“Equal access” versus “individual freedom”
Don Quixote on Jul 15 2011 at 6:39 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Zach’s claim that blacks still vote for Democrats “because many Republicans won’t even support the simple justice of laws guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations” is the purest form of nonsense, of course. There is zero chance that Republicans would take away equal access even if they completely controlled all three branches of the Federal government. Anyone who actually listened to Republicans and their candidates would know this.
The claim that Republicans threaten these rights, used as a strawman as Zach uses it here, is extraordinarily weak. However, it is exactly the kind of lie the Left would tell to blacks to persuade them to vote against Republicans. To the extent such lies are believed, Zach is right that they could cause blacks to vote for Democrats.
But in the real world, not the lying world of the Leftist propaganda, even advocating such a position would be political suicide. The Republican party has done some dumb things, but it is not that stupid. We in the Bookwormroom are not so constrained, however. The topic is actually quite an interesting one, so let me get the ball rolling and see where it goes.
My Grandfather was an FDR/George Wallace Democrat and an unapologetic racist. He was fond of saying,”If I’m a barber and I don’t want to cut red hair, why should the damn government have the right to tell me I must?” He felt that to the extent the government forced him to cut red hair against his will it was taking away his freedom. At some level that sounds reasonable. But it becomes a bit of a problem for redheads if Granddad is the only barber in town. It’s a far more difficult problem if we are talking about the only doctor in town. And it is an unbearable problem if all the medical schools in the country are private and all of them require all students to take an oath not to treat red haired patients. Eventually, I came in my own mind to accept that some groups should be protected, even at the cost of the denial of a bit of the freedom Granddad so cherished. At that point, the issue turned to which groups should be protected. Now, of course, there is a huge list of protected groups — race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. Red heads haven’t made the list yet, but I suspect a refusal to cut nappy hair might cause a problem.
Still, I always come back to Granddad’s question. It is not a matter of “simple justice” as Zach suggests. It is a matter of a violation of one person’s rights to serve a greater societal good. It seems to me that we ought to at least acknowledge the violation exists and weigh the violation against the good in deciding how much freedom to violate. It is easy (for me, anyway) to say that doctors should not be able to discriminate based on race. It is a lot harder to justify, say, forcing members of a private club to open their doors and associate with groups of people they do not wish to associate with, when nothing more than the association is at stake.
So, what trade-offs are appropriate? Unrestrained by the need to be elected, what do you folks in the Bookwormroom think the rules should be? And what do you think the political realities are? Finally, returning to the original question, assuming I’m right that there is zero chance that Republicans will ever take away equal access (am I right about that?) how do we overcome the Leftist lies, get that message out, and persuade blacks to vote for Republicans?
Email This Post To A Friend
79 Responses to ““Equal access” versus “individual freedom””
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I’m a Boomer, so the question of equal access to public accommodations has always been a given for me since I was fairly young (15) when the 1964 Civil Rights Act guaranteed the right of black Americans to go about their daily business without a bunch of shrill rednecks saying they couldn’t.
If a barber doesn’t want to cut nappy hair, I say tough tamales. There are only two good reasons for him to say no to cutting it. The first is that he’s not familiar with it. But if he’s smart, he can pass a black customer off to a barber in the shop who does know how to deal with it. Problem solved: the black man doesn’t have to hassle getting a hair cut and the barber shop picks up a new customer.
The second reason is behavioral: If the black would-be customer is a drunk, or badass, or a known troublemaker, the barber has every rtight to tell him take a walk. That leads us into forcing businesses to accommodate behaviors that are a matter of choice: For example, homosexual acts and behaviors are a matter of choice. Unlike one’s skin color, over which one has no control, there is no gene that forces people into sodomy or requires it as a condition for their very existence. The behavior is voluntary and any business establishment should be free to place it in the same category as “no shoes, no shirt, no service.” So I would draw the line at behaviors that an establishment choses not to tolerate.
One tack that we could use to open up eyes is to remind blacks of the house slave/field slave dichotomy that slaveowners once used to control their property. House slaves were given status and privileges as a means of pulling their loyalties away from the field workers and toward Massa. They were in cahoots with Massa and made sure that incipient revolts or uppity field hands (Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain) were tracked and taken care of.
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barbara Lee, Eric Holder, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, et al., are all house hands. They are predictably radical, like their Democratic masters, and willing to continue the race war by any means necessary. After all, when you’re at war, the citizens (field hands) better damned well follow orders and be thankful for whatever small comforts they enjoy.
Charles M: “Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barbara Lee, Eric Holder, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, et al”
Oh, you cut them way too much slack, Charles M. I say they would have been overseers, whip in hand.
All governments legislate some level of morality: do not steal, do not kill, and what are the penalities. Equal access is simply legislating the Golden Rule. If you provide a public service, provide it to all the public. That should not be seen as a limit on a businesman’s individual freedom. Do not mistake equal access with the freedom of association. Nor should it be confused with the misguided efforts to make everybody equal in abilities. There is a place in society for merit and not just looks. There is a place in society for treating others with equity, mercy and assistance. There is also a place in society for judging others according to their choice of presentation — if you look dangerous you might be dangerous. We have the obligation to ourselves to make assessments of others in self defense. The difficulty begins with the definitions of who is in and who is out. The definition of a disability is now so broad that most everybody will be disabled, mentally, physically, emotionally or substance abuse. Race has become so mixed up, the Census has 12 or more categories of mixes. Ageing starts when? 55,62,65, 67? Eventually the special treatment afforded some groups becomes the discrimination of soft expectations. Affirmative action begins to assume that all Blacks cannot compete academically without special advantage. That is the problems with the Law, it leaves little discrection to individuals and makes every social interaction a Federal Case. Blick
Zach’s knowledge is limited to reading other people’s propaganda. The propaganda elides, but the Congressional Record does not, that it was Republicans who broke the Senate filibuster by Southern Democrats, who BTW, were reliable votes for the extortion/largess strategy of Roosevelt, and his heirs and assigns, (usually termed ‘liberals’).
Not only would it be political suicide, today, for Republicans to change their tune, but also, it would violate principles that they and their party have both espoused and demonstrated. I also seriously doubt that Europeans are aware of the history of Jim Crow, mandatory segregation, which began when a faction of the Democrat Party, called Redemption, gained the majority, or at least a controlling minority, of Democrat party apparati in the South, in 1892, in most states. An interesting side note is that the street car companies in many cities objected mightily to segregating their vehicles, not from any great nobility of spirit, although that is surely possible, but, more reliably, the companies did not see much profit to be gained by alienating a sizable segment of their customer base. Here’s another one: The first place to have an established policy of racial segregation was New York City, in Colonial times. There were too many bar fights between Irish immigrant laborers and Blacks, slave and free. NYC, of course, had many slaves in that period.
An entirely different explanation is one that would be too long to include, here. I’ll try to do it when I have time. However, this weekend, I am doing car work, which is an open-ended commitment.
When reason has left the room….
A Nebraska girl born with no arms and legs has blamed unfair scoring after she failed to make her school’s cheerleading squad three years in a row.
They (the parents) complained that the school had broken the Americans with Disabilities Act and other discrimination laws.
On Monday, the board declined to take up the matter after reviewing the district’s policies with its lawyers and seeking a second legal opinion.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014508/Girl-arms-legs-says-Nebraska-school-cheerleading-try-unfair.html#ixzz1SEpBldAQ
I don’t see the problem here. If you can elect a president who has zero experience and cannot show that he passed any of his college courses, why would you ask for a minimal level of competence and ability from somebody clearly unqualified to be a cheerleader in any meaningful sense of the term?
How do we overcome the Leftist lies, get that message out, and persuade blacks to vote for Republicans?
Insert Republicans for cochlear implants.
Insert hearing for listening.
Insert Democrats for deaf.
The controversy over cochlear implants often pits hearing parents against deaf parents when it comes to raising their deaf children in a hearing world. Many deaf parents would prefer to raise their deaf child in a deaf culture, including the use of sign language and lip reading. Hearing parents who are not familiar with the deaf community may opt for the cochlear implant surgery to correct their deaf child’s perceived handicap.
The result may be a deaf child who can partially hear, or a hearing child with a deaf cultural heritage. Either way, the child may face social ostracism from both communities if the parents do not consider the long-term effects of cochlear implant surgery. Not all members of the deaf community view cochlear implants as an unnecessary procedure, but hearing parents facing a difficult decision concerning a deaf child may want to research both sides of the controversy before committing to cochlear implant surgery.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-controversy-around-cochlear-implants.htm
Don Quixote: Zach{riel}’s claim that blacks still vote for Democrats “because many Republicans won’t even support the simple justice of laws guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations” is the purest form of nonsense, of course.
We said “many Republicans”, certainly not all. King said he “had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”
Don Quixote: The claim that Republicans threaten these rights, used as a strawman as Zach uses it here, is extraordinarily weak.
That wasn’t our claim. Rather, it’s that many in the Republican Party are against laws barring discrimination in public accomodations, or give only grudging support. As an example, we pointed to commenters on this forum, of which not one had bothered to express support for such law, until your current post expressing grudging support. Nevertheless, it is important that someone other than ourselves on this forum should actually say they support such laws. But remember, the “white persons of goodwill” who joined the Freedom Riders were predominantly Democratic liberals.
Don Quixote: The Republican party has done some dumb things, but it is not that stupid.
So they won’t repeal Civil Rights laws because of political expediency. No wonder Republicans can’t get any significant minority support. Of course, they’re politicians. They do what they can. But in this case, the sympathies of many Republicans lean *against* anti-discrimination laws.
Don Quixote: It is a lot harder to justify, say, forcing members of a private club to open their doors and associate with groups of people they do not wish to associate with, when nothing more than the association is at stake.
Private groups are protected under the First Amendment.
Michael Adams: The propaganda elides, but the Congressional Record does not, that it was Republicans who broke the Senate filibuster by Southern Democrats, who BTW, were reliable votes for the extortion/largess strategy of Roosevelt, and his heirs and assigns, (usually termed ‘liberals’).
They were certainly crucial (though more Democrats voted for the Civil Right Act than Republicans); but then Republicans chose Goldwater to be their party’s leader. They followed that with a Southern strategy based on white resentment. That policy of resentment continues to drive all but the most conservative blacks from the Republican Party. Just read Charles Martel’s post (“If a barber doesn’t want to cut nappy hair, I say tough tamales.”) from a black perspective to what that means.
Do not mistake equal access with the freedom of association. Nor should it be confused with the misguided efforts to make everybody equal in abilities.
Blick distinguished very well what I think gets muddled in many minds. I’d add to that do not mistake equal access with the privilege of abilities, wealth, grades, etc., that are worked for and earned.
The government is only given the power to suspend or remove individual right to life, property, and the pursuit of happiness (imprisonment) through due process and Constitutional guarantees/balance of powers.
So long as the government obeys the Constitution and follows due process, any suspension of liberties is correct. However, if the government oversteps itself and abuses federal power over states, then it becomes a corruption.
It’s not that complicated when you see it like that.
So the federal government could mandate the same policies for all 50 states concerning business discrimination practices, but once it began affirmative action, forced busing, and other such corrupt shenanigans, it overstepped itself. Once the feds began taking money from people to pay the upkeep of a special group, you had what is called corruption, not due process.
Hasn’t anyone read Coulter’s ”Demonic?”
Republican Party was the party of civil rights from its start, introducing many bills to expand lawful rights to all races.
Goldwater objected to the lack of constitutional authority for some aspects of the civil rights act, not the concept. He integrated Arizona’s National Guard before Truman supposedly integrated the military. Actually that was implemented by Eisenhower.
Dick Nixon was very interested in civil rights issues in the 50s.
Golwater integrated his family department store very early, maybe in 40s,I don’t have my copy to check dates for any of this and not interested in spending time googling it.
A Republican founded the NAACP.
All this is forgotten because the democrat party opened the federal checkbook to buy votes rather through any principled stand.
Republicans just wanted equal rights and equal treatment under the law.
augustr: All this is forgotten because the democrat party opened the federal checkbook to buy votes rather through any principled stand.
Again, that doesn’t fit the facts.
“On social and economic issues, Mr. Goldwater represented an unrealistic conservatism that was totally out of touch with the realities of the twentieth century. The issue of poverty compelled the attention of all citizens of our country. Senator Goldwater had neither the concern nor the comprehension necessary to grapple with this problem of poverty in the fashion that the historical moment dictated. On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represented a philosophy that was morally indefensible and socially suicidal. While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, ed., Clayborne Carson (Time Warner, 1998)
Tepid support for anti-discrimination laws is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Your own comment, which smears the 90+% of African Americans who tend to vote Democratic is a prime example of the disconnect between ‘conservatives’ and the black community.
http://blacksnob.com/snob_blog/2011/7/11/conservative-group-walks-back-from-that-whole-black-marriage.html
http://blacksnob.com/snob_blog/2011/7/11/conservative-group-walks-back-from-that-whole-black-marriage.html
Just cut and paste the link. It doesn’t work, for some reason.
Augustr is quite correct that all of Goldwater’s good positions, beliefs and deeds have been forgotten. He is also at least partially correct that the Democrat party has used money and power to buy votes, though some Democrats, MLK among them, also believed in principled stands.
It is pointless to keep banging away on Goldwater. That was half a century ago. The more relevant critique is Zach’s statement that, “Tepid support for anti-discrimination laws is just a symptom of a much larger problem.” I’m not sure my support is tepid so much as that I realize what is being sacrificed as well as what is being gained by anti-discrimination laws. In any case, the relevant question is, ”What is the much larger problem?” And how do we overcome that problem and get blacks to vote for Republicans.
And Zach, how on earth does augustr’s excellent, informative comment smear 90% of blacks?
One of the elephants in the living room is the fading black demographic. Thanks to Democratic policies, there are at least 10 million blacks who have been killed in the womb since 1973. Some estimates go as high as 12 million. The killing proceeds apace, with one out of every three unborn black babies being dismembered each year.
So you can see the irrationality of Democratic policies. When you have a voting bloc that is virtually captive, you do everything you can to keep it—affirmative action, victimization propaganda, welfare, featherbedding, eternally playing the race card—all hallowed and proven Demo tactics. But what you do not do is slaughter your fodder. Can you imagine the Democrats’ direct forebears, the Southern slaveowners, terminating one-third of their property’s pregnancies?
Eventually, when you run out of babies and can’t grow your numbers, and other ethnic groups that are not as gung ho about abortion begin stealing your political clout, you become more and more irrelevant. The Democratic Party is courting a disastrous descent into third-party status by making it increasingly easier and easier for only a small shift in blacks’ voting preferences to signal an end to its racist hegemony.
It doesn’t fit Z’s interpretation of the facts, I would agree in that sense. But then again, Z can’t even interpret sources correctly given his previous behavior of using them out of context or in such a way that he can’t make a point no matter how hard he uses his authorities.
You could easily argue that black employment was so much better during slavery!
What kind of idiot believes indentured servants are employed? Really, what kind of idiot thinks getting paid 0 in wages is employment… eh?
Who the hell do you think is going to easily argue that huh?
, I think they should make themselves known so the 99.9 percent of us who are never going back can properly shun them.
97% Black Code mode.
Z somehow thinks that Bush smeared Hussein by trying to bomb him, when 99% of iraqis voted for Hussein. That’s Z’s Interpretation of Facts.
What’s hilarious is, the Democrat blacks talk about “never going back”. You peeps already back in the slave house and you Don’t Even Know It.
Black demographics on the decline and on the move ….
2010 Census data released so far this year show that 20 of the 25 cities that have at least 250,000 people and a 20% black population either lost more blacks or gained fewer in the past decade than during the 1990s. The declines happened in some traditional black strongholds: Chicago, Oakland, Atlanta, Cleveland and St. Louis.
The loss is fueled by three distinct trends:
• Blacks — many in the middle or upper-middle class — leaving cities for the suburbs.
• Blacks leaving Northern cities for thriving centers in the South.
• The aging of the African-American population, whose growth rate has dropped from more than 16% in the 1990s to about 10% since 2000.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-03-22-1Ablacks22_ST_N.htm
Herewith some history for the Zachs (love that royal “we”) who don’t know any; and a specifically-dated refresher for everyone else, who does, but may have forgotten in precisely what year it happened. Republicans and blacks. Let’s go right back to the beginning:
4/16/1862 – right back to the beginning. The bill abolishing slavery, signed by the evil Republican Abraham Lincoln. In the congress, which – as most people have forgotten and as is never taught, had to vote on said bill – the vote was: Republicans 99% “aye.” Democrats voted 83% “nay.” It wasn’t just Lincoln.
7/17/1862 – Republicans pass the “Confiscation Act,” which states that former slaves of the Confederacy will be “forever free.” They pass this over unanimous (that means 100%. All of them, Zach) opposition by Democrats.
1/13/1865 – The House passes the 13th Amendment with unanimous (that’s still all of ‘em) Republican support. It does rather less well among Democrats.
4/8/1865 – When the 13th Amendment hits the Senate, it again gets unanimous (still 100%) Republican support. Only 37% of Democrats say “aye.”
11/22/1865 – The Republican-dominated US Senate denounces the Democrat legislature of Mississippi for enacting “black codes,” institutionalizing racial discrimination in that state. (The Democrats would have agreed, but they were all out of town Christmas shopping…)
4/9/1866 – The Republican Congress overrides the Democrat president’s (that would be Andy Johnson) veto and passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866, making American blacks citizens.
5/10/1866 – The Republican House passes the Republican 14th Amendment. Republicans are unanimous (it still means “all of them”) in voting “aye.” Democrats were unanimous too: 100% of them voted “nay.”
6/8/1866 – The 14th Amendment arrives in the Senate, and gets the same result: 100% of Republicans: “aye.” 100% of Democrats: “nay.”
1/8/1867 – Republicans override Democrat Johnson’s veto – again – and extend voting rights to black residents of the District.
3/30/1868 – Finally fed up, Republicans impeach Democrat Johnson, who in response states for the record (and I quote): “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President it shall be a government of white men.”
9/12/1868 – Civil rights activist Tunis Campbell (of whom I know Zach never heard) and 24 other black members of the Georgia state legislature are expelled by the Democrat majority. As a subscriber to limited federal government and an upholder of states rights, I do not actually much like the fact that the Republican US Congress stepped in to null this vote, and reinstate them.
6/11/1875 – Republican Civil Rights Act of 1875 – of which you also never heard – which banned racial discrimination in public places.. It was struck down by the Court in 1883 for no good reason, but the interesting thing about it is how much of the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 it provided – and I mean “provided” in the sense that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 quoted it, word for word.
The nineteenth century is getting boring and repetitive, and I suspect the point may be made. We’ll skip ahead a bit, and get into the 20th century. Maybe the Democrats will do better.
5/19/1902 – Guess not, though… The Virginia Democrats implement a new state constitution reducing black voter registration by 86%. Republicans point out that this is illegal.
And, to broaden our scope for a moment beyond the mere discrimination centered on race:
5/21/1919 – The Republican House passes a Constitutional Amendment of which you may have heard, granting women the right to vote with 85% of Republicans voting “aye.” The girls didn’t make out so well with the Democrats, but by God, they did get a majority! 51% of Democraps – oops, I mean “crats”, sorry for the misprint - thought it was okay to let the ladies participate in democracy! Wow! In 1919 more Democrats like women than they do blacks! I suppose that must be seen as some sort of progress.
8/18/1920 – and the 19th Amendment goes to the states for ratification. 26 states with Republican-controlled legislatures vote “aye,” and… well… oh nuts – only 10 states controlled by Democrats do – but it’s enough, it’s enough, rest easy, it passed, ladies. (Though most women, being Democrat voters, have no idea of this nugget of history. None of our “educators” seem to know it.)
8/17/1937 – Republicans organize opposition to FDR’s appointment of Hugo Black to the supreme court. What they knew about him was only told to the public at large after he was safely confirmed. Why, looky there, FDR has given us a life-long member and high-ranking ossifer of the Ku Klux Klan, right there on his little supreme court for all of us to wonder at, and admire! Way to go, FDR! (Speaking of “southern strategies…”)
6/24/1940 – Republicans on this date vote to integrate the armed forces. FDR refuses to order it. The world will have to wait for Truman, who will get the credit for doing the same thing a decade later. The only people Truman had to fight to get it done was his own damn party – everybody else was on board ten years earlier.
11/25/1955 – The Republican Eisenhower Administration tells the south to stick it, and bans segregation of interstate bus travel. Who knew Eisenhower was a Civil Rights advocate – fighting against such luminaries in the Senate as LBJ, and Algore’s daddy? Didn’t learn that in 8th grade history? How odd….
3/21/1956 – Brown vs. Board of Education, a ruling written by Republican Chief Earl Warren – which 97 Democrats in Congress instantly condemn, and they vow to continue segregation.
6/5/1956 – Rosa Parks. That was Republican judge Frank Johnson who said she gets to sit wherever she wants, and struck down the “back of the bus” crap.
9/9/1957 – Eisenhower – still a Republican, as far as I know – signs the Republican Civil Rights Act of 1957. This is the third Republican Civil Rights Act. How come you only ever heard of the hero LBJ’s in 1964? Ask a teacher…
9/24/1957 – Eisenhower – still a Republican, God this guy is stubborn! – sends the 82nd Airborne to Little Rock to tell Governor Orville Faubus (a hero and mentor to Bill Clinton) that he’s integrating Little Rock schools, and furthermore, he’s doing it right now.
9/29/1963 – Why, looky here! There’s famous Republican… oh, wait a sec – something wrong, there – Democrat Georgie Wallace, in contempt of Judge Johnson’s order (same guy, Judge Frank) to integrate the Tuskegee schools.
And then comes 1964. LBJ, who never gave a rat’s ass about it when he was in the Senate for half his life, decided to make a positive mark in history, so somebody might remember him as something other than a complete son-of-a-bitch and total crook. (“Okay Jim, Strom – get ready to deal with the goddam Nigra problem again…” unquote, 1965, to Democrat leaders in the Senate.) In 1964 Republicans pass the “landmark” (for them it’s the fourth time) Civil Rights Legislation. As almost nobody knows today, because their teachers don’t know it either, so it doesn’t get taught – and even if the teachers did know it there’d be no chance of it being taught, because the truth doesn’t fit the narrative, y’see, and when that happens: print the narrative. Johnson would not have gotten it done, as, in a rare moment of almost complete honesty, he admitted in 1966 when he said – admitted it publicly - that Everett Dirksen had more to do with passage of the bill than he did. He couldn’t hold his own damn party, but Ev Dirksen delivered the Republicans.
The Democrats in fact – as you are not taught – filibustered the bill for 57 straight days – and this is in the days when someone had to be physically there, at the podium, filling the air with bullshit. You couldn’t phone in a filibuster the way you can today. Robert Byrd, hero of the party, “conscience of the Senate’ (though on what planet this little shit-weasel would have been the conscience of anything remains an open question) himself spoke in one stint for 14 hours and 12 minutes straight. Probably without drawing a breath. The filibustering effort was organized by Richard D. Russell (d- GA) who’s worth quoting: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states.” (Kind of makes you wonder what miscegenative dreams and sweaty dark nights he was worried about.) Anyway, 18 of them, every one with a “d” after his name, stood there and harangued for weeks to stop it. The chief filibusterers included: James O. Eastland (d, MO); Strom Thurmond (d, SC); Robert Byrd (d, WVA); Sam Ervin (d, NC) – it’s worth noting that the hero of Watergate never voted for a Civil Rights, anti-discrimination, Fair Housing, or any other bill to bring about fairness or equality between the races in his entire long life. Not once, even by accident. Hero of Watergate, national grandpa – and life-long strict segregationist – isn’t it amazing what you aren’t told? Al Gore (d, TN) – despite the baloney his kid’s been handing out all these years, his daddy fought it and was one of the chief filibuster boys – J. William Fulbright (d, AK) another Clinton mentor; George Smathers (d, FL); John C. Stennis (d, MI). These were not the only, there were ten others, mostly forgotten – but these were the longest-winded and loudest opponents of Civil Rights. (And, as I live on the Strait up here I watch CVN 74, the John C. Stennis go past on her way out and back from wherever she’s going, and I wonder how many black sailors there are aboard her – and I wonder how many of them know the first goddam thing about their ship’s lousy namesake?)
There were ten other Democrat filibusterers, as I said, but they are of lesser fame, and deserve to be forgotten by history, so I won’t bore you. And as I said: the Republican Civil Rights of 1875 provided much of the language for the LBJ bill of 1964. And then came the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Republicans voted 94% “aye.” What do you think the Democrat vote might have been? I won’t tell you – take a guess. My carpal tunnel’s kicking in, we’ll jump ahead a bit -back to the timeline:
9/15/1981 – Regan establishes the initiative on the Historically Black Colleges to increase black participation in federal education programs. (The “Conscience of the Senate,” as late as 1981, speechified against it, he remained opposed.)
6/29/1982 – Reagan, famous Democrat, signed a 25 year extension to the Voting Rights Act – Byrd didn’t like that, either.
8/101988 – Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act, trying to belatedly right some of the wrong done to Japanese-Americans by that great defender of freedom, FDR.
11/21/1991 – Bush signs the Civil Rights ACt of 1991 to strengthen federal Civil Rights legislation. (This had been mentioned to Carter, he didn’t feel like it. It went away for a decade, came back, Bush was willing.)
8/20/1996 – Republican Representative Susan Molinari authors a bill to prohibit racial discrimination in adoptions, with the unintended consequence of making Angelica Jolie and Madonna possible. The Republican Congress and Senate enact it.
American History 101. There is that, then there is the BS view of Civil Rights struggles in this country. That’s the one Democrats, blacks, the media, and the teachers subscribe to. It’s chief virtue is complete ignorance of the facts, and adherence to the idea of advancing the narrative. That the narrative is purest bullshit seems not to bother anyone. But the facts, regrettably, will remain the facts, and the fact is that as a matter of history there has indeed been a political party in this country that was racist – and it was the Democrat operation. Why blacks vote for them, I don’t know: there is no rational reason for them to do so. There has never been a rational reason for them to do so. Perhaps their leaders are not rational, and are more interested in something other than the truth. That’s easy to believe of offal such as Jackson and Sharpton who are pure hustlers, but it is less explicable of the mass. I don’t know. Historically it makes zero sense.
Nice piece of work, jj. Unfortunately, you’ve just cast pearls before swine. It will make no impression.
Excellent review, JJ. I agree with the Hammer, though – pearls before swine!
Charles M: “Can you imagine the Democrats’ direct forebears, the Southern slaveowners, terminating one-third of their property’s pregnancies?”
Funny, that. The master slavers in the world were the Arab Muslims, whose holy texts exalted taking slaves of unbelievers. Most of the slaves taken by Arab Muslims were black Africans (it was the Arab slave trade that fed slaves to the European colonies). So, how come Arabia and North African aren’t full of black faces?
Well, duh! It’s because the Arab Muslims killed the babies of slaves as unnecessary economic burdens. Genocide on a mass scale.
You will never hear this from the Left, however, for it is so much more convenient for them to dwell on the myths of American slavery in saying that it was somehow a uniquely horrendous crime promulgated by “Republicans”.
Don Quixote: how on earth does augustr’s excellent, informative comment smear 90% of blacks?
He suggested that the overwhelming support African Americans give to the Democratic Party is because the Democratic Party “opened the federal checkbook to buy votes rather through any principled stand.” It denigrates blacks, and relieves him of the responsibility of trying to understand the real reasons why the Republican Party continues to alienate blacks.
Charles Martel: One of the elephants in the living room is the fading black demographic.
The portion of blacks in the U.S. population has been steadily increasing since 1930, from 9.7% then to 12.6% now.
jj: American History 101.
In 1964 King “urged every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”
Your telling of history can’t be complete because it can’t explain the facts. You rail and rail at the unfairness of it, but only reveal your ignorance. There’s a reason why blacks turned their backs on the Republican Party.
jj, QED.
Zach: “There’s a reason why blacks turned their backs on the Republican Party. ”
Not all blacks and not necessarily for good reason.
More pearls ….
“A Prince Among Slaves” was one of the more ambitious efforts to sell African-Americans on Islam. Aired nationwide on PBS and still making a tour of the United States, the documentary claims to tell the story of an African Muslim prince who was sold into slavery in the South.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/15/prince-of-lies/
Does anyone have a clue as to why black folks turned their back on Republicans and thought that Islam would be preferable.
CM, I had the same thought and Zach came up with the actual stat. While black abortion rates are very high, their live birth rates are still higher than whites, aren’t they?
I think jj’s history lesson summarized with substantial emphasis on what party was responsible for almost all strides forward for blacks would make for excellent TV commercials for the GOP.
JJ put a lot of time into the historical record and it should be put to good use.
DQ, the statistic presented was intended as a distraction because it ignores the fact that blacks would be an even bigger percentage of the U.S. population had they allowed those 10 million+ children to be born.
Almost one of every two pregnancies among black women ends in abortion. The number varies from year to year, but ranges from the low 400s to high 400s per 1,000 births. Among white women, the number of abortions per 1,000 births is about 160.
So, no, DQ, the live birth rate among blacks comes nowhere near that of whites. It is ironic that at its best, the Ku Klux Klan managed to murder an estimated 3,000 blacks between the post-Civil War period and the late 20th century. Planned Parenthood and its ilk has bested them by a factor of at least 3,000. Gotta love those non-racist Democrats!
Go find some history that’s different than what it is. Good luck. And although it’s American heresy, it’s entirely possible that maybe King wasn’t nearly as bright as he is widely supposed to have been. (He did, after all, have to plagiarize his way through Boston University Divinity School.) It’s entirely possible that he was far more sleazy than you know, too; because there had to be some shitty little side deal we’ll never find out about it for him to advocate the way he did. You’re right: it completely ignores reality, and may be otherwise inexplicable. Vote against Goldwater – but vote for LBJ, who for thirty years in the Senate did not one single, solitary thing about your issue, and was a close pal, ally, and general suck-around buddy of such luminaries as Byrd, Stennis, Ervin, Eastland, Fulbright, Thurmond, Gore, and the rest of the southern racists?
You’re right. Why King said what he said in 1964 is a very good question – in fact it’s a splendidly good question. In the light of the entire preceding century of American history, what could have been the reason for him to do that? Even on the personal level, JFK’s Attorney-General brother was up King’s ass every which-way with wiretaps, FBI plants and informants, etc., etc. And yet King still came out with that endorsement of someone he knew to be a pestilence in 1964. When you’re right, you’re right, and you are right: there was absolutely no reason on this planet for King to have said that, not one. Therefore there must have been something else going on. So the question remainses: what shitty little side-deal that we’ll never find out about did King have with Johnson, because there is absolutely no other explanation.
I’m sorry you have a tough time with history. Most democrats, including most blacks, do. But that doesn’t change it.
Charles Martel: DQ, the statistic presented was intended as a distraction because it ignores the fact that blacks would be an even bigger percentage of the U.S. population had they allowed those 10 million+ children to be born.
You made a specific claim, that the black demographic is fading, and that is what we answered. The black population is increasing in numbers, and in proportion to the population. It is not a fading demographic.
Charles Martel: So, no, DQ, the live birth rate among blacks comes nowhere near that of whites.
That is also wrong.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0083.pdf
Jane Jacobs, in Systems of Survival, provided a very useful way to analyze the behavior of groups, including nations. She collected examples of behavior that was applauded, and behavior derided, and saw, first, that there were many examples of behaviors that were, in one context, condemned, and in another, praised. She concluded that there are two large groups of ways of making a living, and that the values of one of these groups had corresponding but often opposite values in the other group, which she called ‘syndromes’, from the Greek, ‘run together’. There are other ways of classifying groups, like, for example, ‘shame’ versus ‘guilt’ cultures, which closely parallel her ‘syndromes.’
She called her two syndromes ‘Commercial’ and ‘Guardian’, from the Guardians in Plato. The Guardians guard and protect things, like wealth, and like territory. The Commercials live by trading, and by making things for trade. The principle of first importance to the Commercial is honesty, because one can not do business without a reputation for honesty. The first principle of the Guardian is loyalty. Plato believed, and therefore, so did Jacobs, that mingling of syndromes produced “a monstrous hybrid,” and intractable corruption. Commercials innovate, Guardians are traditionalists. Commercials are thrifty and invest. Guardians develop a reputation for generosity, often by distributing largess. Commercials accommodate and make deals, Guardians protect, by violence and deception, if necessary. Enron was many layers of deception, and was brought down by whistle blowers within the company. The Allies used massive deception in WWII, for example, sacrificing spies, who knew a little, and gave it up under German torture, but what they knew was not true, which threw the Nazis off the scent. War, of course, is well organized violence. As corrupt as out system has become, (and I do not mean favors, bribes, even election fraud, although these are minor outbreaks) it is often to see how a proper division of syndromes should look. The courts enforce laws against fraud and coercion in business, business makes the judges’ robes, and builds the courthouse.
I was past fifty when I read Systems, already a Conservative, and kept shouting “Yes” as I went along, because I had observed so many of the same phenomena. Oddly, I read an abridged version, about three months before I read the full-length one, but the theory is so workable, I was able to extrapolate to many of the same conclusions she also reached. A very good example was American slavery, which is not a business arrangement, but a coercive one, with even a potential for violence, Guardian traits. Oral history accounts by slaves report occasions of largess distributed by the slave holders, on Christmas, for example. If that sounds pathetic, it also explains the revulsion Commercials feel toward government largess, as people’s good will is bought with money previously extracted from them by force. I gave a copy of Systems to the mother of a patient, three or four years ago. She is of African descent, and has family members in both syndromes, although I was not so aware of that when I gave her the book. I did not work on that case for a few weeks, but, when I returned, she was talking about the latest fiasco with a brother or cousin, I forget which. Slowly, the light dawned, and I said, “Mary, you read Systems, did you not?” She nodded. “So, do you see how your own family illustrate the Jacobs dichotomy?”
She laughed loud and long and eventually croaked out, “Yes!” Some large percentage of Americans of African descent are still part of the Guardian Syndrome, by family tradition, by government work, by living in the South, which was Guardian dominant until the late sixties, by having Union jobs, although that, as a factor is clearly in decline. Especially in the case of government-dependents, those of us who work more in the Commercial syndrome find the situation emotionally distressing. Government takes care of them. Slave-holders took care of their ancestors. It is not pretty.
There is another barely related factor, a subject for another day. Read the book!
Charles, maybe 2.5% just didn’t talk to a census taker for some reason.
There are 40 million black Americans on the eve of the 2010 Census. We are 12.3 percent of the U.S. population down from 14.8 percent of the population in 2000. African Americans became the nation’s second-largest minority group in the first decade of the 21st century.
http://www.theroot.com/views/portrait-black-america-eve-2010-census
A sound bite from someone named King is just an opinion. Has nothing to do with facts. But don’t tell A through Z, their heads might explode from that world shaking revelation.
=SIGH= From the government table cited by the resident plagiarist:
“The total fertility rate is the number of births that 1,000 women would have in their lifetime, if at each year of age, they experienced the birth rates occurring in the specified year.”
What Cut-and-Paster forgot to factor in is that the “would have in their lifetime” doesn’t account for abortion at the rate of 400+ eviscerations per 1,000 pregnancies.
Please, God, for once send us somebody who actually understands what he’s reading.
A lot of the “new” blacks in America come from overseas, like Nigeria or Ghana. You can tell because their physiques are closer to Asian builds than African-Americans built from slave stock.
Charles Martel: So, no, DQ, the live birth rate among blacks comes nowhere near that of whites.
Zach: That is also wrong. http://www.census.gov/co
Danny Lemieux: Zach shows again that they cannot think for themselves and thus missed the entire point of Charles M’s comment, which was that the rate of live births of blacks is much lower than that of whites because, if you factor in abortions, the rate of live births as a percentage of all pregnancies is indeed much lower.
Unfortunately, the Zach group is so wedded to the printed statistics that line the naves within their Temple of (Secular) Orthodoxy, that like moths to a flame, they do not seem capable of reasoning much beyond a vague awareness that their wings are being singed.
Mart, Z’s like the federal budget. It just keeps getting larger and larger, while at the center the black hole expands sucking in everything.
Martin Luther King is much like Ghandi.The reality is different than the myth most people subscribe to.
Michael Adams – great story. I wonder if Jane Jacobs didn’t overlook one other syndrome – parasitic! We certainly see this syndrome expressed among many across all race, economic, educational and other barriers (consider tenured university professors and public sector unions, for example).
Our various threads regarding conservatism and black Americans have motivated me to pick up another great read:
Kevin Jackson, of Black Sphere fame ( theblacksphere.net) has written a very engaging book about his upbringing and transformation into being a black conservative (from a family that was staunchly Democrat well before Barry Goldwater). The title is: “The BIG Black Lie: How I Learned The Truth About The Democrat Party“. It is a very engaging and interesting read. It’s also available on Kindle.
One point he makes is that blacks and whites often confuse “racism” with “classism”.
Martin Luther King was a great American who forced white society to live up to the ideals of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
That did not make him infallible, however.
Mike, Danny, the problem is that the public schools would never, ever expose black students to books like Adams’s or Jacobs’s.
How are you going to keep them out in the field after they’ve read Paree?
jj: And although it’s American heresy, it’s entirely possible that maybe King wasn’t nearly as bright as he is widely supposed to have been.
Perhaps not. But historians consider him not just a seminal figure in African American history, not just American history, but world history. He led a non-violent movement that transformed not just the political system, but the culture of the American South.
jj: In the light of the entire preceding century of American history, what could have been the reason for him to do that?
Because when push came to shove, Johnson and others in the Democratic Party took great political risks, including the breakup of the Democratic Party, to pass landmark Civil Rights legislation, while Goldwater opposed the legislation. Read King’s comments above.
Of course, your comment, along with many other comments made on this forum, illustrates once again why African Americans are still distanced from the Republican Party.
Charles Martel: What Cut-and-Paster forgot to factor in is that the “would have in their lifetime” doesn’t account for abortion at the rate of 400+ eviscerations per 1,000 pregnancies.
It is normalized for the demographic distribution of the population in order to compare it to replacement level. Here’s CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statab/t991x01.pdf
Danny Lemieux: Martin Luther King was a great American who forced white society to live up to the ideals of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That did not make him infallible, however.
That’s right. However, we’re not citing his opinion as authoritative, but representative and persuasive within the black community. When someone says there’s no reason for African Americans to vote Democratic so they must be stupid or on the take or something, it’s not only condescending, but flies in the face of the historical reasons for the abandonment of the Republican Party.
It is normalized for the demographic distribution of the population in order to compare it to replacement level. Here’s CDC: (emphases Martel’s)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statab/t991x01.pdf
To repeat that which the above uncomprehending statement fails to refute: What Cut-and-Paster forgot to factor in is that the “would have in their lifetime” doesn’t account for abortion at the rate of 400+ eviscerations per 1,000 pregnancies.
I also repeat my prayer: May the left someday send us a thinker instead of a reactionary.
Charles Martel: To repeat that which the above uncomprehending statement fails to refute: What Cut-and-Paster forgot to factor in is that the “would have in their lifetime” doesn’t account for abortion at the rate of 400+ eviscerations per 1,000 pregnancies.
The CDC reports 65.1 live births per 1000 women for whites, and 70.1 for blacks. This directly contradicts your statement that “the live birth rate among blacks comes nowhere near that of whites.”
Almost one-third of the potential live births of a minority population is stopped short by a brutal procedure approved by the political party that ostensibly is its champion. Zach’s stance in the face of that horrible news is to pretend that those deaths have no effect on black Americans’ political clout. Given his studied indifference to the carnage, I think it’s fair to say that his concern about racism is a charade.
(Excerpted from a 2007 CDC “Abortion Surveillance” report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm)
“Among women from the 37 areas that reported race for 2007, white women (including Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women) accounted for the largest percentage (55.9%) of abortions; black women accounted for 36.5% and women of other racial groups for 7.6% of abortions (Table 12). Black women had higher abortion rates and ratios than white women and women of other races (Table 12).”
“Among women from the 25 areas that reported cross-classified race/ethnicity data for 2007 (Table 14), non-Hispanic white women accounted for the largest percentage of abortions (37.1%), followed by non-Hispanic black women (34.4%), Hispanic women (22.1%), and non-Hispanic women of other races (6.4%). Non-Hispanic white women had the lowest abortion rates (8.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratios (144 abortions per 1,000 live births); in contrast, non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rates (32.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratios (480 abortions per 1,000 live births).”
History is a problem for the Zachs, as it is for most liberals. Now that it has outed them as being incapable of rational thought, I see no reason for further response.
Zach is right that MLK’s support of LBJ and criticism of Goldwater is important, because MLK was, and remains to this day, trememdously influential in the black community. My original question on this topic was why did the blacks move from voting for Republicans to voting for Democrats. It is a perfectly valid answer to say that they followed their leadership there and that their leadership did so because of Goldwater.
But it is not the slightest bit racist, as Zach accuses, to suggest that blacks, like many other groups throughout our history (including many Republicans), vote their pocketbooks. It is racist (and very sad if true) to suggest, as Zach does, that the reason that blacks still don’t vote for Republicans is because they just can’t deal with the slightest criticism of Saint King. Besides, generally speaking, Republicans and the Republican party don’t even talk about MLK. They talk about the present and the future. Nor are the vast majority of Republicans racists. The Left lies about that all the time. A part of my question is what can we do to counter that charge. One suggestion was lots of eating crow, and I suppose that is one approach. Another suggestion, which I liked much better, is to run and fully support, as many qualified conservative black candidates as we possibly can. Every black conservative Republican in the public eye stands as visible refutation of the charge of racism in a way no white person can. By the way, don’t forget the “qualified” part of that statement. I’m not talking about unqualified token black frontmen (like Obama, for example), but about people who are actually qualified for the offices they seek.
Well, of course, CM. Even Zach is not saying that the black abortion rates aren’t higher, though he doesn’t seem very concerned about it. But black pregnancy rates are also higher. The question is whether the net effect, even taking into account all those abortions, is that the black birth rate is lower than the white birth rate. I don’t think it is. I do suspect, without looking it up, that both blacks and whites are shrinking as a percentage of the American population as a whole. But, here, we were just talking about birth rates.
Charles Martel: Almost one-third of the potential live births of a minority population is stopped short by a brutal procedure approved by the political party that ostensibly is its champion.
That’s a different claim than the two claims above; that blacks are a fading demographic (false), and that the the live birth rate among blacks comes nowhere near that of whites (also false); which you have yet to retract or correct.
Don Quixote: It is racist (and very sad if true) to suggest, as Zach{riel} does, that the reason that blacks still don’t vote for Republicans is because they just can’t deal with the slightest criticism of Saint King. Besides, generally speaking, Republicans and the Republican party don’t even talk about MLK.
It has nothing to do with criticizing King, but rewriting the history to remove the actual cause of the precipitous loss of black support by the Republican Party, as has been done repeatedly on these threads. King is *representative* of the thoughts of many African Americans and others of goodwill. People didn’t follow King blindly. There was great controversy among blacks about the course of the struggle, and more so in the larger society.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Don Quixote: Even Zach{riel} is not saying that the black abortion rates aren’t higher, though he doesn’t seem very concerned about it.
It’s important to making progress in a conversation that people correct their errors when they are pointed out. How many times have we had to post the primary reason why African Americans abandoned the Republican Party in 1964, only to have someone repeat the history of race relations while always skipping over the events that actually address the question?
Black and white live births are comparable. The difference is the much higher rate of teen pregnancy in the black community, many ending in abortion. When you actually understand the problem, then you are more likely to be able to find solutions.
DQ, true, but what the Zachs are contending is that blacks are not dooming themselves to increasing political insignificance because their birth rate is higher than whites’. A minority group can out-baby whites by a slight percentage margin all it wants, but when it kills one-third of all the babies it conceives, and its political champion sanctions the deaths, it is committing slow political suicide.
The Zachs won’t admit that because that would require a straight-out condemnation of Democrats’ indifference to the deaths of black children. And we can’t have that, can we?
“Black and white live births are comparable. The difference is the much higher rate of teen pregnancy in the black community, many ending in abortion. When you actually understand the problem, then you are more likely to be able to find solutions.”
What causes the problem?
What’s important isn’t what historians are thinking. What’s important is what Z thinks about MLK juxtaposed against what we think of MLK. Historians are an external element.
However, we’re not citing his opinion as authoritative, but representative and persuasive within the black community.
The issue at hand is not what Martin Luther King said or didn’t say.
The problem with Z’s line is that it’s causally bankrupt, which is to say there’s a train accident waiting to happen if you look at Z’s logic tracks. Supposedly, one person, MLK, led the entire black community to vote Democrat with LBJ. That doesn’t explain why the black community continues to do so or why future black leaders did the same/different.
That’s just not how politics works. The South would never have voted for Reagan unless the ground work had been done. And it isn’t done by one person. There’s a lot of institutional and cultural biases that make adopting a new political stance hard. Many Southerners refused to vote REpublican simply because of the Civil War, desegregation, and fear of social ostracization. For some reason, perhaps the whole Jimmy Carter slap in the face, Southerners began to openly speak of voting for a Republican President. The South, especially Georgia the state I am in, was proud to have a Southern born boy like Carter be in the Presidential seat. They named streets after him. But then something bad happened. Carter proved to be a weakling, and even cultural and national pride, won’t make most Americans love or support a weakling. Human nature is too set against that.
What set the ground work for the shift of blacks to the Democrat party started a long time ago. Long before, and long after, Goldwater’s campaign. That’s where, if you look a little bit harder, Z’s causality timeline crashes down into the mud. These dramatic changes don’t happen over night and they certainly don’t happen because of one Presidential campaign. There’s a lot of work that went on behind the scenes, for decades upon decades, to conduct a political sea change. Ignoring such events and causes, is what makes historians inaccurate and wrong. Z’s not going to get any help from historians when Z’s own judgment is flawed and unreliable.
Zach, I haven’t seen anyone argue that King didn’t turn against Goldwater or that this did not have great influence in the black community. People have argued that blacks should not have taken this turn in favor of LBJ, who was far more racist than Goldwater ever was. People have tried to deal with the question of why this state of affairs continues to exist half a century later. People have pointed out 150 years of Republican support for civil rights. But your persistent focus on MLK’s statement about Goldwater serves no purpose. It’s important, but it is not the be all and end all after which we are no longer permitted to discuss the matter. As Y-man points out, it was the culmination of years of drift in that direction in any case.
Did black Americans vote against Goldwater or did they vote for LBJ?
Most Americans want medical care for older citizens. And so do I.
Most Americans want fair and stable prices and decent incomes for our farmers. And so do I.
Most Americans want a decent home in a decent neighborhood for all. And so do I.
Most Americans want an education for every child to the limit of his ability. And so do I.
Most Americans want a job for every man who wants to work. And so do I.
Most Americans want victory in our war against poverty. And so do I.
Most Americans want continually expanding and growing prosperity. And so do I.
Like the serpent offering the fruit from the tree, it sounded so sweet.
I was only 12 at the time and just becoming politically aware, but my very clear impression was that people were voting against Goldwater. We’ve talked about blacks. The fear among many whites was that electing Goldwater would guarantee World War III.
Charles Martel: A minority group can out-baby whites by a slight percentage margin all it wants, but when it kills one-third of all the babies it conceives, and its political champion sanctions the deaths, it is committing slow political suicide.
We provided statistics on live births. You should correct your previous misstatements.
Ymarsakar: Supposedly, one person, MLK, led the entire black community to vote Democrat with LBJ.
That’s not correct. There were many voices in the Civil Rights Movements, and each person had to make up their own mind. But it was an obvious choice, given the circumstances. Goldwater opposed laws against discrimination in public accommodation, the very thing that had been a central issue for most African Americans.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/society/freedom_rides/freedom_ride_dbf.htm
Ymarsakar: That doesn’t explain why the black community continues to do so or why future black leaders did the same/different.
They continued to do so after 1964 because the Republicans began a campaign of white resentment known as the Southern Strategy. As for the future, the Republican Party has a long way to go.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/michele-bachmann-signed-pledge-says-black-children-worse-off-under-obama-than-during-slavery/
Ymarsakar: For some reason, perhaps the whole Jimmy Carter slap in the face, Southerners began to openly speak of voting for a Republican President.
You mean white Southerners, of course. Thurmond switched from Democrat to Republican, in 1964, in response to the Civil Rights Act.
Ymarsakar: What set the ground work for the shift of blacks to the Democrat party started a long time ago. Long before, and long after, Goldwater’s campaign.
Yes, as we discussed previously, many African Americans began to switch during the Roosevelt Administration, as exemplified by the Marion Anderson situation. More support came when Truman integrated the military in the face of a split in his own party. Then when Kennedy intervened in King’s arrest in Birmingham, King’s father threw his support behind the Democrat. With Johnson shepherding the Civil Rights Bill through Congress, even at the risk of fracturing the Democratic Party, and with Goldwater walking away from the legislation, the switch was complete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhd-Q6tBkAQ
Don Quixote: I haven’t seen anyone argue that King didn’t turn against Goldwater or that this did not have great influence in the black community.
No. They ignore it, or denigrate King, or say blacks are ignorant, or were bribed or misled somehow, or simply act astonished that they won’t vote for the party of Lincoln. The change was so dramatic, so complete, so final, it’s clear something happened to cause the fissure. There’s plenty of conservative blacks, but the Republicans are simply tone-deaf. They will argue and argue that it wasn’t their fault. But just the fact that so many Republicans can’t comprehend why they lost the black vote in the first place is telling.
Danny Lemieux: Like the serpent offering the fruit from the tree, it sounded so sweet.
There were plenty of conservative African Americans, plenty who rejected the idea that the government could provide everything for everyone. We’re not talking a 50% or 60% majority, but nearly every black American.
Moderation queue please.
No one here has said blacks are ignorant. You are right that many Republicans are tone-deaf, though. And we have had great difficulty figuring out what message, consistent with our values, will convince more than a small minority of blacks to vote for Republicans. Even an exhaustive history like jj’s won’t help. We need to have a forward looking message, which is what I was hoping we could develop here. Instead, we’ve spent our time arguing about stuff that happened a half a century ago. Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it, but at some point we do need to come back to the present and figure out what we do now.
I firmly believe that, in the long term, conservative solutions are better for America, and for most Americans of all races, than liberal solutions. But how do I persuade not just blacks, but all groups and individuals who have consistently voted for the liberal solutions over many years, that my belief is correct?
There were plenty of conservative African Americans, plenty who rejected the idea that the government could provide everything for everyone. We’re not talking a 50% or 60% majority, but nearly every black American.
Show us the data, Zach. BTW – I’m not arguing that whites are any different, either. I happen to believe that poor people tend to vote for government to give them things. Proportionally, blacks had a higher rate of poverty than whites at that time.
Don Quixote: No one here has said blacks are ignorant.
jj: There is that, then there is the BS view of Civil Rights struggles in this country. That’s the one Democrats, blacks, the media, and the teachers subscribe to. It’s chief virtue is complete ignorance of the facts, and adherence to the idea of advancing the narrative. That the narrative is purest bullshit seems not to bother anyone.
Don Quixote: Even an exhaustive history like jj’s won’t help.
jj: Why blacks vote for them, I don’t know: there is no rational reason for them to do so. There has never been a rational reason for them to do so. Perhaps their leaders are not rational, and are more interested in something other than the truth.
Don Quixote: I firmly believe that, in the long term, conservative solutions are better for America, and for most Americans of all races, than liberal solutions. But how do I persuade not just blacks, but all groups and individuals who have consistently voted for the liberal solutions over many years, that my belief is correct?
You have to understand and respect why people believe what they do, and that requires abandoning strawman versions of their positions.
Zachriel: We’re not talking a 50% or 60% majority, but nearly every black American.
Danny Lemieux: Show us the data
“But then President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (outlawing segregation in public places) and his eventual Republican opponent, Sen. Barry Goldwater, opposed it. Johnson got 94 percent of the black vote that year, still a record for any presidential election {before Obama}.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/
I stand corrected, sort of. When jj said, “That’s the one Democrats, blacks, the media, and the teachers subscribe to. It’s chief virtue is complete ignorance of the facts” I took him to be criticizing the folks putting out the false and incomplete history, not saying blacks are ignorant.
I agree we need to understand why people believe as they do, to help figure out how to persuade them. I don’t agree that solely focusing on half a century ago gives me a complete understanding, though it certainly helps.
Whether someone or a group of someones can be classified as “ignorant” is a factual statement. It can be checked. The only people that don’t like it, tend to believe knowledge equals character and virtue, which it doesn’t.
There’s no reason for Z to start working on black problems now. So DQ’s note of the past vs the importance of the present, is ineffective against the Zs. Z wants to argue history because it’s a good way to stand around doing nothing, while hiding one’s lack of knowledge.
Addendum, I readily understand that for some reason unknown to many, Z believes discrimination is the issue, historically and present case included, that blacks vote Democrat. That ignores many of the under the hood workings of the Democrat party and the inner cities that are inhabited by controlled black and poor, however. Since Z refuses to believe the evil of Planned Parenthood, Acorn, and the other arms of the Democrat party nor does Z consider the fact of the Leftist alliance being a reality, makes Z specially susceptible to the condition of what can be called “lack of knowledge”.
So the issue isn’t discrimination, on or off, Democrat or Republican. The problem is Z’s inability to grasp things that he finds too uncomfortable to consider and analyze. Solve that problem, and the rest follows naturally.
You’re correct, Don. Although – in the light of what happened in the Senate, MLK turned out to be pretty ignorant going with LBJ, didn’t he? After a lifetime of showing absolutely no interest and doing absolutely nothing, LBJ couldn’t convince his old Senate cronies that this time he was serious, and so didn’t even hold his own party, did he? Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – not democrats.
King had to know the shit-kickers would stick together, too – he wasn’t that dumb. So he was counting on Dirksen and the Republicans to be bigger than that – but he was taking a chance. Spitting in the eye of the Republican candidate, when you knew – or should have known – you were about to require their support because you weren’t going to get much from the party of the guy you did endorse – pretty ballsy! King was requiring – expecting – Dirksen to be bigger than he was himself – and Dirksen came through.
But nobody has come close to answering the question: Why did King go for the life-long racist, who’s pals were all life-long racists, whom – if he had any nous – he had to know were not going to be on his side in this one? The Republicans delivered the goods, not the Democrats – and who didn’t know that would happen? I’m a little older than you, Don – nobody, at the time, really had any doubts at all about which way the Republicans would come down. (Nor did anyone have any real doubts about where the Democrats would be, either – though the scope of their opposition, the filibustering, the viciousness that’s mostly forgotten, etc. I think did surprise a lot of people.)
And so I wonder: with absolutely no historical reason for it, and with absolutely no current (at the time) political atmospherics or justification in favor of it – why go for LBJ? No matter how much you dislike Goldwater, he’s one guy, and the Republican Senate who gave us the 1964 and 1965 Acts cold certainly handle him. (And did.) What was King thinking? Why do something that counter to reason? (Why do something that severely counter to his personal experience with a Democrat Department of Justice?) It made no sense, and it continues to make no sense. And so I posit there was something else going on, about which we simply do not know.
The things the Democrats have been doing in the shadows for all of American history, would stagger the imagination of anyone. Currently, most people cannot even imagine the extent of what the Democrats have done. They can’t even imagine it and then declare it false. Their minds literally cannot encompass the scale of Democrat perfidy.
Nice sideways dodge, Zach:
Zach (responding to post that black Americans may have voted FOR LBJ based on his promises:
“There were plenty of conservative African Americans, plenty who rejected the idea that the government could provide everything for everyone. We’re not talking a 50% or 60% majority, but nearly every black American. ”
Danny Lemieux’s response: Show us the data?
Zach’s response:
“But then President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (outlawing segregation in public places) and his eventual Republican opponent, Sen. Barry Goldwater, opposed it. Johnson got 94 percent of the black vote that year, still a record for any presidential election {before Obama}.”
Danny’s response: And?
And again, Johnson may have pushed until his head exploded, without Dirksen and the Republicans he went nowhere. And I would also reiterate – actual history’s a problem for liberals, isn’t it? – the “landmark” 1964 legislation outlawing segregation in public places had already been done by Republicans – in 1875. Dirksen, who knew something about history, probably wasn’t nearly as impressed by the “landmark” label as some others have been. If there was a “landmark,” it would have been the Republican legislation that did the exact same thing 89 years earlier. (With, just like 1964, most Democrats voting “nay.”)
Ymarsakar: Z believes discrimination is the issue, historically and present case included, that blacks vote Democrat.
The history of discrimination and the struggle against discrimination are important parts of black culture, and certainly informs the politics.
jj: MLK turned out to be pretty ignorant going with LBJ, didn’t he?
King was very suspicious of Johnson, but Johnson’s actions convinced King of their mutual commitment to a just society and the opportunity they were given to bring it to fruition. This is borne out by their correspondence, taped conversations, and FBI records.
jj: LBJ couldn’t convince his old Senate cronies that this time he was serious, and so didn’t even hold his own party, did he? Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – not democrats.
More Senate Democrats (46) voted for the bill than Senate Republicans (27).
jj: Why did King go for the life-long racist, who’s pals were all life-long racists, whom – if he had any nous – he had to know were not going to be on his side in this one?
That you continue to ignore the answer illustrates the myopia the Republican Party has regarding the black community.
jj: No matter how much you dislike Goldwater, he’s one guy, and the Republican Senate who gave us the 1964 and 1965 Acts cold certainly handle him.
Recall that Republicans were a minority in both legislative chambers at the time. They couldn’t deliver a warm bucket of spit.
Zach wows us again with one of his spot-on uses of colorful American vernacular!
http://www.wherezachgoestodownloadsecond-handarguments.com
Actually, nobody can deliver a warm bucket of spit. Heat from spit is lost almost as soon as expectoration occurs, and the quantity necessary to fill a bucket (approx. 5 gallons) takes much spit from many donors. Unless artiifical means of keeping the spit warm are applied, no political party can deliver a bucket of warm spit (unless it uses stimulus money to heat the spit with solar or wind power).
Is Z french or something. Cause that kind of thing got eliminated in America the first time “hygiene rules” came to be enforced.
Oh, so that must be a persistent misprint in the Congressional Record – and those senators who spent 57 days filibustering he bill really weren’t democrats. I see. I guess LBJ was lying when he publicly thanked Dirksen for getting it done for him.
You see – follow this carefully – 46 does not constitute a “majority.” (An arcane word, meaning “more than half.” In those days it needed to be “more than two-thirds” in the Senate.) The majority came when a larger proportion of republicans voted for the bill – as everyone at the time knew they would. (A century of history had made that clear.)
I do not ignore the answer for why King did what he did – I have yet to see an answer. I hear a lot of nonsense, but not an answer. The fact is, you don’t know why King did what he did, either. Animus for Goldwater, who, as DQ points out was not remotely the racist Johnson was, doesn’t explain it. Take comfort, though, you’re not alone: most historians are also at something of a loss to explain King’s action. All kinds of theories, no actual answer. And whatever King’s reasons for going with LBJ were, they do not erase or alter a single one of the actions of the previous century, during which time the democrats repeatedly proved they were not the friends of American black aspirations.
jj: 46 does not constitute a “majority.”
That’s right, which is why we didn’t claim that the Democrats “passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964″ or that the Democrats “gave us the 1964 and 1965 Acts,” which you did regarding the Republicans.
jj: (An arcane word, meaning “more than half.” In those days it needed to be “more than two-thirds” in the Senate.)
That’s right. Southern Democrats had bottled up or watered down Civil Rights legislation for generations. In 1964, 44 Democratic and 27 Republican Senators finally achieved cloture in the Senate and forced a vote.
jj: The majority came when a larger proportion of republicans voted for the bill – as everyone at the time knew they would.
But Republicans were not a majority, much less a supermajority. It required bipartisan support.
jj: I do not ignore the answer for why King did what he did – I have yet to see an answer.
He said why.
“On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represented a philosophy that was morally indefensible and socially suicidal. While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, ed., Clayborne Carson (Time Warner, 1998)
Your own lack of comprehension as to why African Americans abandoned the Republican Party only further illuminates why there remains such a disconnect between Republicans and African Americans (and most other minorities).
jj: I hear a lot of nonsense, but not an answer.
You can call King’s words nonsense, but his views were shared by a large majority of the black community.
Here’s another view on individual freedom. http artofmanliness.com/2011/07/17/the-law-of-sacrifice/
“‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who fears to put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all.’ – Montrose’s Toast
Y’all got on this boat for different reasons, but y’all come to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people… better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin’. I aim to misbehave.
-Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) Serenity
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
http:// http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
Ymarsakar: Now apply this to the situation the poor and the disenfranchised blacks are in and you can see that they have been denied more than is apparent if you listen to the Left.
Right. Because Africans Americans and “white persons of goodwill” just sat in their easy chairs grumbling, never did anything, nor took any personal risks to effect change.
colonel6.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/selma27.jpg
blogs.clarionledger.com/jmitchell/files/2010/12/dr-martin-luther-king.jpg
blog.art21.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/johnlewis.jpg
http://www.glogster.com/media/5/34/29/84/34298496.jpg
Oh they did something all right. It was a war between the good and the evil. The evil did things to make it worse while the good did things to make it better. What’s so complicated you can’t understand, Z?