is that young people are polled to be less racist than older people. Also a good thing, white people are becoming a minority. The bad thing is that they may only go down fighting. Fact is, slavery and Native American genocide are our two original sins, and they may well destroy us after all. They have not been expiated yet, and people like Joe Wilson want to make sure that they aren't, and furthermore, that they are not seen as sins. But they ARE sins.

Can the folks at Salon get a bit more creative, pretty please? Even the NYT's has their umpteenth article about whether people oppose Obama purely based on their racial prejudices. The fact of the matter is that everybody is, in fact, prejudiced. We all make judgments based on looks, background, accent, education, town of birth, what have you. However, the reason people don't agree with Obama is because they DO NOT AGREE WITH OBAMA. Why is this so difficult to understand? They don't agree with him, or his policies for this nation. He seems like a very nice man, but some just don't agree with how he wants to steer this country. As far as health care goes, plenty people were against nationalized health care before Obama stepped into the picture, and will continue to be so afterwards. This, "Oh, it's because of his skin color" is plain dull and useless. Let's heighten the discourse. If it was Gavin Newsom up there as President (shivers...), people would be just as against this, perhaps even more so because at least Obama is likable.

why would the political opposition to a corparatist social welfare system that was really required to cover everyone be any less than the opposition to the more directly govt. sponsored kind.

Tagging an article with a headline like, "White America has never liked social insurance for people of color" period, is just too obvious an incendiary remark looking for all comers. And I've obviously fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

No worries, health "reform" will pass and while the insurance industry will under no circumstances allow any serious public option to pass in that so called "reform" what we will be left with instead is that all people, no matter what color, will be mandated to pay the green green dollars to the insurance industry. Kiss another couple thousand a year goodbye. That will be the "reform".

You will have coverage, no worries. You will be paying for that lousy coverage out of your own pocket right to the insurance industry and believe me, greed knows no color.

You too, can have the lousiest most expensive coverage in the developed world courtesy of our insurance industry. Oh wait, you could have that now. What's the difference? After health care "reform" you will HAVE to have coverage or be fined by the federal government. Nice job being a health insurer huh? Gee thanks Obama. What way will be thought of next to give more of our money to corporations with great lobbies? No doubt Obama's administration will declare it a great victory, sort of like was done in Vietnam when we retreated.

And you liberals are still smarting about being called out by it. It's delightful!

So now you want to say - Sure, Obama lied, but we should give benefits to illegal immigrants.

Ah, liberals, your mendacity is rivaled only by your hypocrisy.

The costs of such unfunded mandates might drive some small businesses out of existence. But small-business owners are the most vocal opponents of wage and benefit reform in the U.S. The replacement of Scrooge & Marley by a smaller number of bigger private and public employers who treat Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim better would not necessarily be a tragedy.

This is a grossly unfair and broad characterization of small businesses, and yes, it would be a tragedy for the people who derive their living, in part or whole, from those small businesses if they were just snuffed out of existence by benefit mandates they cannot possibly afford. And you truly think large, affluent corporations are going to be able, or even willing, to replace all the jobs that small businesses currently provide? So many small businesses provide a product or service for a tiny niche market that a larger corporation isn't going to be interested in serving because it's not cost-effective for them, or are started by unemployed people with a good idea and nowhere else to turn.

Ask a freelancer who works for one of those small businesses if she'd rather have moderately well-paying work, but with no employer-based benefits, or no job at all.

Now, if small businesses can't afford to provide benefits and health coverage, then they need to step out of the way of the establishment of other mechanisms by which their workers can get health care and other benefits at a fair price--quit holding the process hostage if they're not going to help provide a solution. But just to wipe out the jobs and income and freelance work that they do provide? That just means that anyone who fails to get a corporate or government job is totally screwed. Not only no employer-based benefits, but no income at all. That would've been better for Tiny Tim?

Unfortunate that money is commonly the deciding factor. And consistent that Republicans are fighting anything that might benefit anyone that differs from themselves. It actually costs more to uphold our current system than to help others and isn't that the Christian thing to do. Such a contradiction.

This is a very interesting question.

Here in the USA, if you're a beneficiary of a government entitlement program, you want to believe "I earned it." But we must be vigilant, to prevent the undeserving from getting freebies.

Yes it is true that there are many who don't agree with Obama. Certainly those most concerned with the national debt have some reason to object to moving forward.

Nevertheless, people are complex. People do the things they do and feel the things they feel for multiple reasons- often unaware.

Can you not acknowledge that at least some portion of the intensity and hostility to Obama has it's basis in his perceived otherness. 'He's not like us'. 'Take our country back.' He's an illegitimate president not even a citizen. You seriously see no portion of that as racially tinged if not racially motivated?

Can you not acknowledge that many public policy decisions have been made out of fear? Fear of foreigners over running the country. Fear of blacks mixing with whites. Do I really need to go on. When my folks moved into my childhood home- one of the first black family's on the block we got a brick through the window, a neighbor immediately put a for sale sign on his house (only to discover he could not afford to escape black people), and my next door neighbor's step father really discouraged his step daughter (white) from playing with the black boy (me) of the same age who lived next door. (They eventually moved to rural Nebraska).

We have come a long way on race. However, these feelings of racial unease suspicion and animosity are deeply embedded in a large portion of the public. They have gotten better but have not disappeared in just one generation. It is not playing the race card to acknowledge that our history plays a part in our present. It's not playing the race card to suggest that Americans do not enjoy the same social safety net that other western nations do at least in some part due to the racial animosity the majority has had and continues to have (at a significantly reduced level) to it's minority citizens.

Being dismissive does not advance reconciliation and it's intellectually lazy. You are better than that.