The American Spectator : Attention Supreme Court

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Attention Supreme Court

By Katharine Inglis Butler on 4.23.09 @ 6:08AM

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was an ingenious solution in 1965. Its extension in 2006 was mere political expediency. Now the Supreme Court must decide whether that extension was also constitutional.

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These changes do not mean that racial discrimination no longer exists in covered jurisdictions, or even that it is "no worse" there than elsewhere. It does mean that permanent laws of national application are completely sufficient to address such discrimination now and in the future. The role Section 5 was designed to play can be safely left to minorities themselves, who are politically sophisticated adults, no longer in need of a protective federal parent.

The eagerness with which Congress passed the extension can be attributed partially to the Voting Rights Act's deserved iconic status. Laudably, because of Section 5, particularly as stretched by DOJ, minorities were incorporated into the political process more rapidly than otherwise would have occurred. Supporters of the extension argued that without Section 5, these gains would be lost. Seemingly, Congress gave little thought to the logic of this contention. Moreover, had it given serious thought to how Section 5 actually works, it would have discovered that this device, adopted as a shield against discrimination, has morphed into a sword by which DOJ has imposed its limited notions of representation on covered jurisdictions.

Section 5's protection is "jurisdiction specific," not "victim-specific." Section 5 treats certain minorities as special wards of the federal government -- political children -- based not on their present or even past circumstances, but on their residence. An upper-class, Ivy League educated African American born in New Hampshire, who as an adult moves to an affluent Virginia suburb, is entitled to have DOJ protect him against the mere possibility his vote might be diluted. But the sharecropper grandson of a slave who moved from rural Mississippi to Illinois in the 1960s has to fend for himself if he becomes the victim of actual discrimination.

Section 5 treats the acts of a legislative body in a covered jurisdiction with suspicion, regardless of the body's racial make-up. When a racially diverse city council in South Carolina, elected with full minority participation, redraws its election districts in 2011, the new districts will be "suspect" until the city convinces DOJ otherwise. Election districts redrawn for any reason by an all-white legislative body in Michigan are deemed valid until a challenger proves otherwise in court.

Section 5 imposes a separate body of law on covered jurisdictions. It prevents a covered jurisdiction from implementing certain voting changes, even if it proves the changes satisfy anti-voting discrimination laws that apply nationwide. A Section 5 city that currently rotates the mayor's position among council members elected from single member districts very likely could not make the mayor a separate position, elected by all the city's voters, when the same change by a non-Section 5 city likely would survive a racial discrimination challenge. A Section 5 city may be forced to change its electoral system to one guaranteeing proportional representation or forgo an economically necessary annexation. An annexation made by a similarly situated non-covered city almost certainly could not be challenged successfully as discriminatory.

Had Section 5 been limited to preventing certain jurisdictions from adopting potentially disfranchising devices -- its initial purpose--its continued existence would be innocuous, its constitutionality notwithstanding. It was an early Supreme Court holding that Section 5 applied to constitutionally mandated changes in voting districts that gave DOJ the power to reorder the political process. Unlike a new registration requirement, which could be abandoned if DOJ objected, election districts must be redrawn after every census. Thus, when DOJ objected to redrawn districts, covered jurisdictions had to produce new ones until DOJ was satisfied.

Because DOJ could prevent implementation of redistricting plans, it was able to pressure covered jurisdictions to create majority-minority districts at every level of government and at all costs, which eventually came to include demands that they abandon, if necessary, traditional districting standards. These nationally recognized standards were designed to produce sensible districts in which voters, political organizers, and candidates could engage effectively in the political process in our representational system, which assigns seats to defined geographic areas.

Some of the more absurd districts created in the 1990s in response to DOJ demands -- districts that ran down interstates and resembled bug splats -- were successfully challenged as racial gerrymanders. A slim majority of the Supreme Court declared that Section 5 did not mandate such districts, but its ruling came too late to prevent the forced adoption of tortured districts by virtually all Section 5 jurisdictions. Moreover, the Court left many loopholes for compliant legislators to cooperate with DOJ, so much so that significant remnants of the actual districts found to be unconstitutional in the 1990s are still evident in districting plans today.

Districts grossly geographically distorted for any reason seriously undermine the political process for all participants. In non-Section 5 jurisdictions, traditional districting standards keep the natural tendencies of legislators to "gerrymander" for personal and partisan advantage in check. Seldom is a legislator in these states able to gerrymander his district sufficiently to long thwart organized efforts to defeat him. The association of Section 5 with more extreme, unconscionable, and disabling, geographic distortions of the electoral system is easily seen by a visual comparison of election district maps for Section 5 jurisdictions with those not covered. Compare, for example, the congressional districts Georgia adopted in 2002, several of which cannot be described in recognizable geographic terms, with those of, say, Ohio. Compare any non-Section 5 state's districting plans with Mississippi's current state house and senate districts, which would be in the running for the two most difficult jigsaw puzzles of the century.

If Section 5 is unnecessary and harmful, why did most senators and representatives of the covered jurisdictions vote for it? Were they and their elected colleagues at the state and local level looking for an opportunity to "reassert Jim Crow," but soul-searchingly voted for self-restraint? Did they believe that laws sufficient to protect minorities in Michigan were not adequate for their states, or would not be enforced by their federal judges? Did they believe their state's white voters required special supervision, and their African-Americans voters were so politically helpless as to need a special guardian?

Ironically, perhaps it is the ability to distort districts, initially coerced by DOJ, that provides one reason for these representatives' lack of opposition to the extension. Except for U.S. senators, most legislators in office in 2006 at all levels, were elected from single member districts, many of them geographically distorted. When initially forced to ignore districting standards to create minority district, affected legislators added distortions to protect their electoral prospects. DOJ's sole mandate was to protect minorities, which it equated with maximizing the number of minority districts. It had little interest in how the districts were obtained or whether legislators engaged in further self-protective gerrymandering.

Those subsequently elected in the distorted districts naturally thought they were perfect. Officials hooked on the personal benefits of no districting standards, for which Section 5 provided cover, could not be counted on to oppose extension. In 2006, Republicans believed they benefited from the overwhelmingly white districts left when minority voters were gerrymandered into districts "of their own." Educated by the last election, they may now realize that the danger of districts grossly distorted for partisan advantage is to tie their personal fate to the temporal popularity of their party. When election units lose their independent geographic identity (identities tied to counties, municipalities, neighborhoods, and regions, for example), much of the voter focus on individual representatives and candidates also is lost. In party primaries, candidates unable to identify issues of common interest to their constituents fall back on appeals to the parties' extremes. General election voters then are likely to vote their "default" partisan position for all but the most visible of offices.

White Democrats understood the cost to them of creating majority minority districts by any means possible, but to not support extension posed a greater risk. Senators had little skin in the districting game, but might be tarred by opposing extension.

The Court should not view the absence of meaningful opposition to extending Section 5 from covered jurisdiction as self-substantiating evidence of a continuing need for its extraordinary scheme. Political expediency, perceived self-interest, fear of being labeled anti-minorities, ignorance about Section 5's actual operation, and resignation to its inevitable passage are better explanations for the extension's easy passage than concluding that Congress carefully considered a well-supported record of abuse not susceptible to ordinary legal remedies.

In 1965, those who supported the unprecedented measures of the Voting Right Act displayed ingenuity and substantial courage. In 2006, no dire problem required ingenuity. Nor was courage necessary to jump on the extension steamroller. Few voters would notice if Congress extended Section 5, but the press would raise cane if it did not. Our politicians understood that the case for extension could be made in misleading sound bites, but the case against it required careful articulation to an audience actually interested in listening. When the Court considers the extension's constitutionality, hopefully the justices will weigh the consequences of leaving the political process of a substantial segment of the nation's electorate at the mercy of federal bureaucrats (and possibly co-opted legislators).

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About the Author

Katharine Inglis Butler is professor of law at the University of South Carolina.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (40) | Leave a comment

Robert Rosencrans| 4.23.09 @ 7:17AM

Whenever any government makes something or someone special, ever other thing or someone becomes less special, and works under diminished capacity.

Red Phillips| 4.23.09 @ 7:30AM

"Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was an ingenious solution in 1965."

What?! Did I surf to The New Republic by accident? The Voting Rights Act was and still is grossly unconstitutional.

Crackerjack Joe| 4.23.09 @ 8:28AM

Precisely!

Robert| 4.23.09 @ 10:26AM

The US gives more scrutiny to drivers and gun owners than voters. Since giving someone with no clue as to the issues for which he casts his vote the right by such vote to plunder the wealth of one who has used his resources to acquire enough education to assemble said resources and the knowledge to vote for their preservation is no less dangerous to our society that the driver who cannot hold his liquor or the gun owner who uses his weapon illegally.

I will shock all you libs and even a great number of conservatives with this statement: The only salvation for our country is the imposition of a literacy test to prospective voters. This test should NOT be selectively imposed upon any race or creed, so you kneejerkers who will jump to call me racist, zip it! As a populace educated in the issues on which they vote is essential to the integrity of an election, a license to vote is vital to the preservation of this country. literacy, it would seem to me, is the very basic prerequisite to being able to even understand issues, let alone be a determinant in their outcome.

This is to recognize that the vote is a precious, fungible right. YES, fungible! Just ask the citizens of Venezuela! We are quickly sliding down the slippery slope of pandering politicians who have discovered the gold mine of power in making the populace ignorant (read public schools, NEA) mining the votes of the ignorant, and ultimately, establishing themselves permanently as the governing elite.

We are not so far from that precipice. I worry seriously that we have already passed the point of no return with the election in 2008 of a fraudster by an uneducated, illiterate and rent-seeking public. Many would be perfectly content with a demagogue promising them a pot of gold if only they would install him as President for Life.

Chavez just did it and our president smiled smartly in agreement. Americans: get a handle on The Vote or Venezuela will be the template of our future!

Tim| 4.23.09 @ 11:01AM

Lets get down to serious talk shall we.

There is a very good chance that the S. Court will rule 5-4 to over rule this unconstitutional deal.

Justice Kennedy is the key swing vote.

The important thing here is to keep Justice Kennedy alive unlike Freddie Mac's money prince who was just found dead just before a major investigation that he would have ratted out the bad guys.

Would the far left socialist loones resort to killing a Supreme Court Justice.....You bet your sweet anal cavity they would...In my humble opinion.

Jim| 4.23.09 @ 1:40PM

I'm sorry, but, IMO a BIG reason the country is in the shape it is in today is due to voters who have NO understanding of what they are voting for or against. Literacy test are STILL a good idea. If you can't read, how can you deliver an informed vote?

Gill O'Teen| 4.23.09 @ 2:03PM

Not just a literacy test which could be passed by reading aloud a random 250 consecutive word selection from either The Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution, but a citizenship test, to pass which a prospective voter after proving citizenship and residence, must give the name and political party affiliation of the President of the United States, the Vice-President of the United States, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the President Pro Tem of the Senate, both U.S. Senators from their state, the Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives from their district and the Governor of their state. They should also know, unlike the current doofus in chief, how many states belong to this Union. They should also be able to show that they pay taxes other than sales taxes or built-in taxes such as that portion of their rent which the landlord is required to pay on his property. I find it infuriating that even though I try very hard to understand and keep current on the important issues of the day, my vote is obliterated by the illiterate masses looking for a free lunch.

Red Phillips| 4.23.09 @ 5:30PM

Y'all are making me proud. Literacy tests are an entirely reasonable and wise policy, and I concur that we should require a civics test as well. Conservatives have historically favored limiting the franchise, and it has been liberals historically who supported expanding it.

Perhaps we should be glad that a University law professor is even willing to have something published at AmSpec, but this article is counterproductive. It does positive harm. Maybe she fancies herself some sort of conservative, but products of the modern legal education system are almost never (Gutzman being an honorable exception) constitutionalists or originalists because the system beats it out of them.

This article is very typical of anything written by a modern conservative regarding civil rights legislation, all of which was unconstitutional. It starts out with the obligatory white self flagellation to put the writer on the side of the PC angels. Then sings the praises of the legislation. Then meekly says that maybe, just maybe we can move on now. Whew! Way to forcefully argue that conservative case. With friends like these …

Jack BB| 4.24.09 @ 4:07AM

Yeah, we need to introduce reading tests. I'm so sick of the Civil Rights Act. It's not because I hate black people, I think they are very funny. I just don't think they're entitled to special treatment. Lord knows they've had it easy. We need to get serious about ending entitlements and building a boarder wall. Nobody gerrymanders districts anymore. Why would states like Georgia and Arizona want to mess with the voting rights of minorities, it's absurd. Racism is dead, we know this because we're NOT racist. Again, this has nothing to do with race, we just want to lift those draconion restrictions because we care deeply about state's rights. It just erks me when those states don't get to choose their own voting procedures SOOO MUCHH! It keeps me up at night. It's not a race thing at all though, cause racism is totally dead. The free market killed it. I read that in an Ayn Rand book so it must be true given her powers of deductive reasoning. Clearly this is ACORN's doing.

Debra M| 4.24.09 @ 5:03AM

Why don't republicans just come out and say that they hate black people? They're not fooling anyone. Why do you think they South started voting Republican after the Civil Rights Act. Because they didn't want blacks voting. It's okay to be racist, everyone is a little, but just acknowledge it and we can move on from there. I was a Republican for a long time. A die hard republican. Libertarian, the whole thing (except for the fundamentalist Christian thing, it's anti-thetical to logical positivism). But then I went out into the world, went to college, did some studying beyond talk radio. I realized the right wing is dead wrong on a whole host of issues socially and economically. What's worse is that the modern conservative movement rose up in reaction to the breakdown of segregation, largely in opposition to it. Since that time, conservatives have played off of racial fears the racial fears of the White Flight generation in getting them to vote for them, using both direct and indirect racism. Lee Atwater, Karl Rove's mentor, gives a great account of how he used race as a wedge issue during his political campaigns for Reagan and Bush.

"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

I know how hard it must be being a Conservative right now. You think you're not racists and yet you can't stand having a black President. It's even worse then Clinton and you don't undertand why it feels that way. The facts don't seem to fit into the framework any longer. You're ability to exercise cognitive dissedence is breaking down. But I promise you, if you open your minds just a little, take some post-modern, post structuralist economics classes at the local community college, or buy a book about post-colonialism, you'll start to see things differently, learn new things and ideas and things will start to make a lot more sense. This comment is directed more to the History channel loving libertarians than the 700 club watching bible thumpers.

Gill O'Teen| 4.24.09 @ 6:56AM

One of my Dad’s favorite sayings was, “A day late and a dollar short.” In honor of his memory, I offer my own version of a morning after pill. Last September, when he was a mere senator, the greatest vice-president of The United States since Dick Cheney left office said words that in effect implied that paying taxes is a patriotic thing to do. A traitor is hardly a patriot. So an implication of jo-jo’s statement is that people who do not pay taxes are traitors. Why should traitors have a right to vote? Heck, why should they be rewarded with obumah cabinet or staff positions?

John Daniel| 4.24.09 @ 8:06AM

Let's call the 2006 extension what it was...the last Reconstruction Act. And who said The War is over....

Robert Rosencrans| 4.24.09 @ 9:27AM

Debra M's comment shows her ignorance of the racial history of the Democratic Party. Not only were the Democrats responsible for Jim Crow, they were not leaders on civil rights. Perhaps Debra M wants to gloss over the fact that Senator Byrd, a Democrat and U.S. Senator, was a former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan. The Democratic Party history is a litany of purposeful racial division and attempts to subvert rights for minorities.
http://members.tripod.com/~GOPcapitalist/democratrecord.html

A little known fact of history involves the heavy opposition to the civil rights movement by several prominent Democrats. Similar historical neglect is given to the important role Republicans played in supporting the civil rights movement. A calculation of 26 major civil rights votes from 1933 through the 1960's civil rights era shows that Republicans favored civil rights in approximately 96% of the votes, whereas the Democrats opposed them in 80% of the votes! These facts are often intentionally overlooked by the left wing Democrats for obvious reasons. In some cases, the Democrats have told flat out lies about their shameful record during the civil rights movement.

Democrat Senators organized the record Senate filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Included among the organizers were several prominent and well known liberal Democrat standard bearers including:
- Robert Byrd, current senator from West Virginia
- J. William Fulbright, Arkansas senator and political mentor of Bill Clinton
- Albert Gore Sr., Tennessee senator, father and political mentor of Al Gore. Gore Jr. has been known to lie about his father's opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
- Sam Ervin, North Carolina senator of Watergate hearings fame
- Richard Russell, famed Georgia senator and later President Pro Tempore

The complete list of the 21 Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Senators:

- Hill and Sparkman of Alabama
- Fulbright and McClellan of Arkansas
- Holland and Smathers of Florida
- Russell and Talmadge of Georgia
- Ellender and Long of Louisiana
- Eastland and Stennis of Mississippi
- Ervin and Jordan of North Carolina
- Johnston and Thurmond of South Carolina
- Gore Sr. and Walters of Tennessee
- H. Byrd and Robertson of Virginia
- R. Byrd of West Virginia

Democrat opposition to the Civil Rights Act was substantial enough to literally split the party in two. A whopping 40% of the House Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in the Senate was even higher. Similar trends occurred with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supported by 82% of House Republicans and 94% of Senate Republicans. The same Democrat standard bearers took their normal racists stances, this time with Senator Fulbright leading the opposition effort.

It took the hard work of Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Republican Whip Thomas Kuchel to pass the Civil Rights Act (Dirksen was presented a civil rights accomplishment award for the year by the head of the NAACP in recognition of his efforts). Upon breaking the Democrat filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republican Dirksen took to the Senate floor and exclaimed "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!" (Full text of speech). Sadly, Democrats and revisionist historians have all but forgotten (and intentionally so) that it was Republican Dirksen, not the divided Democrats, who made the Civil Rights Act a reality. Dirksen also broke the Democrat filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that was signed by Republican President Eisenhower.

Outside of Congress, the three most notorious opponents of school integration were all Democrats:
- Orval Faubus, Democrat Governor of Arkansas and one of Bill Clinton's political heroes
- George Wallace, Democrat Governor of Alabama
- Lester Maddox, Democrat Governor of Georgia

The most famous of the school desegregation standoffs involved Governor Faubus. Democrat Faubus used police and state forces to block the integration of a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The standoff was settled and the school was integrated only after the intervention of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Even the Democrat Party organization resisted integration and refused to allow minority participation for decades. Exclusion of minorities was the general rule of the Democrat Party of many states for decades, especially in Texas. This racist policy reached its peak under the New Deal in the southern and western states, often known as the New Deal Coalition region of FDR. The Supreme Court in Nixon v. Herndon declared the practice of "white primaries" unconstitutional in 1927 after states had passed laws barring Blacks from participating in Democrat primaries. But the Democrat Parties did not yield to the Court’s order. After Nixon v. Herndon, Democrats simply made rules within the party's individual executive committees to bar minorities from participating, which were struck down in Nixon v. Condon in 1932. The Democrats, in typical racist fashion, responded by using state parties to pass rules barring blacks from participation. This decision was upheld in Grovey v. Townsend, which was not overturned until 1944 by Smith v. Allwright. The Texas Democrats responded with their usual ploys and turned to what was known as the "Jaybird system" which used private Democrat clubs to hold white-only votes on a slate of candidates, which were then transferred to the Democrat party itself and put on their primary ballot as the only choices. Terry v. Adams overturned the Jaybird system, prompting the Democrats to institute blocks of unit rule voting procedures as well as the infamous literacy tests and other Jim Crow regulations to specifically block minorities from participating in their primaries. In the end, it took 4 direct Supreme Court orders to end the Democrat's "white primary" system, and after that it took countless additional orders, several acts of Congress, and a constitutional amendment to tear down the Jim Crow codes that preserved the Democrat's white primary for decades beyond the final Supreme Court order ruling it officially unconstitutional.

Hispanics in South Texas were treated especially poorly by the Democrat Party, which relied heavily on a system of political bosses to coerce and intimidate Hispanics into voting for Democrat primary candidates of choice. Though coercion is illegal, this system, known as the Patron system, is still in use to this day by local Democrat parties in some heavy Hispanic communities of the southwest.

rob in Katy| 4.24.09 @ 10:30AM

I am all for going way back, where only property owners can vote. I am tired of those that don't work, don't save, don't contribute voting themselves into the pockets of those that do. Failing that, how about those that pay a NET tax can vote. No Representation without Taxation!

Robert II| 4.24.09 @ 1:04PM

Sure Robert, I agree the democratic party was the party if Jim Crow, in the early 20th Century. But since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party has assumed that mantle, and continues to till this day. It's reflected in the posts of the people on this website. Lee Atwater freely admitted to it. The Southtern Strategy is not a secret, everyone knows about it. The problem is that within the next 20 years, whites are going to be a minority in this country. The number of people who don't believe in God has doubled in the last 10 years. Younger Americans, like myself, work with African Americans, hispanics and gays, and frankly were not scared of them. The wedge issues that the Republican Party have used since 1968 are dulled and are getting duller every year that passes and a new age cohort turns 18, or a new immigrant hopes the boarder, or another inner city teenager has child. You guys have lost the culture war. 10 years ago, the election of an African American would have been impossiible. This year, McCain and Palin through every racist insuation in the book at Obama; that he was a Muslim, a terrorist he hated America, and they failed miserably. It's obvious to those who pay attention that the days of Willie Horton ads are over. Well african americans are far from equal yet, the Southern racists (formally Dixiecrats, not Republicrats) are losing their grip on the electorate.

As for rob in Katy's comment: have you really thought that through. If I wanted to take control of a democracy that employed your system, I would do everything I could to make sure that people in adversarial districts lost jobs, pulling government contracts out of them or closing down infrastructure near by. The gateways to abusing such a system is obvious. Please think before you speak.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.24.09 @ 4:50PM

The libs can come here and lie all they want. The Democrats have never been on the right side of any racial issue.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.24.09 @ 4:54PM

I leave you with some historical quotes from well known Democrats.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110011033
"I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union."

--Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.

President Truman's civil rights program "is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

--Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69

"There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will."

--Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75

"The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent."

--Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."

--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957

"I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race."

--Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.

"I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes."

--Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods."

--Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002

"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans."

--James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia

"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."

--Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984

"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."

--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

* "You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."

* "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state."

* "I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."

* "There's less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with."

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

Bonus quote:

"It has of late become the custom of the men of the South to speak with entire candor of the settled and deliberate policy of suppressing the negro vote. They have been forced to choose between a policy of manifest injustice toward the blacks and the horrors of negro rule. They chose to disfranchise the negroes. That was manifestly the lesser of two evils. . . . The Republican Party committed a great public crime when it gave the right of suffrage to the blacks. . . . So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the menace of the rule of the blacks will impend, and the safeguards against it must be maintained."

--Editorial, "The Political Future of the South," New York Times, May 10, 1900)

Robert Rosencrans| 4.24.09 @ 4:59PM

An appropriate follow would be to talk about the Clinton's racist tactics during the campaign. Not only individually, but they got some patsys to step forward for them.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1954080/posts

As the result of liberal historical revisionism, few Americans realize that Democrats ruled the segregated South until the 1960s. Democrats were the party of Jim Crow and Bull Connor. Senate Democrats, including former Ku Klux Klan recruiter Robert Byrd and Bill Clinton mentor William Fulbright and Al Gore, Sr. filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The stalemate was broken by Senate Republicans ensuring passage of the bill.

The racism that never left the Democratic Party has bubbled to the surface in the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination. The Clintons went out and got BET founder Robert Johnson to put the smear on Obama - in order to avoid the backlash that took place after Bill Shaheen and Bob Kerrey each took shots at the uppity Illinois senator.

Even though Republican President George W. Bush appointed more blacks to positions of real power and authority, idiots like Kanye West blurt out on national television that "Bush doesn't like black people." African-Americans have consistently given an overwhelming majority of their votes to Democrats based on illusory promises that are never fulfilled.

However, the Clintons are going to have to take down the black guy if they are to achieve their own political ends. It would not be the first time, since the Clintons pushed Maynard Jackson aside to install Terry McAuliffe as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The Lesson: Just because the Democratic Party doesn't make blacks sit in the back of the bus anymore doesn't mean it will ever let them get behind the steering wheel.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.24.09 @ 5:02PM

Another good read. This was written by an African American.

http://stoprepublicans.blogspot.com/2006/05/racist-history-of-democratic-party.html

Sunday, May 21, 2006
The Racist History of the Democratic Party
The following editorial was written a few years ago by Wayne Perryman, an inner city minister in Seattle and the author of Unfounded Loyalty. This is the man who brought a reparations lawsuit against the Democratic Party. What, you didn't hear about that in the media? Imagine that!

Most people are either a Democrat by design, or a Democrat by deception. That is either they were well aware of the racist history of the Democratic Party and still chose to be Democrat, or they were deceived into thinking that the Democratic Party is a party that sincerely cares about Black people.

History reveals that every piece of racist legislation that was ever passed and every racist terrorist attack that was ever inflicted on African Americans, was initiated by members of the Democratic Party. From the formation of the Democratic Party in 1792 to the Civil Rights movement of 1960's, Congressional records show the Democrat Party passed no specific laws to help Blacks, every law that they introduced into Congress was designed to hurt blacks. The chronicles of history shows that during the past 160 years the Democratic Party legislated Jim Crow laws, Black Codes and a multitude of other laws at the state and federal level to deny African Americans their rights as citizens.

History reveals that the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to abolish slavery and challenge other racist legislative acts initiated by the Democratic Party.

Some called it the Civil War, others called it the War Between the States, but to the African Americans at that time, it was the War Between the Democrats and the Republicans over slavery. The Democrats gave their lives to expand it, Republican gave their lives to ban it.

During the Senate debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it was revealed that members of the Democratic Party formed many terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and intimidate African Americans voters. The Ku Klux Klan Act was a bill introduced by a Republican Congress to stop Klan Activities. Senate debates revealed that the Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.

History reveals that Democrats lynched, burned, mutilated and murdered thousands of blacks and completely destroyed entire towns and communities occupied by middle class Blacks, including Rosewood, Florida, the Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma, and Wilmington, North Carolina to name a few.

After the Civil War, Democrats murdered several hundred black elected officials (in the South) to regain control of the southern government.

History reveals that it was Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican that introduced legislation to give African Americans the so-called 40 acres and a mule and Democrats overwhelmingly voted against the bill. Today many white Democrats are opposed to paying African Americans trillions of dollars in Reparation Pay, money that should be paid by the Democratic Party.

History reveals that it was Abolitionists and Radical Republicans such as Henry L. Morehouse and General Oliver Howard that started many of the traditional Black colleges, while Democrats fought to keep them closed. Many of our traditional Black colleges are named after white Republicans.

Congressional records show it was Democrats that strongly opposed the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. These three Amendments were introduced by Republicans to abolish slavery, give citizenship to all African Americans born in the United States and, give Blacks the right to vote.

Congressional records show that Democrats were opposed to passing the following laws that were introduced by Republicans to achieve civil rights for African Americans:

Civil Rights Act 1866
Reconstruction Act of 1867
Freedman Bureau Extension Act of 1866
Enforcement Act of 1870
Force Act of 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Act of 1960

And during the 60's many Democrats fought hard to defeat the

1964 Civil Rights Act
1965 Voting Rights Acts
1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act

Court records show that it was the Democrats that supported the Dred Scott Decision. The decision classified Blacks as property rather than people. It was also the racist Jim Crow practices initiated by Democrats that brought about the two landmark cases of Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v. The Board of Education.

At the turn of the century (1900), Southern Democrats continued to oppress African Americans by placing thousands in hard-core prison labor camps. According to most historians, the prison camps were far worse than slavery. The prisoners were required to work from 10-14 hours a day, six to seven days a week in temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees and in temperatures that fell well below zero. The camps provided free labor for building railroads, mining coal-mines and for draining snake and alligator invested swamps and rivers. Blacks were transported from one project to another in rolling cages similar to the ones used to transfer circus animals. One fourth of the prison populations were children ages 6 to 18. Young Cy Williams age 12, was sentenced to 20 years for stealing a horse that he was too small to ride. Eight-year old Will Evans was sentenced to 2 years of hard labor for taking some change from a store counter and six-year old Mary Gay was sentenced to 30 days for taking a hat. While authorities sent whites to jail for the same offenses, they sent blacks to the prison camps with much longer sentences. Thousands died from malaria, frost bites, heat strokes, shackle poisoning, others were buried alive in collapsing mines, or blown to pieces in tunnel explosions, and still others drowned in swamps or were beaten and shot to death. Every southern black citizen was a potential prisoner for any alleged small offense, including violating evening curfews. Through the prison camp system, southern owners of railroads, mines and farms had an unlimited source of free labor. The black prisoners played a major role the South's economic development. Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, said, in his opinion, "the prison camps were a new form of slavery, but far more inhumane."

History reveals that it was three white persons that opposed the Democrat's racist practices who started the NAACP.

Dr. Martin Luther King, several Civil Rights leaders and many historians reported that during the first two years of his administration, President John F. Kennedy ignored Dr. King's request for Civil Rights. The chronicles of history reveal that it was only after television coverage of riots and several demonstrations did President Kennedy feel a need to introduce the 1963 Civil Rights Act. At that time, experts believe the nation was headed toward a major race war.

History reveals that it was Democratic Attorney General, Robert Kennedy that approved the secret wire taps on Dr, Martin Luther King Jr., and it was Democratic President Lyndon Johnson that referred to Dr. King as " that nigger preacher." Senator Byrd referred to Dr. King as a "trouble maker" who causes trouble and then runs like a "coward," when trouble breaks out.

Over the strong objections of racist Republican Senator Jessie Helms, Republican President Ronald Reagan, signed into law, a bill to make Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. Several Republican Senators convinced President Reagan this was the right thing to do.

Congressional records show after signing the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act and issuing Executive Order 11478, Richard Nixon, a Republican, that started what we know as Affirmative Action.

On December 15, 1994, federal Judge David V. Kenyon issued a court order to the Clinton Administration in the Case of Fairchild v Robert Reich Secretary of Labor (#CV92-5765 Kn). The order demanded that Secretary Reich and the Clinton Administration force 100 west coast shipping companies to develop an Affirmative Action plan to stop discrimination against, African Americans, Hispanics, females and disabled workers. Female employees were being sexually harassed, Hispanics were being denied promotions and training, disabled workers were being laid off, and African Americans were being forced to work in an environment where they had job classifications called " Nigger Jobs." Clinton left office six years later and never complied with the court order. The companies still do not have an Affirmative Action Plan.

President Clinton sent 20, 000 troops to protect the white citizens of Europe's Bosnia, but sent no troops to Africa's Rwanda to protect the black citizens there. Consequently over 800,000 Africans were massacred.

During the 2003 Democratic Primary debates, the Rev. Al Sharpton, said the Democrats take the black vote for granted and treat African Americans like a mistress. They [Democrats} will take us to the dance, but they don't want to take us home to meet mama."

On December 3, 2002, President Clinton spoke to the Democratic Leadership Council in New York regarding the future of the Democratic Party and how they could retake the White House. At no time did he address Civil Rights issues for blacks or doing things to improve the conditions of African Americans. His only reference to Civil Rights was Civil Rights for Gays. His only reference to improving communities was his recommendation to revisit the Marshall Plan to re-build communities in other countries. His entire speech was aired on C-Span.

After exclusively giving the Democrats their votes for the past 25 years, the average African American cannot point to one piece of civil rights legislation sponsored solely by the Democratic Party that was specifically designed to eradicate the unique problems that African Americans face today. Congressional records show that all previous legislation (since 1964) had strong bi-partisan support, even though some Democrats debated and voted against these laws.

After reviewing all of the evidence, many believe America would have never experienced racism to the degree that it has, had not the Democrats promoted it through:

Racist Legislation
Terrorist Organizations
Negative Media Communications
Bias Education
Relentless Intimidation
And Flawed Adjudication.

The racism established and promoted by members of the Democratic Party affected and infected the entire nation from 1856 with the Dred Scott decision, to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case. But they never offered or issued an apology.

Today, both parties must remember their past. The Democrats must remember the terrible things they did to Blacks and apologize and the Republicans must remember the terrific things they did for Blacks and re-commit to complete the work that their predecessors started and died for.
Posted by Lone Ranger at 3:15 PM
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the gop and democratic parties morphed into each other?! when?!
i was talking to a friend of mine on the phone, earlier today, and she said something very strange. in school, they taught her that the republican party, in fact, is not the republican party, and the democratic party is not the ...
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RBurns| 4.24.09 @ 10:45PM

Did you start that paragraph with "This was written by and African American?" Hilarious. Let me ask you something, Robby, why would you feel the need to disclose the race of the person who wrote that article? Do you think it makes you less racist. How many black friends do you have? I'm guessing not a lot. Did you even read the previous posts? The transition of the Republican party to the party of racism began in 1968 with Nixon's Southern Stratedy. Obviously at that point in time, there were still many racist Democrats in South and in the North, particarly in large industrial cities that had been heavily gentrified since the end of WWII. Racial tensions climbed in these cites, which were primarily democratic, with bussing and restrictions on redlining till evetually you got massive white flight. As the narrative continued, we get Ronald Reagan and Bush, who use race in ways Nixon couldn't have dreamed of. Made up stories about welfare queens, getting "tough on drugs" (even though they was secretly funding the Contras), cutting back welfare and social spending, all of which, if you look at the Lee Atwater quote was code for blacks to the white "refuges" who fled the excesses of the "welfare state" cities. I agree that Clinton carries this legacy with him as well. The only reason he was able to clouber that wimp George Bush is because he appealed to Southern Racists with his promises of welfare reform and his soft Southern cadance. I don't think Bill Clinton is a racist (although the primaries last election were questionable), I do think he appeals to them though. Next president. George W. This guy has killed more blacks than AIDS with his use of the death penalty (which is notoriously overused against blacks) and Hurricane Katrina. To top it off he starts a clandestine torture program which apparently specializes in torturing brown people. Could you imagine how you conservatives would react if George Bush was torturing white militia members in Gitmo? It would be Waco times a million. But its okay because they have brown skin, and they talk funny I guess. Regardless as it stands today, and as it has been trending for the last 40 years, the Republican party is pretty racist, with its base concentrated in the traditionally racist, white states of the deep South and, judging by their platform and they way they tried to Willie Horton Obama, it's going to continue to trend that way. I mean get real, your on a blog that's advocating establishing reading tests as a pre-requisite to vote. You're pretty far to the right and there are overt tones of racism.

JamesHoffa| 4.25.09 @ 2:31AM

"The Lesson: Just because the Democratic Party doesn't make blacks sit in the back of the bus anymore doesn't mean it will ever let them get behind the steering wheel." - the irony of this quote is hilarious.
Do you think the Republican party would ever elect a black president? What about Bobby Jindal? You think he could possibly succeed on the national stage? I don't think so. The majority of Rethugs would think he was a terrorist. The Republican party has had 3 black Representatives in Congress in the last 70 years. Compare that to 70 black Democratic Representatives. In the Senate, there have 3 black Demacratic senators and 1 Republican. That Republican was Edward Brooke, from Massachusetts, and was pretty much a liberal (or a Communist as you would say).

Robert Rosencrans| 4.25.09 @ 9:04AM

The facts are clear. The Democratic Party only wants their votes. They really couldn't care less about blacks or anyone else.
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens/02/racism.html

Indeed, the case of Sen. Byrd is instructive when it comes to the double standard applied to the two parties when it comes to race. Even those Democrats who have exploited the Lott affair acknowledge that he is no racist. Can the same be said about Sen. Byrd, who was a member of the KKK and who recently used the "n" word on national TV?

"Ah, but this is all in the past," say the Democrats. "Now we push a pro-African-American agenda." But the reality differs significantly from the claim.

Take the issue of education. The single biggest obstacle to the achievement of true equality in the United States is not poverty, but education. If Democrats sincerely wished to help the minority children on whose behalf they claim to labor, they would embrace school choice to help such children escape the trap of sub-standard schools. But that would offend the teachers’ unions upon which the Democrats depend for financial and "in-kind" support. So as has often been the case with the group politics of the Democratic party, African-American interests are sacrificed to other groups who have more pull.

"Affirmative action" has become the touchstone of Democratic racial politics. Democrats portray anyone who opposes affirmative action as racist. But affirmative action, as currently practiced, is racist to the core. It is based on the assumption that African-Americans are incapable of competing with whites. It represents the kind of paternalistic racism that would have done honor to Calhoun. For the modern liberal Democratic racist as for the old-fashioned one, blacks are simply incapable of freedom. They will always need Ol’ Massa’s help. And woe be to any African-American who wanders off of the Democratic plantation. Ask Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, or Ward Connerly. Although they echo the call for a "color-blind society" that once characterized the vision of Martin Luther King Jr., they are pilloried as "Uncle Toms" of "Oreos" by such enforcers of the Democratic plantation system as Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

If we need the perfect symbol for the true character of the Democratic Party when it comes to race, we need look no farther than Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Rep. Kennedy portrays himself as a friend of African-Americans. But his touching solicitude for African-Americans as a group is gross hypocrisy. When inconvenienced by a real African-American woman trying to do her job, Rep. Kennedy shoved her out of his way, giving her arm a yank for good measure. In practice, the Democratic Party as a whole cares as much about real African-Americans as Rep. Kennedy does.

Another good example of modern day Democrats and race:
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/democratic_racism/2008/02/25/75308.html

Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association, describes the Democratic Party as the architect of modern day racism.

Rice, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and lawyer, says in an interview it was Republicans who pushed through much of the ground-breaking civil rights legislation in Congress. Now, she says, Republicans stand for empowering blacks to help them out of poverty. In contrast, Rice says, the Democrats push to keep blacks dependent on government handouts and encourage them to see themselves as victims.

“The Democratic Party has built its power base on the backs of poor blacks, and they want to keep blacks poor, angry, and voting for Democrats,” Rice tells Newsmax. “Every election cycle they go into the black community and preach hatred against the Republican Party and get blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.”

In Rice’s view, “The Democrats fight every effort of Republicans to get blacks out of poverty because they know that once blacks become prosperous, the Democratic Party will lose its power base.”

Rice co-founded the National Black Republican Association in 2005 with the mission of returning African-Americans to their Republican Party roots. Because co-founder Andre Cadogan knew Newsmax CEO and Editor in Chief Chris Ruddy, the first meeting of the organization took place at Newsmax offices in West Palm Beach, Fla. The organization has grown from five members to over a thousand members. It publishes a quarterly glossy magazine — The Black Republican — and has a Web site: www.nbra.info.

Rice says the Democrats oppose giving blacks the opportunity to become wealthy through Social Security personal accounts and oppose efforts to reform Social Security, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because blacks on average have a five year shorter life expectancy.

Aligning themselves with special interests, Rice says the Democrats are “fighting school-choice opportunity scholarships that are designed to get black children out of failing schools, because the teacher’s unions wants to maintain control over buildings.”

Rice also cites widespread opposition by Democrats to the No Child Left Behind Act, which has lifted reading scores of black children but is reviled by teachers’ unions.

“Our philosophy in the Republican Party is to teach a person how to fish, so he can feed himself for a lifetime, whereas the Democratic Party’s philosophy is give a man a fish, so he can eat for a day,” Rice says.

Rice says most blacks are not aware that from its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, the Republican Party has been at the “forefront of the struggle for civil rights, which is why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican.”

It was Republicans, she notes, who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote. Republicans also pushed through much of the ground-breaking civil rights legislation in Congress from the 1860s through the 1960s, Rice says.

“It was the Democrat public safety commissioner, Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor, in Birmingham who let loose vicious dogs and turned the fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators,” Rice says.

Democrat Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox “brandished an ax handle to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant,” Rice says. “Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama school house in 1963 and declared that there would be segregation forever. In 1954, it was Democrat Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus who tried to prevent the desegregation of Little Rock public schools. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who sent the troops into the South to desegregate the schools and who appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown versus Board of Education decision.”

In contrast, the Democrats “fought to keep blacks in slavery, started the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize blacks, and fought civil rights legislation,” Rice says.

“The Democratic Party is the architect of modern day racism,” Rice says. “Now they are fanning the flames of racism in order to keep blacks in economic poverty.”

Robby| 4.25.09 @ 9:33AM

You're talking about ancient history. I've conceded that the Democratic Party promulgated many modern conceptions of race in the wake of Reconstruction. But that changed in the 50's and 60's culminating in the 1968 election of Nixon through the Southern Strategy. Look at the facts. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It was not popular amoung Dixiecrats, and Johnson remarked at the time that he had costs the Democratic party the South for the next 40 years. He was right. All those racist whites began voting Republican and they have ever since then. The modern Republican Party, the culmination of the conservative movement, is a reaction against black de-segragation and voter paricipation. This very website indicates that. It's been 50 years and this website is still fighting against the Civil Rights Act. Reconcile that for me would you? You assertion seems to be, at least based on the articles that you cut and paste from a think tank page, that the Democratic Party is racist because many democrats didn't support the Civil Rights Act when it was passed. But here you are saying you don't support the Civil Rights Act. The conclusion to be drawn is that your a racist.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.25.09 @ 10:39AM

I just cited you some recent history. Like most liberals you just want to pretend it will go away if you deny it enough.

Old School Conservative| 4.25.09 @ 11:08AM

Mr. Rosencrans, you are being a useful idiot for the progressive race hustlers. The issue isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans, it is progressives vs. conservatives. And in the time period you are discussing the Republicans almost all of which were from the North supported federal Civil Rights legislation because they were a South hating force of “progress” and the Southern Democrats were a force of conservation. Here are some things conservatives said before they collectively cut their balls off. Your apologia plays into the hands of the progressive equality maniacs.

“The central question that emerges … is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”

“National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct… It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.” ~ William F. Buckley

“‘Integration’ and ‘Communization’ are, after all, pretty closely synonymous. In light of what is happening today, the first may be little more than a euphemism for the second. It does not take many steps to get from the ‘integrating’ of facilities to the ‘communizing’ of facilities, if the impulse is there.” ~ Richard Weaver

Sew your balls back on Mr. Rosencrans, and quit being a tool for the dispossession of the white race which built and sustains this country.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.25.09 @ 11:22AM

To: Old School Conservative

Thanks for making a post which made no sense whatsover. A little humor is needed now and then. Now, back to your meds.

Old School Conservative| 4.25.09 @ 12:02PM

"Thanks for making a post which made no sense whatsover."

Mr. Rosencrans, why do progresive get it and "conservatives" don't?

Above Robert II celebrates the demise of white Christian America. "The problem is that within the next 20 years, whites are going to be a minority in this country. The number of people who don't believe in God has doubled in the last 10 years. Younger Americans, like myself, work with African Americans, hispanics and gays, and frankly were not scared of them. The wedge issues that the Republican Party have used since 1968 are dulled and are getting duller every year that passes and a new age cohort turns 18, or a new immigrant hopes the boarder, or another inner city teenager has child. You guys have lost the culture war. 10 years ago, the election of an African American would have been impossiible."

Is a progressive celebrating the end of white Christian America OK with you? Doesn't it make your blood boil? It should. Robert II and his progressive pals get what this is about. So should you. Quit being a clueless tool of the people who despise you.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.25.09 @ 1:49PM

Old School Conservative: Keep talking in circles. You're really impressing yourself.

Old School Conservative| 4.25.09 @ 10:29PM

Mr. Rosencrans, do you really not understand my point or do you just not want to face it? I think I am being very clear. In the past conservatives naturally opposed desegregation and integration as they should have. Progressives supported it because they hate historic America. Citing Republicans who supported federal Civil Rights legislation and Democrats who opposed it proves nothing. Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act by the way which is why he won the South. Those Republicans who supported it were forces of progress and those Democrats who opposed it were forces of conservation. America is historically a white Christian civilization. Conservatives should want to keep it that way. Progressives consider America’s whiteness and Christian nature a black mark (see RobertII) and push equality in order to transform it. When you whine about Democrats in the past who opposed Civil Rights legislation and praise Republicans who supported it, you are accepting the value judgments of those who seek to destroy us. Why would you do such a thing? What you should be doing is scolding conservatives who have lost their nerve and now say the same things that progressives said in the 60s.

Larry Scalf| 4.26.09 @ 2:14AM

The arguments from history provided by all of you dinosaurs, liberal or conservative, who post on this subject completely ignore the point of the article. Whether or not you agree with the author's premises about the necessity for the Voting Rights Act (I do happen to agree with her), what she is saying is essentially correct today: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is an ancient, outdated remedy for a much different time in American history. Why do all of you folks have to dwell on what is past? Race relations in America are markedly better than they were 50 years ago - I'm old enough to remember all of the old tensions, too, so don't try to snow me with your nonsense.

The world has changed, people. Even Bill Buckley admitted that he was wrong about the civil rights question eventually. The problem with segregation in the South was the same as with many other types of government intervention: it uses state power to force particular social and political outcomes, rather than letting social and political outcomes and arrangements happen more naturally - just as, believe it or not, some of our environmentalist friends want to do now with their cap-and-trade/carbon tax schemes. But some old prejudices never die, I guess.

A typical Southerner may not have wanted to sit at the same table as a Negro; yet this Southerner pushed his so-called "freedom to not associate" to such an extreme degree so as to justify not letting a person of color even come into any regular public accomodation or institution, forcing persons of color into utilizing deliberately set-up inferior institutions. To the extent that any conservative doctrine supported using state power for this particular end, it was an affront to basic human dignity and liberty, was un-Christian, and was wrong.

For those like Debra and others who want to pillage Republicans for the "Southern strategy," there was far, far more to it than race. So you sorehead liberals, get over it and move on. And by the way, is it any of your business to presume that simply because I am opposed to Barack Obama and all that he and his policies stand for, that I don't like the idea of a black President? I wonder what you would have said if Clarence Thomas had decided to run for President and had won. That is an outcome we conservatives should all have hoped for.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.26.09 @ 9:38AM

Old School Conservative: You are talking circles again. You state it was conservatives who naturally opposed desegregation and integration as they should have, leaving the impression it wsa Republicans. In fact, it was the Democrats who led the opposition and those facts are in cement.

Old School Conservative| 4.26.09 @ 1:58PM

“You are talking circles again. You state it was conservatives who naturally opposed desegregation and integration as they should have, leaving the impression it was Republicans. In fact, it was the Democrats who led the opposition and those facts are in cement.”

Seriously Mr. Rosencrans are you really that dense? Free your mind. You are stuck in the false paradigm that Republican = conservative. But that is hardly true even today, and was not true in the past other than principled exceptions like Goldwater. That was a main part of my point. The Dixiecrats who opposed desegregation were the conservatives at the time. “And those facts are in cement.” And the Republicans who opposed it like Buckley and Goldwater were the conservative Republicans against the liberal, northeastern, Rockefeller wing. “And those facts are in cement.”

SLG| 4.26.09 @ 5:16PM

Rosencrans, why don't you go join the libruls. We don't need your fucking imput here you goddamn collegial faggot.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.26.09 @ 5:31PM

Old School Conservative: You keep talking in circles. Are your drugged or simply mildly retarded?

Robert Rosencrans| 4.26.09 @ 5:33PM

SLG: You sound like a drunken idiot. Did you ever get any type of education?

Old School Conservative| 4.26.09 @ 11:52PM

Mr. Rosencrans, you are obviously a little dull. I will speak S-L-O-W-L-Y for you. It was conservatives, whether conservative Democrats and there was such a thing in the 50s and 60s or conservative Republicans, who opposed desegregation. It was progressives, whether progressive Republicans or progressive Democrats, who supported desegregation. “And those facts are in cement.” What about this is so difficult for you? Progressives hate white Christian America and want to transform it. Conservatives wanted to keep it white and Christian but have become too cowardly to speak up for themselves.

SLG| 4.27.09 @ 4:46AM

Education is for fuckin elitest like you. Go back to eating Belgian endives out of a goddamn can in your IKEA clad home in Brookline you fuckin hippie piece O shit. I'll stick my dick up your ass you homo.

Robert Rosencrans| 4.27.09 @ 8:05AM

When two Alinskybots have too much to drink, the results are obvious.

Old School Conservative| 4.27.09 @ 8:41AM

Mr. Rosencrans, I am not a progressive criticizing conservatives for opposing desegregation. I am an old school conservative criticizing modern day conservatives for sounding like 1960 progressives on this issue. Do you really not understand that?