rights of citizenship. Today, those voices are buried in the dustbin of history under a patina of disgust. Similarly, I believe, the Republican voices of our day will be derided in the same way as are the 1865 voices in support of slavery. The party of angry old white men, and a few angry young white men, and a very very small number of angry Latinos and blacks, will dwindle into an insignificance from which their stockpiles of guns cannot resurrect them.

There are other ways in which Republican positions have racist effects. Global warming is caused by carbon emissions from human activity, for which white industrial nations are largely responsible. But most of the burden of famine and disease will be borne by nations dominated by people of color, especially in Africa. Republicans, I assume, do not hold their global warming denialism with racist intent. But subconsciously they might be thinking, who cares about a bunch of Africans?

Of course, Republicans will claim they are not racists. And they may honestly believe they are not. But I conclude for the above reasons that racism is operating in their subconscious minds. We are all cavemen in modern clothes, some of us more than others.

Republican Religion

Republicans like to associate themselves with the Christian religion. But this is not really their religion. Their religion is the Republican Party. The dividing line between the saved and the damned is membership in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Of course, they will not actually say this. But consider what they do, and whom they choose to represent them.

For awhile, many “Christian” Republicans were strong supporters of Newt Gingrich. When he pulled out of the race, Rick Perry endorsed Gingrich. Gingrich has been an unabashed womanizer, going against all the ethics and morals that Republicans claim to believe in. Yet his conservative Republican beliefs are enough to release him from the consequences of what would be, for a Democrat, sinful behavior.

And now former governor Mark Sanford has been elected to the House of Representatives. Not that it makes any difference; the House Republicans do nothing except proclaim the holiness of the Republican Party, which they would do whether Sanford is a member or not. But while governor Mark Sanford not only committed a very extreme act of adultery, but he lied about it publicly, and he is also guilty of dereliction of duty: he told nobody in the state government where he was (in case of emergency) while he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail along his mistress’s geography. Not only adultery but also lying and dereliction of duty do not matter, so long as he follows the Republican Party line.

Although I do not proclaim any particular doctrine, I have always been an admirer of Jesus. It really bothers me when someone, or even an entire political party, insults Jesus by claiming themselves to represent Him while they openly and brazenly commit what would be, for a Democrat, immoral behavior, and behavior that would disqualify any Democrat from public service. Had I only the self-proclaimed Republican Christians as evidence, I would be forced to consider that Jesus was evil, a thought that fills me with revulsion.

Republicans worship their own party. That’s pretty much a summary of the whole situation. They wave their Bibles in the air but I doubt that they ever read them. To the Republican climate of hypocrisy one can add blasphemy as well.

Republican Climate of Economic Oppression, Part One. Going Back to Slavery?

Despite Joe Biden’s outlandish statements last summer, it is almost impossible to return to the old days of black slavery. To do this, white masters would have to truly believe their black slaves are subhuman. Even most white conservatives know that black people are fully human, and many have black friends. So if slavery comes back, it will not be racially based.

But slavery could come back. Here’s how.

Right now, banks have almost unlimited freedom to treat debtors as they like. Recent Democratic legislation has limited this ability, but a future Republican administration might very well sweep these limitations and regulations away.  If you owe money to one or more banks, and if regulations were swept away, they could raise your interest rates or lower your credit limit singlehandedly for any reason or no reason. Bank of America lowered my credit limit even though I always paid more than the minimum, without exception. Okay, I got a payment in two days late back in 2003. But otherwise, my record is perfect. They lowered my credit limit (which I wasn’t going to actually use anyway) for no reason connected with me. But this did cause my credit score to go down—for no reason connected with me. Without regulation, banks can also invent new fees. For example, some banks suggested a minimum-balance fee for those of us who have paid down our debts; if you have less than $1500 balance, you may have to pay a fee. Only federal regulation now prevents this.

Banks could therefore, in the absence of regulation, manipulate people into a permanent state of debt. How can you ever pay them back? Before about 200 years ago, one way to do this was for the debtor to be sold into indentured servitude. That is, they would work for the creditor until the debt was paid off. However, the creditors manipulated the fees such that the debt could never actually be repaid. The indentured servant thus became a lifelong slave. The first black slaves were actually indentured servants, and by a process similar to what I have described, they turned into slaves. It could happen again, unless federal regulation prevents it. This time, the slaves would be a multiracial group of poor people, virtually (not legally) owned by a multiracial group of rich people. Black people would be disproportionately but not exclusively in the slave category.

There are even more recent historical precedents. You remember the song Sixteen Tons? It is about coal miners who work all day but can never repay their debts to the coal mining company. “You load sixteen tons, whaddaya get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t ya call me ‘cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store.” Just substitute bank for mining company and you have a situation that could virtually (not legally) enslave millions of Americans.

And don’t think debtors would be offended by this. Many debtors really, really want a job; and if the creditor required them to work off their debts, this would be the equivalent of being given a job. Many of them would jump at the chance. When the alternative is economic ruin, indentured servitude might look pretty good. Right now, Mexicans risk death to cross the border into the USA mainly for economic reasons. Compared to the travail of the undocumented Mexicans, indentured servitude—even if it turns into a lifelong commitment—looks pretty easy. Requiring indentured servitude might also be a way of reducing or even eliminating welfare, something that conservative Republicans will stop at nothing to do.

Lincoln said that a nation cannot survive half slave and half free. He was wrong, I suspect. I suspect the USA may survive as a nation 90 percent indentured and 10 percent free.

Resurrecting the Republican Climate blog

Hi. Now that the election is over, I plan to gradually resurrect this blog. It will deal with long-term issues in which the Republican Party, despite its loss in the recent elections, continues to obstruct.

Quietly, the Republicans are giving in on some ground. For example, last September, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Office issued a report that found no correlation between the state of the national economy and taxes on the rich. Because this conclusion, based on data, contradicted a key Republican talking point, the Republican leadership of the House squelched the report. Last week, House Democrats posted the report, which Republicans have now stopped trying to suppress.

At this writing, the Republicans continue to head us toward the "fiscal cliff" by insisting that rich people pay almost no additional taxes, and they continue to insist on ideologically-based budget cuts rather than cuts that will actually solve any problems.

And probably most of you heard about how Senator McConnell filibustered his own bill in the Senate, during the fiscal cliff discussions. Apparently, the fiscal cliff does not matter to the leadership of the Republican Party. They are just playing games.

The Republican Party Is Going To Stop Loving Us

For many years, we have all known that the Republican Party is the party of love. They say only nice things about people so that everyone will love them. They gladly accept the label “bleeding hearts” for themselves because their hearts flow out with love toward not just the middle class and poor, such as the victims of bank robo-signing, but even toward the world of nature, you know, birds and stuff. They embrace the Bleeding Heart ideal because this term refers to the bleeding heart of Jesus Christ.

Nowhere has Republican love been more obvious than in the pronouncements of commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. For years, liberal writers such as myself have referred to them as “bloviators,” but we have been so wrong. Every word that has come from Rush Limbaugh’s mouth has been loving and nourishing, each an attempt to help his listeners by giving them truly constructive advice. Even Jesus himself would have a hard time matching the love that Republicans have showered upon their listeners. Where have you ever seen a more loving person than Donald Trump? When the Religious Right Republican commentators make it abundantly clear that everyone who disagrees with them in even the most minor detail is a Satan-possessed terrorist God-hater, this is only because they care about us and wish for us to be saved from hell by worshiping them. Pat Robertson, who pours his words of love from Trinity Broadcasting Network, is the ultimate Christian superman, and he consistently proclaims the Gospel of Republicanism.

So great has been their love that the Republican Religious Right fully deserves every last penny of their wealth. Paul and Jan Crouch, owners of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, have used millions of dollars of money sent by their worshipers to purchase numerous lavish mansions, a luxury jet, and then even have a $100,000 motor home for their dogs. Surely their mansions and the comfort of their dogs is more important than a few thousand children in Bangladesh—isn’t this what Jesus would have said?

But all of that is about to change. At the Republican convention, Governor Chris Christie said (as quoted by Fox News), “‘I believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved.’ Christie said leaders chronically opt to do what is popular, ‘but tonight I say enough. Tonight, we’re gonna choose respect over love.’”

So the Republican Party is now going to command the kind of respect that one receives in the absence of love. What kind of respect could this be? It cannot be the respect that comes from doing a good job for your customers, since that is a form of love. Certainly it is not the kind of respect that comes from neighbors helping one another after a hurricane, such as the one that almost hit the Republican Convention. Both of those are forms of altruism, which Mitt Romney specifically rejected a couple of weeks before Christie’s Sermon on the Mound. It must be the kind of respect that comes from force and intimidation. The kind of respect that a schoolyard bully receives from the other kids whose faces have been beaten into the dirt. Limbaugh called student Sandra Fluke a slut. (Maybe I should call one of my unwed female mother students a slut, and see how long my tenure would protect me.) That, my friends, is love-speech. I wonder what respect-speech would look like.

And before you know it, the whole country will be dominated by the vast canopy of Republican respect. I am looking forward eagerly to all of us non-Republicans, and even moderate Republicans, being called a slut or a terrorist or a communist or a servant of Satan. I can hardly wait to live in this Republican utopia.

If this essay has been a blessing to your hearts, dear brethren, please send the link to others who will be similarly uplifted.

Republican Climate of Intimidation, Part One. A Sick Joke.

When Bill Clinton was president, Republicans disliked him strongly enough that they finally impeached him. But this was nothing like the raw fury and insult that they throw against Barack Obama, even though Obama is less liberal than Clinton was. The Republicans have kept up a constant barrage of name-calling against Obama. They call him a socialist, even though he is much less so than Clinton was. Clinton’s health care plan was a big quasi-socialist bureaucracy. Not so Obama’s. Why do they hate Obama more than they hated Clinton?

I suspect it has something to do with race. I am not saying all, or most, Republicans are racist. But I draw this tentative conclusion based on a consideration of some of the things Obama’s attackers say about him. The Tea Partiers, for a long time, kept up a constant stream of attacks on Obama’s citizenship, even after he released his birth certificate. Today, most Republicans have dropped the issue as a matter of fact. But they keep it alive by joking about it, thus contributing to a climate of intimidation without having to actually prove their point. They use humor as a back door to slip in false claims. Now, political humor has a long tradition, and I engage in it myself (watch here for the upcoming announcement of my new YouTube political humor channel). The problem is that political humor should be used, as I hope I use it, to alert people to problems, rather than to inject destructive and false misinformation into public discourse.

Just yesterday (August 24), Mitt Romney was in Michigan and said, “I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

A Romney aide said that Romney was not questioning Obama’s American citizenship. He was just joking, apparently. But what kind of joke is it?

Romney is from Michigan, which is right next to Canada. How can you tell, just by looking, that Romney is not a frostback undocumented Canadian? Because he is white, no one is really concerned about his citizenship. But people of color often have their citizenship questioned. Despite the attacks on Obama, this does not often happen to black people. But in Arizona it is legal to challenge the citizenship of anyone who looks like a Mexican. This has to include Native Americans, since many Mexicans have a high quantum of Native American genes (Nahuatl, Zapotec, etc.). What would a Native American say, in Arizona, if asked to show his green card? Would he say, “My ancestors came here 14,000 years ago and you are asking me to show you my green card?” Citizenship status is not indicated on driver’s licenses or credit cards or anything else that people usually carry with them. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who enthusiastically investigates the citizenship status of all people who look Mexican, announced in July that his investigators found evidence to prove Obama was not an American citizen. Even though no taxpayer money was apparently used in this investigation, one wonders what authority Maricopa County has over the determination of the president’s citizenship. They do not, and the only reason for it is to contribute to a climate of intimidation. It is no longer just fringe Tea Partiers who do this; Romney has joined the circus. Romney looks like an American; Obama and Hispanics and Native Americans do not, from a viewpoint that used to be fringe within the Republican Party but is becoming more mainstream.

Many Native Americans did not have United States citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. This was a long time after freed slaves obtained the right of citizenship. Even then some states prevented the implementation of this law. The last state to grant Native American citizenship was Utah, in 1956. Before 1924, Native Americans could become citizens of the USA only by giving up tribal affiliation, or joining the armed forces, or assimilating in other ways. My grandfather, who is listed on the Cherokee citizen rolls of the early twentieth century, was extremely proud to have the right to vote. Back then, it was necessary to pay a poll tax in order to vote. He could not, so he would work on road crew for free for a couple of days in election years. He was so proud of his right to vote that he proclaimed that he would not tell anyone, even his family, whom he had voted for, because he rejoiced in the right to a secret ballot. Nobody in our family now remembers whether or not he was born an American citizen, as some Cherokees were. I remember my Mom telling me this story, and as a result I recognize that the right to vote is a precious gift rather than a right to simply take for granted.

Today all Americans, of whatever ethnicity, have full citizenship rights. But some Americans have to keep proving over and over that they really are Americans. How many times does Obama have to keep proving his American citizenship before Republicans will quit attacking him, if only in the form of jokes? And when will a law enforcement official ask Mitt Romney to prove his American citizenship?

If you consider the essays at this blog to be valuable and interesting, please forward the link to people you know who could benefit from them.

It’s Official: Republicans Reject Altruism

I now bring you late-breaking news about altruism. (By late-breaking I mean less than a week old. I usually get month or year old news to you.)

President Barack Obama made a statement that sounds like a completely non-controversial, common sense description of altruism as it plays out in our communities and in our nation. Here is the original quote. Obama was talking to small business owners: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

I cannot imagine that anyone would object to this. Businesses do not teach their employees how to read and write and add and subtract. Some businesses build their own private roads, but those roads connect to highways that are built by counties, states, and the federal government. If you’ve got a business, you did not build the schools and roads. (I plan to operate a small business myself soon, so I can say soon that Obama’s statement reflects the common sense beliefs of a small business owner.) Businesses and families can thrive only within stable communities, bound together by altruism, which is facilitated by reasonable regulations and reasonable taxes.

Altruism, as I have written in my books and other blogs, is doing well by doing good. One animal (such as a human) does good things to and for another animal of the same species, and both of the animals prosper as a result. There are innumerable examples of altruism, confirmed by observation and (thanks to people like Martin Nowak) mathematics. It is one of the clearest components of evolutionary theory. And it is intuitively obvious to all of us.

Mitt Romney, however, had to attack Barack Obama for this statement. Obama clarified that he meant that if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build the schools, roads, and bridges. On August 13, Romney attacked even more vigorously, saying that this context was even worse than the original statement. Perhaps Romney, and therefore the mainstream of the Republican Party, envision a future in which America consists of individuals who do not help one another out but just fight and struggle with one another for dominance. Gated communities that are entirely self-contained? I cannot believe that Republicans are stupid enough to believe this. I suspect that Romney simply attacks anything Obama says without even thinking about it. If Obama said the sky is blue, Romney would say that this is Obama’s Democratic bias, and that the sky is really Republican red. Long ago John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself,” and until now pretty much everyone accepted this as true. Welcome to the Republican vision of what America should be like. Or not; as I said, I think Mitt spoke without thinking.

Mitt Romney is not the only one to speak without thinking. When Joe Biden said, this week, that the Republicans want to put people (he was speaking to a largely black audience) back in chains, he easily won the Stupidest Statement Award. Where did Obama find this clown anyway? Biden is the same one who emailed all of Obama’s supporters and said that if Obama did not win the election it was their fault for not giving more money. As one of those followers, I emailed my response: that this was an offensive statement. But while Joe Biden is destroying altruism by clownish incompetence, it appears that Republicans are destroying it deliberately.

If Mitt Romney makes a big deal about attacking Obama on the issue (previously, non-issue) of altruism, I can only wonder if he has any ideas of his own. Perhaps American businesses can prosper by investing their money in overseas banks the way he does? If Romney makes the rich richer, will this automatically lift up the middle class? The rich have been getting richer, and the middle class has been getting poorer (especially by debt burden). Raising up the rich has not raised up the middle class in recent years, and there is no reason to expect that it would in the future.

This is just one more example of Republicans taking on what should be a non-partisan topic—something confirmed by science—and attacking it. Evolution, global warming, stem cells, and now altruism. As a biology instructor, what can I do? Do I need to ask the Republican Party whether carbon atoms really exist before I teach about molecular structure? The Bible does not, after all, say that carbon atoms exist. I can only hope that this example is extreme; but I would never have guessed that altruism would be treated as a dangerous theory either.

Good luck to all of you altruists.