What was Fast And Furious? Who is to blame for the death of Brian Terry? Should Attorney General Eric Holder be impeached? Was Obama in on the conspiracy? You won’t find those answers here; that’s not the point of this blog. I’m here to discover and report on the arguments driving political opinion in the United States. The “Fast And Furious” scandal is becoming a divisive issue with many of us lining up on different sides to vent our anger at each other. Before we begin, it would probably be helpful if we were first aware of what the counterarguments are, and to question whether we really know what happened ourselves. There is a conspiracy theory out there that the operation was designed to increase gun violence as a pretext for increased gun control rules. Preaching this theory without hard evidence is reckless, dangerous, bad for the reasoned political debate essential to democracy, and sets us against each other needlessly. It has much the same effect as the conspiracy theory that elements of the US government were in on the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for war. There are also accusations out there that those trying to get to the bottom of the scandal are motivated solely to hurt President Obama politically, or even by racism. These accusations aren’t much help either, and only serve to divide us.

This shouldn't be such a controversial issue.

I can't find the source now, but I remember reading long ago about a study done on differences in urban black culture and urban white culture.

Americans of African descent (not to mention other minorities) vote for Democrats by wide margins. I'm still in the process of learning why this is, but it seems to have something to do with an impression that many Republicans are borderline racist. In my lifetime I have heard many Democrats state, both implicitly and explicitly, that Republicans have racist tendencies. Democrats, on the other hand, have always stood up for the downtrodden. At least, so the narrative goes.

According to some, if you oppose President Obama, or think his policies are dangerous, you're a racist.