The American Spectator

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The Real Democrats

2.20.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 6)

Although Jeffrey Lord's piece reminds us that the Democrat Party was the party that DEFENDED SLAVERY, I believe it is still the party of division and intolerance. One recent example, the Director of the Young Democrat Party was on Bill O'Reilly's "The Factor." When O'Reilly pressed her on whether John Edwards should have fired the two ANTI-Catholic bloggers, this woman said with fervor "NO." When pushed further whether she would have fired them, again "NO." However, when he asked her if these same two bloggers wrote anti homosexual, anti-black, or anti-Muslim comments, would she push for their dismissal, her rapid response was "YES!" When O'Reilly pointed out her hypocrisy, her only response was, "That's different." How so, she never answered. So although the Democrat Party believes (self-righteously) that it is the defender of homosexual or black rights, Catholics or Christians, well, just read the liberal papers or watch the liberal news and you'll know where we stand with the intolerable Democrat Party.
-- Joellen M. Rarebit
Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey

Jeffrey Lord wrote, "What political party fought ferociously to defend and keep slavery, to build and insist on a social system of segregation, with both slavery and segregation giving a social, moral and legal thumbs up or wink-and-a-nod to 'a few white boys' sexually assaulting black women? The Democratic Party," and "Is it any wonder that a political party that has such sentiments as its founding principles moved seamlessly from slavery to segregation to racial quotas..." Just so.

I'm just old enough to remember the truly segregated beaches, de facto if no longer enforceable under the then recently defunct Jim Crow laws, of the early '60s S. Florida. I also remember many "yellow dog" Democrats (a Southerner who'd rather vote for a "yella dog" than for a Republican) I knew, a term you don't hear much anymore. In particular was a nice little matronly South Carolinian lady with the most beautiful blue-blood Southern accent spouting the most vicious hatred of all things Republican.

The apparent dissonance notwithstanding, that her place in the party of race was eternally secure was easily understandable on the basis of its basic history as Mr. Lord succinctly points out. She made no bones of retelling all the Lost Causers' reasons why she hated the Republicans -- because they successfully prosecuted the Civil War, Sherman burned Columbia out of cruel spite, Lincoln ended slavery after promising not to and a victorious Union otherwise semi-successfully imposed its will on the South for decades to come. But, it wouldn't take long once she got to talking for her not so subtle disdain for other races to surface and how she held Republicans responsible for all that unpleasantness, too. And about her support for the modern Dems given their seemingly contradictory and antithetical racial policies? Well, Mr. Lord nails it again. She understood their true motivation and it's all of a piece to one, like her, obsessed with race and power. Better to be in a position to dictate and direct the racial spoils system, much as in the old south, than not, especially under the new rules. She was perfectly comfortable with the self-regarding antebellum tradition whereby so-called enlightened white Southern masters understood that using sticks alone was a poor way to keep the help in line not to mention the prospect of damaging their "property." For effective influence over their assets carrots were wanted, too. The modern Democrats, now comprised of mostly self-regarding northerners, who also had no great love of different races, have simply modified their methods over time as the law, social custom and evolving morality on matters of race have taken away more and more of their sticks. Carrots rule now. And as in the days of segregated buses, it's government that doles out the carrots just as it was Montgomery's city code that wielded the sticks and so Dems mean to stay in control of that system.

Knowing this I've used a debating tactic for many years on the perplexing question of how it is the Dems have managed to cast themselves as the party of racial reconciliation when it's us Republicans who bled to end slavery and supported ending Jim Crow in much larger percentages then Dems ever did. This tactic works particularly well with younger folks. I point out that in all of those old B&W photos and newsreels from the Civil Rights era of diners being assaulted, marchers being set on by police dogs and fire hoses, taunting political figures standing in school room doors, masses of white hooded men around burning crosses, etc., etc. every single angry looking white man and woman is almost certainly a Democrat. And it's only slightly different today. Sure they've changed their political tactics but the goals remain the same. They always were and still are the party that seeks to impose its will in social and racial matters to its benefit and at the cost of dependency of their so-called beneficiaries. Their view of their charges is unchanged and is reflected in the condescending and cynical assumptions behind all of their ideas and policies. And so today, just as in my news of yore analysis, in every news clip and photo where there are angry people stirring the pot of racial spoils and seasoning it with the bitter divisiveness of victimhood they are all almost certainly likely to be, Democrats.
-- Mark Shepler
Jupiter, Florida

I take no position on anything Lord says in this article save one. Iraqis are not "people of color" for God's sake! They are Caucasian, period. Why is it that so many people assume, apparently, that only blond, blue eyed Northern Europeans are Caucasian? It's ridiculous. To think of anyone in terms of facial features or skin color is stupid, anyway.

Can we not have done with this business of saying "people of color?" I am of Northern European extraction. What does that make me, transparent? Does my skin not have a color? I am certainly not white, which is the color of the screen on which you are probably reading these words. I am Caucasian. I am neither proud nor ashamed on that fact. It is just that, a fact, and one as inconsequential as the fact that I am of a certain age or the fact that I live in a certain state. Big deal!

Lord sabotages his own argument, in part at least, by making this basic mistake. Again, at the risk of being repetitious, Iraqis are not Asian, they are not African, they are Caucasian. Perhaps Lord should have said that Iraqis are considered by some to be incapable of embracing democracy because they are not European. I don't agree with that thesis, but at least it would have made more sense than referring to the color of their skin.
-- William Rupp

NEW IRAQ INTELLIGENCE
Re: Philip Klein's Crying Nuke:

While Philip Klein makes some interesting points in his most recent article, an insinuation that he puts forth about halfway through has given me pause and makes me wonder why there seems to be an ongoing parade of conservative writers and pundits that seem to be parroting the Left's constant droning on about how Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs. Klein indicates that U.S. military officials "showed reporters mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and powerful bombs" being used by insurgents that were "being supplied by Iran," but he warns that this would "echo a similarly convincing address" by Colin Powell to the U.N. about Iraq's WMDs "which turned out to be based on flawed intelligence." Again, the intelligence on Iraq's WMDs was wrong and Saddam didn't have any. Just the other week, another noted conservative writer, Charles Krauthammer (of all people), echoed the same sentiment during the panel discussion on Fox News' "Special Report" news program -- that Saddam had no WMDs.

What have I missed? As I've written before in this letters page, information has come forth for a number of years now that Iraqi WMDs were hauled off to Syria and were hidden in the Beckaa Valley. John Loftus, former Justice Department prosecutor, has pointed out in print and also on radio (Larry Elder's show in 2004) the four sites in Syria where Iraqi chemical weapons and other items have been stored, based on information he had received from very high levels in the government. The radio show interview came right after a couple of Al-Qaeda members were stopped from transporting 20 tons of chemicals (including VX and sarin nerve agents) into Jordan for an attack in the Jordanian capital. What made it even more interesting was the fact that Syria has no capability to produce such material, so where did it come from? Three guesses and two don't count. In his book "Saddam's Secrets", former Iraqi air force general Georges Sada clearly states in Chapter 10 that he was THERE when gutted Iraqi Airlines Boeing 727s and a 747 were used to transport WMDs into Syria, under the guise of disaster relief for the victims of an irrigation dam collapse in the northwestern district of Zeyzoun in the summer of 2002.

Based on information the Washington Times' Bill Gets got from retired Air Force Lt. General James Clapper of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, satellite intelligence photos were reported as showing heavy cargo vehicles and trucks moving into and out of Syria constantly in the time period up to the invasion of Iraq, suggesting materials that we weren't supposed to find in Iraq would not be found there. Richard Minister touches on the myth of no Iraqi Wads in his book "Disinformation" (Myth #11).

Numerous other writers such as Mensnewsdaily.com's Joe Mariani, Washington Times' Rowan Scarborough, the Spectator's own (at the time) Jed Babbin, WorldThreats.com's Ryan Mauro and NRO's Jim Geraghty, have also given evidence that Syria is the resting place for Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons and other methods of mass murder. Ken Timmerman of Newsmax.com wrote a piece early last year, based on information received from the Pentagon, that even Russian Spetsnaz (Special Forces) troopers were involved in moving the stockpiles out of Iraq. Heck, given the one and one-half years or so that led up to the war and the advanced warning that was given Saddam, I could have driven the bloody things out of Iraq and into Syria all by myself.

Please, somebody correct me if I have been out of it all this time and tell me that these reports have been nothing but hallucinations. And if they aren't hallucinations after all, why are all too many of my fellow conservatives buying into the Left's longtime lies, fabrications and smokescreens?
-- Jim Bjaloncik
Stow, Ohio

Mr. Klein, as a way of saying that I sorta, kinda, pretty much agree with you, may I suggest a parallel idea. In my humble opinion, it would be disastrous for Bush to decide to commit our military to solving the Iranian nightmare.

Letter to the Editor

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