Tag Archives: Republican Party

News

Under Trump, Black and Hispanic unemployment rates drop to 50-year record low

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Black and Hispanic unemployment rates drop to 50-year record low
Black and Hispanic unemployment rates drop to 50-year record low

A lot happened on the weekend in current events that I wanted to write about. Elizabeth Warren got caught lying about being a victim (again). Audio and e-mail evidence emerged showing that the Democrat National Committee colluded with Ukraine to boost Hillary during the 2016 election. I might write about those later on this week, but today I wanted to focus on something positive.

So, by now everyone knows that Trump has delivered a record low unemployment rate for blacks and for Hispanics:

There have never been more Black and Hispanic Americans in the workforce, Friday’s Labor Department job report showed.

The jobless rate for Hispanics hit a record low of 3.9% in September, while African Americans maintained its lowest rate ever, 5.5%.

The Hispanic women unemployment rate was 3.8% in September and the Black adult women jobless rate was 4.6%.

“The best numbers that we’ve ever had: African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Women, everything. We have the best numbers that we’ve had in many, many, many decades, ” President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday.

The unemployment rate for Asian Americans was 2.5% in September.

I sometimes try to bring this up with white leftists in my office, who insist that Trump is a racist. I ask them which policy is hurting non-whites the most. They have no answer. Then I bring up the record low unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics. Their response is that he has racism in his heart, and it doesn’t show up in his policies. That’s a funny sort of racism. But I think Trump is realizing that he has to do something about this perception of him among low-information voters. And so he did.

Here’s the story from the Daily Caller:

President Donald Trump implicitly addressed the institution of slavery in the United States during an event with young black supporters on Friday, asserting that black Americans did more to build the nation than they are given credit for.

[…]“African Americans built this nation,” the president said to applause. “You built this nation.”

“You know, you’re just starting to get real credit for that, okay? I don’t know if you know that. You’re just starting to get — you built the nation. We all built it. But you were such a massive part of it — bigger than you were given credit for,” Trump stated. “But through generations of blood, sweat, and tears and — you deserve a government that defends your interests, protects your families, and cares for our own citizens first.”

[…]Trump also brought up a statement he made during his 2016 presidential campaign, when he urged black people to leave the Democratic Party because they had not done enough for black Americans.

That’s good, but something significant happened at the summit that I wanted you to see.

Daily Caller again:

Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson shared video of what happened when the president brought the young woman to the podium. Mahalet, once an abandoned, impoverished orphan from Ethiopia, earned smiles and cheers from the president and the gathered crowd.

“I’m not really good with prayers or anything like that but I just want to say thank you, Mr. President, and I know we have a political warfare right now, but I strongly believe that it is a spiritual one as well,” Mahalet said to cheers from the crowd.

“And I want to make sure that I mean, I know that Americans are gonna wake up and we’re gonna get back to looking to God instead of social media and we’re gonna look back to Jesus because Jesus saves and this country was founded upon the Constitution, was built on Godly principles and we’re gonna fight for that,” she said. “And I just want to encourage you guys to pray every day for this nation.”

“Dear God, I’m not really good at this,” Mahalet laughed. “But I just want to say thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to be in the White House. Thank you for giving us a great leader like Trump, Mr. Donald Trump, and I would like to thank you for waking up our nation.”

She continued, asking God for protection both for the nation and for the president, adding, “God, I believe that you gave him to us and I believe that he’s gonna accomplish so much more. I know you have more for us.”

“Jesus I ask you to protect us and walk with us and in Jesus’ name the enemy tries to attack us every single day,” Mahalet concluded. “He tries to discourage us but he has no room. He has no room, no more, and that’s all I have to say.”

Here’s the video:

I can’t believe that happened in the White House, of all places. The secular left fascists must be furious about it.

And that’s not all, something else happened on the weekend.

Daily Wire reports:

Music icon and fashion bigwig Kanye West has once again demonstrated that his support for President Trump stems from a deep conviction within himself rather than a momentary burst of “dragon energy.”

Over the weekend, while speaking before his audience at another of his Sunday Services, this time in Salt Lake City, West argued that for black Americans, voting for a candidate based solely on skin color is a form of “mental slavery.” The rapper even lauded the Republican Party’s history on race relations, starting all the way back to when Abraham Lincoln helped free the slaves.

“That’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves,” West said, as reported by the Washington Examiner.

Kanye West added that he has every right to support whomever he wants for whatever reason and that his skin color should have nothing to do with it.

“And we got the right, right? We got a right to our opinions, right?” he asked. “You black, so you can’t like Trump? I ain’t never made a decision only based on my color. That’s a form of slavery, mental slavery.”

I’m not quite ready to tell everyone my story yet, but I have said many times that I’m a non-white conservative. I would like to see the day when non-white voters start to think about politics with their minds, instead of with tribalism. If you look at Republican policies, they are better for non-whites than Democrat policies. You can see Democrat policies in Detroit, Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, etc. These policies are not working for non-whites. We can do better than secular left socialism.

Polemics

Abortion debate: a secular case against legalized abortion

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Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old
Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old

Note: this post has a twin! Its companion post on a secular case against gay marriage is here.

Now, you may think that the view that the unborn deserve protection during pregnancy is something that you either take on faith or not. But I want to explain how you can make a case for the right to life of the unborn, just by using reason and evidence.

To defend the pro-life position, I think you need to sustain 3 arguments:

  1. The unborn is a living being with human DNA, and is therefore human.
  2. There is no morally-relevant difference between an unborn baby, and one already born.
  3. None of the justifications given for terminating an unborn baby are morally adequate.

Now, the pro-abortion debater may object to point 1, perhaps by claiming that the unborn baby is either not living, or not human, or not distinct from the mother.

Defending point 1: Well, it is pretty obvious that the unborn child is not inanimate matter. It is definitely living and growing through all 9 months of pregnancy. (Click here for a video that shows what a baby looks like through all 9 months of pregnancy). Since it has human DNA, that makes it a human. And its DNA is different from either its mother or father, so it clearly not just a tissue growth of the father or the mother. More on this point at Christian Cadre, here. An unborn child cannot be the woman’s own body, because then the woman would have four arms, four legs, two heads, four eyes and two different DNA signatures. When you have two different human DNA signatures, you have two different humans.

Secondly, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the unborn that is not yet present or developed while it is still in the womb, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, it does not deserve the protection of the law.

Defending point 2: You need to show that the unborn are not different from the already-born in any meaningful way. The main differences between them are: size, level of development, environment and degree of dependence. Once these characteristics are identified, you can explain that none of these differences provide moral justification for terminating a life. For example, babies inside and outside the womb have the same value, because location does not change a human’s intrinsic value.

Additionally, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the already-born that is not yet present or developed in the unborn, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, that it does not deserve protection, (e.g. – sentience). Most of the these objections that you may encounter are refuted in this essay by Francis Beckwith. Usually these objections fall apart because they assume the thing they are trying to prove, namely, that the unborn deserves less protection than the already born.

Finally, the pro-abortion debater may conceded your points 1 and 2, and admit that the unborn is fully human. But they may then try to provide a moral justification for terminating the life of the unborn, regardless.

Defending point 3: I fully grant that it is sometimes justifiable to terminate an innocent human life, if there is a moral justification. Is there such a justification for abortion? One of the best known attempts to justify abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “violinist” argument. This argument is summarized by Paul Manata, one of the experts over at Triablogue:

Briefly, this argument goes like this: Say a world-famous violinist developed a fatal kidney ailment and the Society of Music Lovers found that only you had the right blood-type to help. So, they therefore have you kidnapped and then attach you to the violinist’s circulatory system so that your kidneys can be used to extract the poison from his. To unplug yourself from the violinist would be to kill him; therefore, pro-lifers would say a person has to stay attached against her will to the violinist for 9 months. Thompson says that it would be morally virtuous to stay plugged-in. But she asks, “Do you have to?” She appeals to our intuitions and answers, “No.”

Manata then goes on to defeat Thomson’s proposal here, with a short, memorable illustration, which I highly recommend that you check out. More info on how to respond to similar arguments is here.

Here is the best book for beginners on the pro-life view.

For those looking for advanced resources, Francis Beckwith, a professor at Baylor University, published the book Defending Life, with Cambridge University Press, 2007.

News

If Republicans are going to hold the House, they’ll need the votes of black Americans

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Michigan Senate candidate John James
Michigan Senate candidate John James

I’ve been following the Michigan Senate race between Republican John James and Democrat Debbie Stabenow. James, a black conservative, flew attack helicopters in Iraq, and now runs a private sector business. You can’t get more rooted in reality than that. What I’ve noticed about James is his challenge to other blacks to vote for ideas and ideals.

Here’s his latest ad:

The Washington Examiner notes:

“The Democratic business model is reliant upon keeping black folks dependent on the government,” James said in the ad. “Countless people have died for our right to think and to vote for ourselves, yet Democratic leadership asks us to outsource our voice on a straight-ticket ballot to a godless party that neither represents our values nor our economic best interests.”

“We’ve marched from Selma to New York, we’ve rebelled from Watts to Detroit, and ain’t nothing changed in 50 years,” he said. “The Democratic Party leadership cares more about the black vote than the black people. And it’s time to wake up.”

James, a West Point graduate who served as a commander in aviation missions in Iraq, released his new ad in Detroit on the same day that former president Barack Obama is set to visit that city to campaign for Democrat Debbie Stabenow.

James said in an interview, “The ad is not meant to divide or attack his fellow Michiganders. It is a criticism of the party leadership that took God out of its platform and left Detroit the most segregated city in America.”

Stabenow has consistently held a healthy double-digit lead over James, but has seen that cushion evaporate in the past month.

On Thursday, a Free Press poll conducted by EPIC-MRA of Lansing Michigan put her lead at 7 percentage points. That same poll showed her up 23 points in September.

On Oct. 29, Vice President Mike Pence will host a rally in Grand Rapids for James, who returned home from his military service to run his family’s business.

James is the first black Republican to run for statewide office in Michigan in four decades.

Why should blacks vote for a Republican? Black unemployment is at a record low (along with Hispanic unemployment).

USA Today noted:

September’s 3.7 percent unemployment rate, a nearly 50-year low, is helping all U.S. workers, but it’s especially beneficial to disadvantaged groups that have struggled to land jobs — like black teenagers.

The jobless rate for African-Americans age 16 to 19 fell from 20.1 percent to 19.3 percent last month, the lowest on records dating to 1972.

If blacks were just voting on objective criteria – raw numbers – they’d vote for Republicans.

Against dependency on the government

I also noted that James is a strong believer in male leadership, and that got him trouble with the anti-male left:

Right now, we have an epidemic in the black community where black women are choosing men poorly, and creating fatherless children in homes who are more likely to be dependent on government. As a non-white conservative, I find this upsetting, because it means that non-whites are arriving at different life outcomes from other Americans through their own choices. When poor choices are made early on in life, it’s difficult to recover even when you learn from your mistakes.

I don’t see how the black community is ever going to recover from a 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate unless they start shaming black women for having sex with men who are not willing to commit to leading a family before they have sex. There are single black men of good character who could have been chosen instead. Men who would commit before asking for sex. But if women make choices based on appearances and feelings, then the bad boys will get picked every time.

The Democrat party has an interest in making more people  dependent on government, and that’s why they favor government programs that incentivize making fatherless children. Democrats promote premarital sex and welfare programs to blacks, which discourages good black men from working and marrying. They also oppose school choice, so that parents are forced to put their children into failing schools staffed by unionized teachers who are unaccountable. If we’re going strictly on policy, then the Republican party has a lot more to offer black Americans than the Democrats.