Certain groups in the US have a bigger voice than they should
Minorities in North America have struggled to have their voices heard since Europeans first landed here. No matter what color you are, what language you speak or what faith you subscribe to, if you aren’t a white English Christian, chances are your collective voice has fallen on deaf ears in the past, even the present.
It’s not a surprise really, we all live in a democratic society where majority rules. Back in the day, as it pertains to social issues, the only way minorities could have their voices heard was to convince part of the majority to see things there way. That’s how Americans ended slavery, passed the civil rights act, and so on.
In the information age this simple formula still holds true for the most part. Gay rights is a good modern example, many straight people have taken up the fight with the LGBT community and the movement has advanced quickly. People should always have the right to be heard, especially when it comes to discrimination.
When it comes to social/political groups however, there is an unacceptable amount of people out there speaking for the minority who not only have a voice, but are speaking louder than a huge majority of us. This shouldn’t be acceptable in a democratic society.
Look at One Million Moms. They are a conservative group created by the American Family Association in order to protest what they consider immorality in our entertainment. You may remember them for their crusade against JC Penny for hiring lesbian Ellen DeGeneres as their commercial spokesperson.
Well, One Million Moms made the national news again, this time for needlessly going after Geico for promoting bestiality. For some reason, when this group speaks they get heard and not just by the media. One million moms do not have a million members. They have about 5,000 likes on Facebook and 2,200 followers on Twitter. They are best described as an army of imaginary Michelle Bachmann clones. Either way, out of the tens of millions of mothers out there, why are people listening to just a few thousand?
How about the NRA? The National Rifle Association has about four or five million members in a country with over three hundred million people. Fifty million American households keep firearms and yet only 10% of them subscribe to the NRA. Why are politicians so afraid of these guys?
Wayne Lapierre is allowed on every single network to speak his piece while Washington law makers go to bat for him at every turn. The NRA speaks so loud that even a bill for universal background checks is likely to fail, even though 90% of Americans support it, including gun owners.
Let’s not forget the mother of all minority groups; the 1%. This tiny minority of wealthy Americans run the entire country, mostly through their corporations. They create our laws with the help of organizations such as ALEC. They control our media, the internet and our politicians who are just as afraid of them as the NRA.
There are other groups in the minority, political or otherwise that deserve mention such as the Tea Party, The Westboro Baptist Church and the Catholic League. Like I said, everyone who has an opinion deserves a voice, but when the voices of the few are spoken decibels louder than the many, it exposes a fundamental flaw in our democracy.
You might be wondering why I started this article off speaking about minorities in terms of race. Well, what do all these aforementioned minority groups have in common? They are made up in large part by wealthy white Christians; the country’s largest, yet increasingly decaying demographic. Let’s not pretend that being white no longer grants you the greater voice regardless of your views.
Another reason many of these groups get heard louder is simple; the media covers them nonstop. The mainstream media’s transition from actual news to sensationalist infotainment has given greater voices to the Fred Phelps’, the Wayne Lapierres and the Tea Baggers of the world. Don’t forget that the media itself is owned by the 1%, the wealthy minority.
In order to quieten these groups who don’t speak for most of us, we must all start to speak ourselves. When One Million Moms try to censor something, we must come to their target’s defence. When our politicians are too cowardly to even bring a bill we all support to a vote, we need to speak up louder.
There is no legitimate reason why we should allow minority rule to carry on as it has, there’s more of us than there are of them.
I come from a different environment. My old man piano wired Germans in WWII. And he respected them. He said they fought down to the last bullet, then put their hands up and saying “Haben zie cigarette?” He always gave them one. Apparently the super race couldn’t match our cancer sticks as well. He fought the goons in the streets streets at home, he became a millwright in a Steel mill and a union guy (I could go on for volumes). My mom was a college graduate with a degree in sociology. We used to have knock down drag out political arguments after dinner every night, dinner forks waving, table thumping, what a blast.
My folks followed Nixon’s criminal activities since he was a corrupt congressman. What? America thought he would change when he was vice president, or president? Now it “comes out” that Johnson knew that Nixon and that war criminal Kissinger talked the South Vietnamese away from the negotiating table so he could get in office by extending the war. This dirty move added 22,000 (American) deaths to wall. Who was more treasonous, Nixon or Johnson? Why did Johnson wimp out?
Why do lefties think the best action is wimpery. Look at this harry Reid weasel, Why does the president think he has to give away America to a small band of gerrymandered-into-office illiterates like Gohmert and the other wing nut dolts? He was elected with 68% of the votes!
The radio jock Limbaugh claims to have “20 million listeners” (AM radio? com ON!) a recent article pointed out that this ninny had no more than a few million listeners at any one time (maybe). The Beck loon? Well even the Nixon left over, Roger Ailes couldn’t keep up with his maniacal drivel.
The sweaty trust funder Norquist, an unelected drone, who extracted pledges from the illiterate right, thought up his no tax gimmick in seventh grade! Yet this half shaven sweating nerd is trotted out on television shows as if he were some type of an authority. Kudos to Krugman who when asked to comment on some arcane failed drivel on one of these shows that Norquist prattled out just responded ” Everything he just said was a lie.” guess what Norquist did? He folded his pasty white fingers up on the table and shut up. He looked like he was a seventh grade kid who just lied about his homework, and got caught.After 45 years in business the loudestguys and the quickest to anger? The con men.
Obama is negotiating away Social Security and medicare to these loud mouth louts right now *sigh*.
What are the “problems” of white english christian males? They rule the world from what I can see.
I’m white and my vote goes straight to the recycling bin. In California, only chosen Dems win. We pretty much have one party rule and still no one fixes anything. White liberals far outnumber anything on the right. Nobody takes the Westboro Baptists seriously. They’re just a bunch of a-holes and do not have any sway. The Naacp and SEIU have a lot of sway too. I support both groups, but they do a lot more than anyway white supremest group.
I lived in California for 46 years…and survived Schwarzenegger as governor for what? six or seven years? What do you men by being white and your vote going straight to the recycling bin? And…Meg Whitman did have quite a following of Republican voters until she was caught with some housekeeper issue. I am just asking for clarification.
Chris, this piece is not referencing white supremacists per say, but how certain small groups have managed to gain a voice that is louder than any majority. Whether or not they have power, the Westboro Baptists get a spot on tv everytime they hold a protest. Even if only 10 people show up, they get news coverage. So the 50 people who protested outside a Baton Rouge chemical plant get no coverage, yet 10 religious wackos get primetime coverage? Also the NRA is treated as a major representative of the American people, even though they barely have 5 million members (out of a population of over 300 million). Also, I live in Louisiana which is practically a one-party state for the Republicans, and nothing gets done. Neither the Democrats or Republicans are the answer to fixing problems. Howard Zinn once said that if you want to affect real changes, you have to make the political leaders do it. The only way you can do it is by scaring the hell out of them. And the NAACP and SEIU do not get primetime news coverage everytime they hold a protest or event. Why don’t they? If the NRA and Westboro nuts can, why can’t the NAACP or SEIU?
The problems and concerns of white english christian males fall on deaf ears as well, because most of them aren’t rich either.