Americans are famously indifferent to history, but history refuses to return the favor. There are legacies from our past that refuse to release their grip no matter how stubbornly determined we are to ignore them.
The New York Times posted a map yesterday showing the counties in which Obama won less than 20% of the vote in 2012. It’s an eye-opening picture of the state of the Republican Party.
With such such an overwhelming win in the South, how did Romney lose?
The problem for Republicans is that the Democratic weakness appears confined to the white South. Even though some analysts suggested that Mr. Obama was historically weak among white voters more generally, he fared better than recent Democratic nominees among white voters outside of the South. That’s how he won battleground states like Iowa, Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. Whatever is causing Republicans to excel in the South, whether religion or race, just isn’t helping them elsewhere.
The map is a near-perfect correlation with the sections of the US that failed to ban slavery prior to Lincoln’s election. This is not an accident. As pointed out in a previous piece:
This reflects a pattern seen across the country in the 2012 results. The Republican ticket saw its greatest success based not on wealth or welfare, but on three, ranked criteria:
1) Region – The single highest indicator of success for the GOP ticket regional. Republicans won reliably in sections of the country in which slavery was legal until Lincoln’s election.
2) Urbanity – The lower the population density, the more successful the GOP ticket.
3) Race – Romney performed best among white voters, particularly older white voters.
White nationalism is winning for the GOP at the state and local level across a limited swath of the country while poisoning the conservative brand everywhere else. This is not inevitable, but the drift toward white nationalist politics, so grossly apparent in the shocking mainstream support for “welfare rancher” Cliven Bundy, has gained a disturbing momentum that will be difficult to halt.
Not so long ago things were very different. When Reagan won his epic national mandate in 1984, there were only a few dozen counties that registered the levels of overwhelming Republican support seen by Romney in 2012. By contrast, Reagan’s win was as broad as it was deep. Ronald Reagan won 48% of the vote in Chicago’s Cook County. He earned 54% in LA County and more than 40% in Detroit’s Wayne County.
The present Republican strategy of geographic and demographic division isn’t just an electoral loser. It is a formula for the Balkanization of America. We’ve been here before and nothing good came of it.
The good news is that voters under 30 have rejected this strategy wholesale, meaning it is doomed to fade soon. The bad news is that their rejection of a white nationalist agenda is accompanied by a fresh new enthusiasm for liberal economics. As difficult as it will be to wean rural and exurban America off its growing taste for white nationalism, it will be even more difficult to maintain our prosperity as the country drifts left on economic issues.
We desperately need a leadership figure in the GOP willing to confront this trend head-on. No one seems ready yet, but 2016 could offer some hope.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
Press release: ‘De facto’ discrimination, or de facto slavery? Employers are allowed to mistreat Blacks in S.C…US Court.
US District Court, Charleston, SC; Employers, mistreating Blacks with undeserved difficulty in the workplace, are not guilty of discrimination. Imagine the public outcry if a dog was mistreated?
The case now goes to the Supreme Court with this question.
1. QUESTION PRESENTED filed to the Supreme Court Justices on 4-21-2014.
“ Is it in the public interest to know that a US District Court, after reviewing evidence, ruled that a ‘group of executive White people were actually mistreating a Black employee and causing him undeserved difficulty at work’, but still did not find them guilty of racial discrimination or creating a hostile working environment ”?
Background:
1. William Lincoln filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in 2012 at the US District Court in Charleston, SC (Civil Action No. 2:11-3234-DCN-BHH).
2. An abundance of evidence was given to the Court to substantiate the claim of racial discrimination, including the replacement of 90 per cent of the Black instructors with White instructors, in less than a year. He was the only Black instructor left.
3. This is the mentality and actual ruling of the US District Court of the 4th District;
In ‘REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF MAGISTRATE JUDGE’ under DISCUSSION,
“The Court would acknowledge that the plaintiff may have legitimately faced some mistreatment or undeserved difficulty at work”. Some of the facts are irregular. But, there is no evidence that his experience was racially motivated.” (p4. para 1 and 2).
4. The Appellate Court in Virginia upheld this ruling.
5. So it is not your imagination that our Courts are mistreating Blacks and are extremely difficult for Black people.
6. And it is no wonder that our prison system is overflowing with young Black men and women. And White men get away with cold blooded murder of young Black men.
#civil war is over, #dems out of ideas, #must restart civil war
Lifer wrote: New Mexico formalized slavery along Southern lines (semi-legal enslavement of Indians had been a practice there for centuries) in 1858.
When you look at the map of places that did not outlaw slavery, you’re seeing a map of the places where the assumptions that lay beneath the institution remained deeply engrained and accepted in the culture.
————————————————–
Where do I even start here? I live in San Juan County, New Mexico and I see that the area is orange on the map. In this part of New Mexico, slavery in past centuries (starting in the 16th century) consisted of Navajo people being kidnapped by other Indian tribes and sold to the Spanish/Mexicans who lived in the lower parts of the territory and Mexico. (Navajo as well other Native American people also kept slaves historically.)
New Mexico became part of the US in 1848 after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. You note that New Mexico formalized slavery in 1853 because of North/South politics. The Civil War ended in 1865. That’s twelve years of US slavery compared to almost three centuries of slavery by Spanish/Mexican people.
Your assumption that white people somehow become racist because they live in a rural area where there was slavery in the past is beyond bizarre.
According to the 2010 census, 51.6% of the population of San Juan County is white, 0.6% is black, and 36.6% Native American. 19.1% of the population is Hispanic of any race. Since the majority of the HIspanics would be included in the 51% white percentage, the non-Hispanic white population would probably be about equal to the Native American population.
The map you provided shows that San Juan County overwhelmingly voted Republican. This had nothing to do with past slavery. It had everything to do with jobs and the coal and natural gas industry in the area.
OK, I note my dates are wrong. If the US government started allowing slavery in New New Mexico in 1858 and the Civil War ended in 1865, slavery was only legal for about seven years.
OV, you are calling out Lifer on his claims. He can’t see past a person’s skin color or 150 year old history. What you are sying just doesn’t fit in with his agenda of claiming that all republicans, establishment, tea party or other wise, that basically all white males that are not democrats or communists, suffer from being racist. He and his “echo chamber” (credit Kabuzz) can’t even admit that his claims here are based on garbage and have been shown to be false.
As I said the other day, you guys are being trolled by Sternn, him and Clive Bundy, two peas in a pod.
That is all.
I beg to differ. Cap is way better looking.
Well Cap maybe if you got your information for a source other than conspiracy site you might get a grip of the actual situation. You have been mislead, but hey, expecting you to admit you have made a mistake is just fruitless. Carry on with your fucked up world view.
Texan seems to be drinking a bit much lately. More coarse than usual.
Texan, my source is reading court decisions and rulings and trying to read up on treaties the federal government has agreed to. I would be glad to read what you have to say about those court rulings and those treaties if you have anything intelligent to say about them and how they apply or don’t apply here.
Thank you, my beautiful lady.
Texan, a troll is a person that simply throws out bombs to get a reaction with no regard to making any points or dealing with facts. On the Bundy case, I don’t know. I haven’t taken a side. I still don’t even understand the issue. I have been reading up on the matter here and there. The federal government has agreed to several treaties on open range and free grazing. The federal government isn’t very good about honoring treaties. Does Bundy and others (there have been quite a few cases) fall under one or more of the treaties? Or do you blindly follow whatever the federal government says instead of doing some basic research? Sounds to me like you would have been all for the 2003 invasion of Iraq just because the federal government said so. Or is it that you will only blindly follow far left democrats?
Cap, look at it this way. Suppose you settled in Nevada after the Civil War, shortly after Nevada became a state. You set up a ranching operation in what was, at the time, an unregulated environment. It becomes the family business. In 1934, in one of FDR’s many unprecedented power grabs, your descendants find themselves subject to the Taylor Grazing Act.
Not to worry, though; rents are low, terms are lenient, and irrevocable except in the event of natural disasters such as severe drought that degrade the land’s carrying capacity for grazing. Well, OK, that’s just good stewardship, and the local grazing advisory committee is largely run by you and your fellow ranchers, to boot. It’s a bit of a pain, but still largely under local control.
Then, in 1946, another round of Washington power consolidation results in the combination of the General Land Office and the Grazing Bureau into the BLM. Uh, oh. Here come the bureaucrats who, let’s face it, were never enthused by local, mostly independent grazing boards in the first place. Good bye, local control. But hey, keep your head down, and your nose clean, and maybe those dudes back east will just leave you alone. Right?
Well, not so much. Along comes the environmental movement, along with a bunch of drug-addled, dope smoking, hippy tree huggers who don’t seem to grasp where that nice, shrink-wrapped steak in the grocery store comes from. Heck, they don’t even eat steak; they eat tofu! And lo and behold, these whackos find themselves at the helm of the federal Leviathan. And so in 1993 your grazing lease is summarily terminated, not because of natural disaster, mind you, but to ‘protect’ the desert tortoise.
This comes as a bit of a shock to you. Your cattle have been coexisting with the friendly desert tortoise for decades. Heck, you had a pet desert tortoise named, ‘Pokey,’ as a kid. You *like* desert tortoises. What you don’t like is having your grazing lease terminated for no good reason, your livelihood and way of life stripped from you against your will, with no compensation whatsoever.
And you thought the Constitution and the government were there to protect you. Oops. Silly rabbit, kicks are for trids. Or ranchers, if no trids are handy.
Thank you, TThor. That helps a bit. I have been reading a little about another case, U.S. vs Hage. Funny that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is part of that, and OV referenced it in her comment. There are other treaties named, but I forget them.
I swear that figuring out the Iraq situation was more straight forward than this issue. Yes, I was against it before I was for it. Nobody could explain it. I can now, but nobody wants to listen. Minds are set, but I can say mine was changed after doing research.
But this Bundy/Hage/U.S. issue is so twisted and convoluted that it makes my head spin. This treaty, that treaty, yet another treaty, state control vs federal control vs local control … Good Lordy Almighty! Part of me wants to side with Bundy, but another part of me says he is in the wrong, but then is the federal government in the wrong. It is a very complex and complicated issue.
It is more aggrivating that so many people simply side with the federal government without asking questions or even trying to understand the issue. But then these are the people that think the federal government is the soveriegn and the people are just serfs, that if a right is not listed in the Bill of Rights, it doesn’t exist. People that think the federal government has absolute power and doesn’t answer to the people. People that don’t understand the right to keep and bear arms.
Can’t say that I am unhappy that the feds backed down. At least Obama didn’t turn it into another Ruby Ridge or Waco incident. I guess this is the second time I think the Obama administration did the right thing, even if Bundy is in the wrong (well, right thing after doing the wrong thing, not escalating it).
I will say this and I understand it completely: That piece of crap that said he would hide behind women and children and claims to be part of the tea party movement is total trash. An absolute coward. He degrades the entire movement by simply claiming to be a part of it, by even speaking of the movement. That comment is inexcusable, cowardly, unmanly, I don’t have enough words even if I decided to curse and use vulgar words. He degrades men, he degrades humanity in general.
Terrorists hide behind women and children. If you are going to man-up and face off with the federal government in an armed conflict, man-up and face them. Don’t go hiding behind your mommies skirt or children.
I will also add that those “militia” were in the wrong if they were looking for a fire-fight. There is no justification to raise arms against the government as long as we have the right to free speech, the right to vote and the right to trial by jury. If they wanted to intimidate by simply being there with arms, cool. But if they were looking for a fight, not cool.
So you admit you do not have all the facts but still spout off an opinion……why am I not suprised. Read the facts and you will see that this guy is a dumb ass who has told nothing but lies about the land being” ancestral “. You have been had, the guy and all his armed supporters should be in jail for sedition. Everybody else pays the fee of $1.35 a head for grazing fees, private land grazing fees are $16 a head, the guy is a crook.
Yes, Texan, I have an opinion about that piece of crap that claims to be party of the tea party movement said he would hide behind women and children.
As for the situation with Bundy and the federal government, well, I will side with our founding fathers and not trust the government until I can verify that the federal government is in the right and is right on this matter. I see you think otherwise, you would rather bow to the king and be a tory without question.
C’mon, Chris. Not even the Democratic Party is playing the race card as much as they used to, but you’re still banging away on that drum.
This is the first time I’ve visited Chris’ blog in many months and I come back to find that the conversation hasn’t changed one bit. Chris’ general assertion is that the GOP has been taken over and ruined by redneck, racist Jesus-freaks. The South sucks and the North is enlightened.
Dress it up with history lessons and statistics and articles, etc., but isn’t this what it essentially boils down to?
Greetings, by the way, to Capt, Kabuzz, Fly, Crogged, Rucasdad, Tutabella, Sassy, Turtle, et al…
Hey, WAREZ . . .
Really, WAREZ? I thought you were Hispanic.
HUARES, then.
Hooked on phonics.
Turtles, I will assume you got the joke. I was making fun of how many speakers of English can’t pronounce “Juarez” properly, turning it into War-EZ, and with the accent on the final syllable.
Back at ya
Hey dude! wassup?
Hey Juarez!
Good to see you all keeping up the debate. 🙂
Just fyi, I’ve always been intrigued by the anonymous, yet close-knit community that resides here on Chris’ blog. An online discussion board such as this is an interesting kind of social phenomenon.
I’ve got a book (fiction) coming out this summer, the plot of which centers around a blog about science, politics, culture, etc. Excerpts from the fictional blog are interspersed between some of the chapters and I based a few of the blog commenter-characters on a few of you. There’s a “Captain,” a “Too Sassy,” and a “Owl.”
Anyhoo, if the book becomes a bestseller, I guess I’ll lose my anonymity around here!
Keep fighting the good fight, gang,
That is way too cool !
Juarez, you tend to side with the conservatives here, but I hope your book is fair to all.
After some of the head banging conversations you and I have had in the past I can hardly wait! Sooooo don’t keep us in suspense, what is the name of the book and where is it being released?
Good luck with the book.
Congrats Juarez! I would be more than happy to purchase a copy. Keep us posted.
Juarez, always remember, and never forget:
YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN.
You guys are too funny.
Self-published (as are my other books) – released on every ebook retailer (Amazon, B&N, Apple, etc.), as well as in print on Amazon.
Still building a readership. My last novel (released in 2010) has sold about 500 copies.
Sassy: maybe when it’s released I’ll give you the title (because then I’ll lose my anonymity on here!) 🙂
tuttabellamia: The book is apolitical, the blog is just an impetus to the events of the plot. In the actual fictional blog excerpts however, I think I do a good job of representing all the viewpoints fairly. It was cool to write opinions from various ideological persuasions. I have to say, my time on this blog, reading all of your opinions, helped a lot. I don’t agree with all of you all of the time, but I have respect for you.
Cheers!
Hey Juarez! How you doing pal?
I have a book out at this time. Another to be released by summer hopefully.
The first deals with disappearances in Bolivar, Texas.
My newest work will be on nano technology. The settings will be Houston and Bristol, Pa.
Good luck to your efforts. It is exciting.
I have at this time 95,000 scanned. England and America being the main buyers.
Nice to see you Juarez! I would love to buy your book when it comes out. Any clues as to how we can find out when it’s been published? When I first started commenting here, I had thought that a book like yours would be a blast to write. Then, I figured I needed to work on my grammar ….. well, that never happened – and probably never will. Good luck!
Kabuzz: Wow! 95,000 scans! That is impressive. Keep up the good work, friend. I’ll keep an eye out for a new nano-thriller set in Houston and Bristol…
objv: Thanks for the vote of confidence! I actually had a commenter in the book based on you called “Middle View” but the first few test readers said there were too many commenters, so I ended up merging your commenter-character with a few others. 🙂
Writing that fictional blog was indeed fun; kind of a cool put-yourself-in-another’s-shoes exercise. Started to feel like I had MPD after awhile though…
Juarez, I wish I knew of a way to contact you without giving personal data on a public blog.
I had very good marketing ideas from some advertisers I knew. Plus I used social media. I conducted three book signings which are a very useful tool.
Good luck. It is fun. I did not expect that many purchases with my first time out so I am indeed fortunate. I have received emails to my website from readers that want to know when my next one is out. It is exciting.
BTW, the ‘ruined redneck, racist Jesus-freaks’ are the better part of the Republican party.
The “better” part as in “better” half ??
Maybe just the loudest part, Tutt =)
Well, they are certainly a confident faction.
The fiction faction?
Fiction Faction was a School House Rock song
I did not know that.
As a proud Texan-American, it saddens me to contemplate how far political, social, and economic progress could go in this country were it not for the South. I love it, and yet I cannot help but acknowledge that it is the retrograde reef upon which the ship of progress seems forever snagged. Without federal largesse, most of the South would be have little better than Third World-status. Without the media’s reach, it would be a region gripped in a near-intractable cultural darkness.
You cannot make the issue of race go away. You can’t do it. Conservatives want desperately for the issue to go away, but it’s not going to go away. It won’t go away because it has always been there, and it will continue to be there for a long time. It is the most important issue, generation after generation, from the beginnings of our nation’s founding to the present day. It is the issue that overshadows almost all other issues this country faces.
The country is slowly becoming a more diverse, more tolerant place. You can embrace this future or you can fight a losing battle. Too many Southerners, still stung by the shame of losing their fight for white supremacy (aka The Civil War), continue to cling to the allure of righteous self-delusion. They have a poor grasp of their own history; what could possibly inspire them to have a better grasp of the nation’s history as a whole?
I’m not hopeless on the topic of the South. It can and will change, as it already has in its way. But it’s going to take a long time. It’s just frustrating that the rest of the country has to be subjected to its ignorance.
Speaking of a poor grasp of history, Lincoln didn’t start the war to end slavery.
He sure as hell finished it.
Lincoln started the war, huh? Was it federal troops that fired on Fort Sumter?
The Civil War was almost entirely about the perpetuation of slavery and upholding the system of white supremacy. To deny this is to be deeply delusional. I am fully aware that a lot of Southerners are deeply delusional about this indisputable fact.
It wasn’t a civil war. There were not two factions fighting for control of one nation. And FYI, Lincoln was a white supremacist.
“Speaking of a poor grasp of history, Lincoln didn’t start the war to end slavery.”
Strawman alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You did fine until your white supremacy line. For the South is was always economics. Still wrong, but all the South had for leverage in the world and the North was cotton. If you add that slavery was legal at the time.
I agree with you that slavery can’t be forgotten, not only for the blacks but all ethnicities in the past that have been subjected to slavery.
But except for white guilt that is prevalent in your post, the sin is gone. The racism we experience now is modern racism from all walks of life. My ancestors came over in the 1920’s, so I haven’t an ounce of guilt concerning slavery.
You don’t accept that the perpetuation of slavery was at least as much of an economic concern as it was for a cultural one? What does it mean for Southern farmers to lose their pool of free labor?
Every Declaration of Secession, from South Carolina to Texas, emphasized slavery as a primary point of contention and an official justification for separation from the Union. It’s there, in black and white, on paper, and supported by a wide variety of other historical reference points. It was THE number one issue driving the creation of the Confederacy.
That’s it! If we quit paying our employees think of the profits and all the free stuff we get! I’m heading to the bosses office right now.
It wasn’t free labor. Just about every Article of Secession states that the reasons are because the North and the federal government were violating the constitution, federal laws, court rulings and already waging war.
Anse
You can take this one on, but………….Don Quixote.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/apr/22/obamacare-hate-cant-be-cured/
From the Texas Declaration of Secession, third paragraph:
“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery – the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits – a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.”
It goes on from there.
From TX’s declaration:
“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states. ”
Does that make your heart swell with pride?
Georgia’s Declaration of Secession, from the very first word:
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war”
Feel free to read South Carolina’s yourself. The entire document lays out a point-by-point argument almost entirely revolving around the issue of slavery and the wrongs committed against South Carolina by the non-slave-holding states in their refusal to enforce federal laws governing the status of black people. The legal argument is almost completely obsessed with that state’s right to perpetuate slavery within its borders.
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#South Carolina
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.
The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.
Here is a simple question, if Lincoln started the war to end slavery, why is it that several “slave states” did not leave the Union but fought on the side of the Union?
“Here is a simple question, if Lincoln started the war to end slavery,….”
Nobody here is claiming that Lincoln started the war to end slavery. If you want answers, then phase your questions correctly.
So you finally figured out that it wasn’t about slavery. Good for you. It was about tariffs, economics, rule of law, constitution and the fact that the war was already in progress for some time before 1861.
The war was very much started by those traitors firing on Ft. sumpter. But slavery and its perpetuation was a prime motivator for those traitors. Peddle your dumbed down revisionist history elsewhere, because we see right through it.
Attempting to characterize the war by questioning Lincoln’s devotion to abolition makes as much sense as insisting that we invaded Iraq because Dubya really and truly wept over the sufferings of the oppressed Iraqi people. It is a strawman. But worse, it is an intentionally superficial understanding of the politics that led up to the war.
Lincoln wanted to preserve the Union. Ending slavery was a secondary issue for him, it’s true. The Emancipation was a strategic move. So was the pass given to those pro-Union states that happened to have legal slavery within their borders.
None of this undermines the primary motivation of the Confederacy, though. The South saw in the northern states’ failure to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act, and the feds’ unwillingness to ensure that it would be enforced, as yet one more chip away at the institution upon which Southern prosperity depended. The plantation system needed slavery. It needed slavery so badly, that even after the war was over, the new sharecropper system was conceived as a way to perpetuate that system of indentured servitude. It was slavery in a new, legally sanctioned form. Jim Crow, the KKK, the violent deprivations of black Americans and their continued subjugation and political alienation were merely a continuation of the old system: it was of absolute and profound importance to keep black people under the thumb of whites, whatever the cost.
The larger, messier issue of enlightened race relations across the country, the perpetuation of slavery in pro-Union states, all of these things are diversions from the central truth of the Confederacy’s primary motive. Denying slavery’s central role in the war is simply dishonest or ignorant or both.
Well, Fly, it is interesting that you view the founding fathers of this state and of this nation as nothing more than traitors.
Anse, you are trying to justify those that bomb abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors.
Fact is the war was already in progress. People from the North were raiding the South, killing families, burning houses and crops, killing livestock and leaving it to rot. It was the duty of the federal government to put a stop to that, but with the North being in the majority, they not only refused to stop it but encouraged more of it. There were also the tariffs unfairly put on crops from the South. For those reasons, seven states left the Union and formed a new nation in the name of mutual defense.
Anse, interesting that you suggest my adoptive ancestors were slaves. Guess that means my adoptive family is in line for the reparations and others goodies the descendents of slaves want.
“Well, Fly, it is interesting that you view the founding fathers of this state and of this nation as nothing more than traitors.”
That would be the Mexican and British takes, not mine. As an American I side with the Founders ( as in Revolutionary War/ Constitutional Convention) and 100% against the Confederates. The first group created my country. The second group tried to destroy it. I am forever grateful they failed. I hope they are spinning at warp speed in their graves.
Stern, I can’t make you give up your foolish defense of the Confederacy. I’m only in this to save whatever impressionable souls who may be reading this blog from engaging in this horse manure. The North was attacking the South, you say. The South were victims, you apparently believe. If it makes you feel better to hold on to this self-delusion, it’s a free country. Delude away.
I do not deny that the war was a disaster for the South. For a long time I thought the South’s continued obsession over it was stupid and juvenile, and merely a way to gloss over the very real crimes the Confederacy stood for. But I know the sufferings of Southern families at the hands of Northern troops were real. I know the scars were and are deep. But I will never, ever go so far as to take this view that the South is or was a victim of that conflict.
As a southerner myself, I find it all very curious. Maybe it’s because my ancestors came here in the 1890’s from Germany, but I don’t think that’s it. I love Texas as much as any Texan, but this refusal to face reality is just very hard to comprehend. It’s as if Southerners take it personally, as if they have skin in the game, as if it is a personal affront to admit that the Confederacy was a huge mistake, that the South was wrong, that the preservation of the Union was a worthy and necessary goal and outcome. Southerners have this intractable inner conflict over their past; they are resolutely patriotic while harboring a historical resentment that seems never-ending.
We like to tell black people that they need to get over slavery and move on. I think Southerners need the same advice: get over the Confederacy, acknowledge the truth of what happened, and move on.
“We like to tell black people that they need to get over slavery and move on. I think Southerners need the same advice: get over the Confederacy, acknowledge the truth of what happened, and move on.”
Doing the second would likely help move the first along.
Anse, we know what happened. Yes, slavery was wrong and ugly (and I put abortion right there in the same category, if not worse). Slavery was legal in every state and territory by 1861 the same way abortion is now legal in every state and territory. It is good that it was finally abolished, many “slave states” voting to ratify the 13th amendment. It is good that the Union was preserved. But that doesn’t make the war about slavery no matter how many times you were told it was in grade school.
FYI, the South wasn’t bitter about losing. That’s just how it worked out. It was over Reconstruction, which is why democrats held control of Texas from the end of that until the end of 2002. Democrats finally got so bad we put the old animosity aside just to get them out.
Crogged: we have to engage in these discussions not so much to change unchangeable minds but to maintain a record upholding the truth for others and especially for the young people who grow up hearing this wildly revisionist history about the Confederacy, which has been with us since the end of the war itself. Southerners have been cultivating this denial about their history since the day of surrender.
I know Anse, but I’m tired here in the salt mine. I’ve been working 100 years, the tentacles of conspiracy I maintain reach across many borders and nations and on some Fridays when I’m confronted with the sun rising in the West, well, my metaphorical well runs forever sometimes it seems……..
“..we have to engage in these discussions not so much to change unchangeable minds but to maintain a record upholding the truth for others and especially for the young people who grow up hearing this wildly revisionist history about the Confederacy,.”
Exactly. The proper American way to counter twisted deceptive speech is with honest accurate speech. I also prefer the forces of ignorance to identify themselves.
Good job guys!
How big of you. What you fail to do in your recitations of history articles you have read is to put perspective in. As an example, a lot of the citizens were against the revolution against the British. There were many reasons for that. Not one.
The South feared for the economic well being AND the governments unwillingness to enforce existing laws. If slavery is in the constitution, how can a state be in violation? That is the question. So they stood on states rights.
Being a guy that was raised in Philadelphia, where there is more then enough history, I have no dog in this hunt. But the South gets a very bad reputation because of the continued nagging done by Chris and others.
Your main point of the Civil War being about slavery is wrong on point. You can quote as many declarations you want, but you have to know what brought them to the table.
But the sensitivity for ‘perspective’ is for those struggling with the issue at that time in history (sort of), not for modern day apologists for the Confederacy. I don’t know how many people had to ‘evolve’ on the issue of slavery or ho defended the subject ‘honorably’ back then?
Crogged, it was defended by many leaders for decades prior to the Civil War. Many conversations, debates and articles were available to be heard or read. It is obvious from that point to conclude that there existed a moral struggle on this issue. But the North became more industrialized and they used that position to try and shame the South. The North knew that the South only had cotton and then after picked it had to be shipped up North for processing.
At this time the North did not depend on slavery like they used to. Thus making them think they were morally superior or at least had to ability to take the moral high ground.
In this mix you had the abolitionists that were gaining a fervent following. (I think they were as welcomed by the elite as the TEA Party is today) Even the Northern intellectuals didn’t want
‘regular’ citizens and preachers getting involved in the issue of slavery.
There are still more stories to tell of what some groups were doing. My point is perspective. That is what is lacking in just about any discussion of the past.
Looks like the strategy will be to double down and cast the framing of the remarks as being tainted by “left-wing” media spin.
http://www.infowars.com/unedited-video-shows-bundy-making-pro-black-pro-mexican-comments/
The sky’s been falling for as long as I can remember.
If Jesus’ returning soon I’m looking forward to it. Otherwise, I’m not troubling myself with human destiny.
“Kristy Anderson, a British Columbia Health Ministry spokeswoman, told The Associated Press that regional health authorities there have a contract with a company that sends biomedical waste, such as fetal tissue, cancerous tissue and amputated limbs, to Oregon, where it’s incinerated in the waste-energy plant.
The B.C. Catholic, a Vancouver-based newspaper, identified the plant as Covanta Marion, based in Brooks, Ore. When contacted by The AP on Wednesday, a Covanta Marion representative said he did not know if fetal tissue was included in shipments from Canada or elsewhere.”
http://cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/power-plant-may-have-used-aborted-babies-generate-power-oregon-15269.shtml
It would seem that someones faux outrage was slightly misplaced since the medical waste in question came from Canada.
But the amputated arms were from liberals, so that part was ok.
Ah! Dead babies come from Canada but Oregon incinerates them to create energy but we aren’t to be outraged? I see where you are coming from. There is decency and then there is indecency.
How about if we use recently passed adults for fuel also? What the hell. No harm no foul. It is good for the masses.
Pathetic.
I am so very glad I moved to the pro life side three decades ago.
Please Kabuzz, tell us where biological hospital waste is addressed in the Holy Scripture and what we need to do.
At this time Crogged it is only suspected that some of the medical waste may have been aborted fetus’s but because the issue was raised they have suspended the practice of incinerating all medical waste from all sources. But hey let’s not let a reason pass that allows us to get all hysterical about before we know all the facts. Some people just need something to aim at to justify throwing their childish fits and name calling.
But Sassy, at six f____g twenty five in the morning….”Using dead babies for power plant fuel in democrat controlled Oregon.”
Is Kabuzz just another computer program dreamed up by Karl Rove? Meant to ‘fire up’ his side when things look bad?
.
Well Duhhh!
Is you two are done sucking up to each other I would like to ask how many babies being incinerated would be acceptable to you. Zero is my number. You’re damned right they should halt the program. There is always a reason a secret is leaked and that is what is being done is wrong.
And yes, Oregon is so democrat.
Just so this doesn’t get buried and lost in the mix, and for people that can actually read a map …
Harris County: 49.3 Romney 49.4 Obama
Fort Bend County: 54.36 Romney 44.92 Obama
Liberty County: 7602 Romney 22.9 Obama (close, but not in line with Lifer’s claim)
Galveston: 63.21 Romney 35.61 Obama
Brazoria: 66.42 Romney 32.26 Obama
Waller: 58.3 Romney 40.7 Obama
That is just in the local area. Montgomery County was less than 20% for Obama. Fly wants to move the goal posts and claim that it is only about white people. Didn’t know that we had to rtegister and record our votes based on skin color. So, show me the proof.
Go look at the NYT source. It says white votes. If you wanted to take Chris to task for saying “The New York Times posted a map yesterday showing the counties in which Obama won less than 20% of the vote in 2012”, instead of “The New York Times posted a map yesterday showing the counties in which Obama won less than 20% of the [white] vote in 2012” you would have a point. Of course a person here for rational adult discussion (as opposed to a non-housebroken troll) would say “excuse me Chris there’s a little discrepancy between what you said and your source said. Could you clarify?” instead of “Your map and your claims are crap, total garbage, absolute lies. ”
Trouble for you is, that discrepancy doesn’t make any difference, because Chris didn’t say what you claim he said: ” You claim that in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, less than 20% of the population voted for Obama. Fact is that Harris County, Texas, went to Obama.” Harris Co is not colored orange like Ft. Bend, Brazoria, Liberty, Galveston, and Waller counties.
You are flat out wrong, and you don’t have the sense to stop digging.
Prove it, Fly or Lifer. Yes, I have heard of exit polls and I have learned that they are not accurate. And I didn’t say Lifer was lying, just that he heard something negative that he liked and he ran with it because he gets to accuse people of being racists, the people he tends to disagree with. And he didn’t do his homework. It is a shallow and hollow argument for the people that have nothing else to stand on.
Disagree with Obama? It is only because he is half black. Don;t like the PPACA? It is only because Obama is half black. Don’t like the fact that al Qaeda is on the rise in Iraq and other places? It is only because Obama is half black. Don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt? It is only because Obama is half black. Don’t like Syria using chemical weapons on people? It is only because Obama is half black.
That’s all ya got.
Damn Sternn, this is from your post, your words, “Your map and your claims are crap, total garbage, absolute lies. You want to deal with this? You show the numbers for Harris County, Texas in the 2012 elections. Here is what you will find …” If that isn’t saying he’s a liar I don’t know what else it qualifies for.
I am saying he based this entry on a pack of lies. He should have done some basic research. It didn;t take long for me to dig up info for the local area (and the bay is not a county). Of course I knew what I would find, the Old South is the land of cotton. Cotton doesn’t grwo in desert regions like West Texas, and the Old South isn’t parts of California, Washington, Oregon and most of the rest of the conties colored orange.
I see how it goes. If you post an entry using statistic’s you do not know is accurate, you can’t be held accountable? Okay. This day forward, every article Chris posts is bullshit. We now know he doesn’t conduct due diligence.
Sternn, what color is Harris county on the map above? Use those alleged map reading skills..
Orange, Fly. As are all the other counties surrounding it are though most of those also had more than 20% going to Obama. Go to the news article and get a bigger image, there are no county lines in Galveston Bay.
Bullshit Sternn. It’s beige. It sticks out like a sore thumb against all the other orange counties. Galveston Bay is not that big. The question is whether you really can’t read a map or you’re just flailing in an attempt to cover your erroneous jump to a conclusion before actually looking at anything. I suspect the latter, but they are not mutually exclusive.
But don’t take just my word- anybody else care to look at the map and say what color Harris Co. is?
It is orange, Fly, just like the other counties I listed. Even if it wasn’t my point would still be correct because of those other counties where Obama got more than 20% of the vote. Lifer didn’t do his homework. He heard something, he liked it, he repeated it, and it is still wrong.
I must confess I’m curious how long he will keep digging that hole. There is no orange- beige color blindness on record, so we can probably rule out that.
“Didn’t know that we had to rtegister and record our votes based on skin color. So, show me the proof.”
Ever heard of exit polls?
INTRIGUED, from yesterday’s thread: you’re right. I apologize for lumping you in with others. I often do have particular people in mind, but I try to soften it by using the “we,” which includes myself, but that’s not fair to you, or to anyone else who gets caught in the crossfire just by being present.
Thank you for your kjnd words about my mom and me, and I admire your wanting to make the world a better place not just for your own daughter, but for others as well. My cynicism has gotten the best of me. You are one of the few posters who keeps me coming back here every time I threaten to take a vow of silence, and I should not have lashed out at you.
No worries Tutt. I have blown off the rare scoldings in the past when you were defending Stern but I figured yesterday I needed to speak up, especially since you brought it up on Sassy’s well thought out comment.
Well, I seemed to have sternned, I mean stirred up a hornets nest of comments regarding ‘racism’ when I never said such thing. It’s part of my role in helping the 100 Year Conspiracy which started with (let’s see 2014 minus 100 equals 1914 and let me pull up Wiki) the construction of Wrigley Field. My POV is of a slick political operatives and the lingo around the word ‘optics’. To a black citizen of these United States it is very difficult to see the US Federal government and its history in the same light as one would see the history of the state of Alabama and Texas. I mean, I can google this or find other people who write more eloquently about it, but even I can recall, dimly, the history classes I took and develop a semi-coherent thesis of why this is. The Federal government went to war with the states of Alabama et al in the 1860s. Now you may know the real reason for such war was driven by the first 100 Year Conspiracy (the one which replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution) but to people who have family history which is hard to trace before 1870 because their relatives were bought and sold like Ikea lamps, they have a different point of view. Not that their bad people, just a different point of view. After said war the states of the South then enacted, with tacit and overt approval from the Federal government, a ‘two state’ solution in just about every Southern state-known as ‘separate and equal if you know what’s good for you’. This culture, supported in the Bible you know, somewhere in Economicus Ridiculous, lasted unchecked for another 80 some odd years until a court decision by another branch of the United States Federal government. Those were good people in the Southern states supporting ‘states rights’ during those 80 years, severe states righters and not racists, because racists think all black people are bad and states rightists believe the state is always right and can prove it in the Bible, a couple of novels written by an unhappy woman and the common law idea of ‘leave me the hell alone’ which probably was imported to England in 1256 by some barbarian who wandered over to Europe from Utah.
So now when someone says ‘states rights’ I am absolutely certain they aren’t racists, I don’t assume racism even when they say ‘states rights’ and talk about flying a Confederate flag in honor of men who died fighting for the right of a state to ‘evolve’ about slavery. Severe states righters aren’t bad people and Don Quixote killed every dragon he found.
and this is why we must maintain failing schools
A good many states’ rights people are racists, but Cap happens not to be one of them. He’s every bit a Don Quixote fighting for the ideal of states’ rights in general. Naive, maybe, but not racist, nor pro slavery.
He’s chosen this path of idealism and will have to deal with the consequences of defending certain rights and flying the Confederate flag, both online and off.
Exactly. I know Kabuzz or Captain are not racists, but we are what we are in other people’s eyes and how do you know what they see unless they tell you? How free do you think I feel to say, “Obama isn’t perfect, but he’s been a pretty damn good President” when I play golf or meet new people here in this city/state/region and politics comes up? Want to guess the looks I get when I disagree with “Obama is taking us down the road to communism” ? I’m outside the Loop, both geographically and in every other sense of the expression in this state.
oh boy, a racialist calling me a racist, my poor heart bleeds
Dan, your heart bleeds bourbon.
I believe in states rights simply because the founding father did. If you knew your history, our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation (I know you on the left probably think this is racist, but it is an actual word) didn’t work out too well and the fathers immediately set about authoring our current document. The difference? The Articles gave the states too much autonomy so they moved for a more balance federalism so states can have their say on issues that effect that state.
Since that time, especially in the 20th century, the executive and judicial branches have abused that agreement.
Wait, the people of Colorado are racists because they believe is states’ rights and legalized recreational use of marijuana?
Captain, I’m good bit more libertarian than you think I am and hell of a lot more idealistic than I ought to be. Earlier the subject of education was brought up, so of course I was painted as ‘supporting’ federal control–which I never said. I want the State of Texas and all these Republicans to run it, completely, no excuses about what the ‘Feds’ make them do. Follow the constitution of the State of Texas and what it says. Public. Free. Schools.
We have free public schools. We also have private schools, secular and religious. But the state abides by the Texas Constitution and provides free public schools. You have not yet shown how the state is violating the constitution on education after having been asked to do so several times.
There are people who want to have schools around their religion. Just to me, I find it a little odd to suppose that geometry and history are dependent on ones religious beliefs, but, US Constitution!
Those people still pay school taxes, despite not using public school, so at least they put their money where their….soul?…….doesn’t go?
And yes, some of my ‘fellow travelers’ send their precious children to private school because the local school board wants the kids to pledge allegiance to Texas, alternative theories to gravity and the way of life as proposed by a Life magazine article they found in the lobby. I tell my fellow travelers they aren’t helping and are in fact, a little bit hypocritical when bitching about Republicans, but I love my kids too and just don’t have the money they do.
The below is a good primer, for those wondering about Texas public schools, the legal history, etc and include peoples with whom you will agree.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/night-living-ed-complete-transcript?fullpage=1
Yes, during the recession budgets were tight and Texas didn’t increase the spending as much as some would have liked. That has changed. The bulk of the state budget goes to public education. So again, what was your point?
I can’t be any more f____g clear, particularly to someone who consistently speaks about upholding the United States constitution. A Texas legislator swears an oath regarding upholding the Texas constitution, which says nothing about ‘charter schools’ nor ‘parochial schools’ nor ‘alternatives’ to public free schools (the US constitution trumps the state-hence one can have religious schools). You and I are free Texas citizens, we can debate and talk about this issue, but an officer of the State swears allegiance to the State constitution. Thus for that officer of the State to spend any time proposing anything other than amending the Constitution so that we can create the just like Jesus wanted, rich school system and the good enough school system, is breaking his/her oath in upholding the constitution of the State of Texas and should be sentenced to sowing bluebonnet seeds along every FM road between here and Austin. Just for me.
No, the state is required to fund free public schools according to the state constitution. And so it does. Charter schools are publicly funded but operate outside a school district. Nothing about that violates the Texas Constitution.
Let’s talk about something sad a horrible. Using dead babies for power plant fuel in democrat controlled Oregon. Take a minute and think about that. Can the democrat’s sink any lower on the humane scale?
I know their hero’s are Pelosi and SJL and Cynthia McKiney. but come on. Have you guys not have a heart and soul? Nevermind.
okay it’s Friday, how about a pool for jihad in Chiraq over the weekend.
I’m going 32 shootings with 6 deaths
I’ll take the over. They have gun laws.
But wait…Illinois passed a conceal and carry law so these problems should cease to exist…correct?
Since I’m here, I’ll take a turn at kicking the anthill
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/24/fox_news_worst_cliven_bundy_lies_22_right_wing_delusions_about_the_absurd_standoff/
That ought to stir up the “ants”
To me this guy is worse than a welfare moocher. And delusional to boot.
No kidding but until he made his comments on how the “negro” was better served under slavery he was a real American Patriot to quite a few on the right. The have back pedaled so fast they are falling over themselves trying to get away.
Yeah, there’s nothing like being able to sell parents away from children and husbands away from wives for strengthening the black family!
Or breeding books, refusal to allow legal marriage……..
One upside Sassy, it’s ON between Stewart and Hannity!
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/24/must_see_morning_clip_jon_stewart_calls_sean_hannitys_show_the_arbys_of_news/
Comedy platinum!
I saw that! I was laughing so hard I woke my husband up, he didn’t think it was that funny.
Saw on the news blurb today that ever Hannity is starting to back away from this guy after those asinine racist comments. I’m surprised no one has put out a how to manual for would be RWNJ-underdog-me-against-the-gub’mint types on how to do PR. Chapter 1 would be “Don’t talk about race, ever. Even if you KNOW what’s wrong with this country, just don’t. Trust me on this.”
Well Fly, apparently it isn’t just “negros” who are shiftless and lazy it’s women too!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/will-infantine-paycheck-fairness-bill_n_5206350.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
OMG! And there people in the GOP who still don’t understand why there’s a gender gap?
If that idiot’s mother is still alive, I hope she’s willing and able to smack him upside his fool head!
This guy just can’t stop digging,
Cliven Bundy: If People Think I’m Racist, Blame MLK Jr.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/cliven-bundy-racist-mlk_n_5212526.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
“…and blamed the perception that he’s racist on Martin Luther King Jr. for not finishing “his job.”
You might want to include James Earl Ray in that blame, then.
I can’t believe I’m in the same solar system, let alone the same country, with someone that appallingly ignorant. Land use is a legit topic for discussion, but the righties need to find a better quality poster child for their side. This dude is a gigantic millstone.
“The New York Times posted a map yesterday showing the counties in which Obama won less than 20% of the vote in 2012.”
Wait, what? The more I disect this entry, the more I find wrong with it. You claim that in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, less than 20% of the population voted for Obama. Fact is that Harris County, Texas, went to Obama.
Your map and your claims are crap, total garbage, absolute lies. You want to deal with this? You show the numbers for Harris County, Texas in the 2012 elections. Here is what you will find …
B. Obama (i) Dem 49.4% 585,451
M. Romney GOP 49.3% 584,866
I have refrained from using profanity on this blog, generally because I refrain from using profanity at all. But your absolute lies draw me close to using profanity. I dare you to leave this comment in place and not delete it.
“You claim that in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, less than 20% of the population voted for Obama. Fact is that Harris County, Texas, went to Obama.”
Dude, can you even read a map???? Did you notice big beige spot in SE Texas? That wasn’t Galveston Bay!
It is the bay.
Fort Bend County: 54.36 Romney 44.92 Obama
Liberty County: 7602 Romney 22.9 Obama (close, but not in line with Lifer’s claim)
Galveston: 63.21 Romney 35.61 Obama
Brazoria: 66.42 Romney 32.26 Obama
Waller: 58.3 Romney 40.7 Obama
Do I need to dig county by county to prove this whole entry is based on a false claim (I won’t use that other word because I think Lifer just went off of what he read rather than doing his homework, but that is so typical of the left). I hear that a lot of people can’t find the U.S. on a map. Guess which side here can’t read a map …
I suggest you get your eyes checked then. The map has two colors, orange, which denotes where Obmaa got less than 20% of the white vote, and beige, where Obama got more than 20% of the white votes. Harris county is BEIGE on the map posted above. Not surprisingly so is Bexar County (San Antonio), Travis and several surrounding counties (Austin), and the Dallas- Ft. worth metroplex. You screwed up. And you have the gall to accuse Chris of lying.
I suggest you learn to read a map, Galveston Bay is not a county. To simply claim that is is only about whites is to ignore reality because you have no proof or evidence. It is an empty claim, nonsense.
Go look at the map. is Harris Co. Orange or beige?
Dude, can you not read the post by Lifer and read the map? His claim was that Harris County was less than 20% for Obama.
I read a mention of Cook Co.,and Wayne Co., and LA Co., but no Harris Co.in Chris’ post (not to mention it was about Reagan and not Romney or Obama). I also see this beige Harris county shaped thing surrounded by orange ( orange indicates where Obama got <20%). So that means that Chris is saying that Obama DIDN'T take Harris Co? Exactly how did you draw that conclusion? Please show your work if you want full credit.
One thing not entirely clear unless you look at the NYT page (since some of the text on the map is missing here), the orange color indicates counties where Obama got less than 20% of the WHITE vote. Not the total vote, the white vote. But that doesn’t change the fact that you read the map backwards. So Sternn, are you man enough to apologize to Chris for teeing off on him when the error was YOURS?
Sigh…Dude, what are you talking about? This post (the one referencing the NYT article) excludes HC on the map – because it went to Obama.
The previous post includes a whole paragraph about southern urban areas, including HC. What?
What? Do your homework. See my reply to Fly.
So you’re not man enough.
Did you really think he would or is?
No Turtles, but I didn’t expect him to top his own record in the ferrous cranus category. Harris Co = Galveston Bay?
*sigh* This whole entry is really based on a false claim, “The map is a near-perfect correlation with the sections of the US that failed to ban slavery prior to Lincoln’s election.” I reality, maybe the map in this entry covers 30% of the areas where slavery was still practiced in 1861. Pretty much all of the map west of East Texas had nothing to do with slavery.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery/slave-maps/us-slave-map.htm
You people and your sources make me wonder why I bother.
There were slaves in Utah from the earliest Mormon settlements and Brigham Young defended the practice fiercely.
While the 1960 election campaign was in progress, there was a war being fought in what became Kansas and Nebraska, spilling over into Missouri, between abolitionists and slaveholders. American Indians were used as slaves in the Colorado territory, a practice that didn’t end until after the Civil War. Missouri saw some of the nastiest civilian militia battles of the war between slaveholders and abolitionists.
There were thousands of slaves in Oklahoma (the Indian Territory). The Cherokee there were deeply dependent on slavery for their economy. There was even a prominent slave revolt there in 1842.
The residents of Arizona successfully seceded and joined the Confederacy. The Union government was not able to return to the territory until after the war. Free blacks in Arizona were formally enslaved by law in 1859. New Mexico formalized slavery along Southern lines (semi-legal enslavement of Indians had been a practice there for centuries) in 1858.
When you look at the map of places that did not outlaw slavery, you’re seeing a map of the places where the assumptions that lay beneath the institution remained deeply engrained and accepted in the culture.That didn’t just blow away like smoke when the bluecoats rode through, or Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts.
The really comical/pathetic thing about Chris and his fellow travelers (and the left in general) is that they have become utterly incapable of addressing any issue unless it is cast in the light of racial grievance. Despite the fact that slavery was abolished eight generations ago, despite the fact that there is no living memory of slavery, and little living memory of even Jim Crow, they are incapable of considering the thought that some folks might have an issue with government that is not rooted in some strange resentment to the fact that we can no longer on slaves, or that we are expected to treat the great, great, great, great, great grandchildren of former slaves as equals. Wow. Honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“You people”? What a racist comment that was.
I think you meant 1860 and Bloody Kansas. Yes, that was basically like people bombing abortion clinics and killing abortion doctors in modern times, only far worse. Raids, murders, rapes, burning crops, killing livestock, burning homes, basically domestic terrorism. Lawless people committing terrorist acts, going against laws, against supreme court rulings … well I guess you now see Bundy as a hero. Not only Bundy, but people that bomb abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors.
And just a reminder, slavery was legal in all states and territories when Lincoln was elected. Free blacks owned other blacks as slaves. Blacks sold blacks into slavery. Blacks weren’t the ony people enslaved, as you pointed out. The Irish dealt with serious discrimination, whites were enslaved, American Indians were enslaved.
You try to link everything to racism, but that is only either through your own racist eyes, or it is your inability to argue points based on facts and reality. Anybody that disagrees with Obama only does so because he is white and raised by his white parents. Or maybe because he claims to be black. That is the same reason people opposed Bush43, Clinton, Gore, Bush41, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Reid, Pelosi, Perry, Cruz … It could never be that people actually disagree with what they stand for, their policies (oh right, Cruz is hispanic and that;s the only reason anybody could not support him, darn racists).
How about a more honest argument? People outside large cities, independent and not slaves to the government are against big government micromanaging their lives, violating treaties, taking private property and wanting to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit. Not wanting to be forced to support people that are capable of working and supporting themselves are against the leftists? People against the destruction of the free market and private sector, against central planning and control, against socialisnm or communism oppose democrats, Obama, Carter, Clinton, Pelosi, Reid, …
But you are incapable of making that argument, so you fall on the old, “You are a racist because you disagree with me!” claim.
What I find comic/pathetic is the notion that the toxic fallout of CENTURIES of oppression is just going to go poof and disappear after a mere 5 decades. The world has never worked that way.
I also find it comic/pathetic that every time Sternn gets caught saying something that isn’t true (“Pretty much all of the map west of east Texas had nothing to do with slavery.”), instead of owning the mistake, we get yet another FREEDOM! rant. It’s like the sun rising in the east.
And since Chris is silly enough to bring up Arizona’s role in the Civil War, let’s address that, shall we? The bloodiest Civil War action fought in Arizona was the battle of Picacho Peak, with a grand total of 23 combatants, 5 wounded and 3 killed. The *total* population of the Arizona Territory in *1870* was 9,658. (There are no earlier numbers; at the time of the Civil War Arizona was effectively unpopulated.) Today Arizona’s population is 6,392,017.
Chris would have us believe the political leanings of 6+ million people are determined by the political leanings of a few thousand people 140+ years ago. Can you say, risible?
Fly, if 40 years in the desert was punishment enough for Jews of Exodus, why isn’t it good enough for us? Do you hold more rage in your heart than than that fierce, angry, jealous, Old Testament, burning-bush Yahweh God? If so, you scare me.
“For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord.” – Joshua 5:6
Tracy, your Biblical reference fails on several levels. First, I know of no definitive archeological proof that these people actually wandered in a desert for 40 years. But even if it did happen, they reportedly brought it on themselves by pissing off God. Exactly what did the slaves do to deserve slavery? Or their descendants to deserve Jim Crow? Also if you’re going to invoke a Biblical example about holding grudges, you shouldn’t overlook that fact that the Holy Land is absolutely saturated with some of the world’s longest running grudges.
“Do you hold more rage in your heart than than that fierce, angry, jealous, Old Testament, burning-bush Yahweh God?”
Also this has zip zilch, nada to do with what is in my heart. Acknowledging that you can’t just abruptly declare the effects of centuries of injustice to over and done with right now is a statement of fact, not an expression of rage.
Let’s see, the GOP freed the slaves. The democrat’s ruled the legislative and courts for decades giving us Jim Crow. And now conservatives are supposed to be given a lecture by the party of racism? Wow!
Again, the democrat policies in place demonstrate how they believe. Blacks can’t compete with whitey unless you lower standards and test scores. That is the democrat party.
I find that comical/pathetic.
Now I know the left thinks they are the only educated people in this country but, Western Civilization demonstrated many centuries of slavery against all ethnicities. But since we were a country for less than one century, it took a republican to take action against slavery.
Dem’s, you own it. History is not on your side on this subject. I think this is why you Fly and Chris and others of your ilk see race in everything. It’s genetic.
Given all the historical omissions in that rant Buzzy, you have no standing to claim that you are just as educated as all those Dems and lefties you say look down on real Americans like you.
What did the people do to deserve slavery? Nothing at all. Their fellow tribes and tribe members basically kidnapped them and sold them into slavery. That was going on for thousands of years before white people started the institution of slavery. It is still going on it some parts of the world. And even here in the U.S. there is a view that some human beings are not quite human and treated as nothing more than property.
My last paragraph comes from my reading of a book written in 1946 about FDR by a journalist of that era named John T. Flynn. It had opened my eyes to quite a bit of what I was seeing as Obama began his first term and there is quite a bit of similarity in the run-up to both men’s election and their political philosophies. The 100 year reference was a tie to Woodrow Wilson, who FDR served as his Secretary of the Navy, and the many hold overs from WW days to FDRs administration.
Mr. Flynn updated his work in 1956 to confirm some speculations he made in the original writing. You may scoff at the allegory but the old saw about those that ignore history are destined to repeat it really hits home when you find Obama is doing pretty much what FDR and his team did from 1932 to the early 40’s.
FDR and the dems in control of congress in 1932, not unlike Obama and the dem congress of 2008 did his best to crash the economy in order to make the other party toxic to the electorate. The weeks after his election FDR was given huge appropriations to spend as he saw fit and spend he did. He also saved enough to sprinkle sugar for mid-term elections like Obama does. FDR tried mightily to transform the Supreme Court when they kept ruling his policies defied the constitution. Did you see where Sotomeyer in her dissent this week declared racial discrimination MUST be a part of the solution to racial discrimination?
Like FDR, Obama enjoys picking winners and losers. FDR was completely agnostic on the economy and associated policies mainly because he did not understand it, so he left it to his administration to produce his visions. Like Obama, FDR never had to earn a living and lived quite well his entire life while championing the working man as a political tool. Like WW beforehim FDR wanted to control the economy no matter the form. FDRs team figured they only needed to control about 20% to control the whole thing because nobody else was close. Both Wilson and FDR believed getting control of health care was the better option over the food supply. That book was chock-a-block full of the initiatives we are seeing Obama attempt in his term and it really is nothing new at all.
There are many accounts of the over the top lavish spending and vacations while the rest of the country was suffering. While people were scraping together everything they could to conserve for the war effort the Roosevelts were all over the globe living like royalty. There was a huge effort to make FDR appear what he wasn’t and the media accommodated him at every turn. Did you know he made exactly one campaign appearance leading up to the 1944 election? That appearance was famously captured as he rode in the back of a convertible with his long cigarette holder to attempt to show how robust he was riding through the streets of NY in the rain. He was so weak the democrat party insisted on replacing FDRs VP Henry Wallace because they feared he would not survive another term. Henry Wallace was a communist sympathizer and the dems knew the country would not tolerate that after fours of war fighting communism. btw, he got sick after that ride and never really recovered. He died almost 3 months into his last term in April 1945 at his retreat in Warm Springs, Ga. He was there often for convalescent reasons.
Roosevelt was a foreign policy disaster before, during and as the war wound down. When it was determined Germany would fail Stalin wanted to obliterate it as revenge. FDR did not object. Winston Churchill and Jesse Jones convinced FDR that would cripple all of Europe for decades as Germany had most of the natural resources needed to rebuild. So while you fill your head with Ta Neesi Coates and other such agitators, know that some of us have other references to give us insights.
There is no terrible source that escapes you folks’ attention. Where did you find that crap? Does someone still publish it? Flynn was a nutjob’s nutjob, convinced that US involvement in WWI was an evil conspiracy, that we shouldn’t stand in Hitler’s way, and that Roosevelt was allied with Mussolini.
Like every other far right idiot of his day, he became of fan of Joe McCarthy and had all his “books” published by the John Birch Society. Are you incapable of questioning anything you read?
God, how do people like you avoid falling in a hole or accidentally drinking drain cleaner?
Chris, your pettiness is entering overload. Of course all leftists would try to discount any writing from anybody on the right. I’ll give you an ATTA Boy for sounding firm, but your essay is just plain pathetic. Talk about interpretations…man, you win it.
Really good question.
well Chrit you sure put a lot of stuff in there I didn’t say to make some kind of point. Have you read the book? His 1956 update actually was to verify his assumptions on the start of the war I believe. I found that old book in my parents library. They knew nothing about it nor do I know if you’re correct in what you say. I know he was an ally and then adversary of William Buckley but I haven’t investigated tat aspect of him.
Joe Kennedy was an ally of Joe McCarthy as were his sons. Since you’re so familiar with him, dispute what I wrote with facts. Otherwise you sound like bubba ranting.
FDR was elected in November 1932. His inauguration was in March 1933. Hoover accepted FDR was basically the leader of the nation before the election even. Hoover tried on several occasions to offer FDR the authority to implement regulations that would help the people suffering from the depression. FDR not only refused to assist, he ignored Hoover.
Refute it if you can.
Dan, it is worse than that. FDR opposed Hoover on his ideas, then turned around and implementd Hoover’s ideasas soon as he was sworn in, then built on them.
You know, it is like issues years ago for me. Was al Qaeda responsible for 9/11/2001? Why did we need to invade Iraq in 2003? Why is the Bundy case an issue? Why did some states leave the Union in 1861?
So many here are knee-jerk reactionists, never doing any actual research. I think we were right to go after al Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. I changed my mind about the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I am not sure about the Bundy case. My first reaction is that he violated federal laws … or did he? I need to do more research and study on that case. How many here would put the time and effort to try to understand the decades or centuries long dispute to have an informed opinion? Or will they simply say, “Obama said so and that is that.”?
Cap, Bundy is merely the latest symptom of an old problem. As the fee for admission into the Union, the western territories had to cede control of vast tracts of land over to the federal government. Farmers, ranchers, miners, loggers, etc., who formerly dealt with local authorities found themselves at the mercy of the federal government, with decisions about the most intimate aspects of their lives suddenly being made by faceless bureaucrats in far away Washington, D.C. Just about anybody with deep roots in the western states despises the federal government, and with good reason. They’ve been screwed over by Wasington so many times they’ve lost count.
This resentment is endemic and long simmering. Every now and then, when the federal government become even more excessively abusive than usual, the resentment boils over into physical confrontation. The Bundy situation is merely the latest event in this long history of conflict, and is nothing more or less than a reaction to a long train of abuses.
So Tracy does that mean you are ok with suspending the XL Pipeline? After all we aren’t talking about a freeloading cowboy but rather tax paying farmers and ranchers that are losing their land to eminent domain to a for profit foreign company that will transfer their toxic soup to another for profit privately owned company to produce a product that will never be used in this country for the betterment of the public good. Not to mention the breaking of several treaty’s that were made with several tribes of Native Americans that gave them complete rights to the land and resources of that land?
Uh Oh! It seems that the new right wing hero Cliven Bundy has really stepped into a steaming pile of his own BS.
“Republican leaders are backing off their support of Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after he made a series of inflammatory racist remarks reported in The New York Times.
The rancher, who won a showdown this month with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights for his herd, attacked African-Americans for their dependency on government assistance and claimed that they abort their children and end up in jail because they have no jobs.
Bundy, a registered Republican with 14 children, said to the Times, “I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
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While claiming that many African-Americans are “basically on public assistance,” he added, “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton.”
Recalling the time he once drove past a public-housing project in north Las Vegas, he continued, “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro…in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cliven-bundy-racist-remarks/2014/04/24/id/567485/
Who, besides you, said anything about him being a hero?
And his views on that have no bearling or relevance to whether or not the federal government is violating treaties. Again, many on the left can’t deal with the actual facts or the laws, they can only attack the person.
well let’s see…a guy made a campaign donation to a cause in 2006 that got him run out on a rail from his job in 2014. Mind you he had the same views espoused by our current precedent when he was campaigning in 2008.
So yeah, an 80 year old white guy embarrassing him on the national stage will get the full media spin to destroy him after making an observation many agree with.
Chains you can believe in! Remember when Joe Biden made that his campaign theme? Good times.
Rand Paul, Heller, Hannity, Gretta Van Sustern, Ted Cruz actually called him an American Patriot along with his his posse….on and on and on…..
No, Way, they didn’t. They said the federal government was too heavy handed. Simply put a lein on his property so he couldn’t sell it. Don’t go all Waco or Ruby Ridge on the matter.
There is still the question of the treatis and laws. Do you have no interest in treaties or laws?
No, you’re right Capt. No one on the right rallied, supported or idolized Bundy. Not even slightly.
Why are you two-stepping around this matter? And I’m being very nice here out of respect but seriously, why don’t you man up and just admit that you too, support Bundy? You too somewhat idolize him. Just slightly. A smidgen even.
Why the whole..”I need to do more research and study on that case.”??? That’s weak, Capt. Real weak. He’s a thief. But you’re not dumb so you at least try and seem somewhat objective by starting off with..”My first reaction is that he violated federal laws…” but everything after is giving him the benefit of the doubt and then to top it all off, you bring up Obama. For what? Who knows…’Murica, I guess? Just quit wile you’re behind already.
It’s up to you if you want to defend a lot of the idiocy in the world and always stand on the wrong side of history. It’s your call if you want to have the mentality of “if Obama/Democrats are against it, then I’m for it”. It’s up to you if you want to give the benefit of the doubt to an idiotic racist thief. But if you’re going to do it – do it. Go all the way with it. Don’t half ass it because I don’t know…call me crazy but I’ve just come to expect so much more from such a valiant and patriotic countryman like yourself.
hey Crazy, you should have stopped at Capt.
Rucas, did the U.S., the federal government, agree to treaties or not? Is the federal government abiding by those treaties? Simple enough?
Capt, you must be on a fixed gear since you’re the only one NOT back pedaling from Bundy today. Good luck with that.
Even racists have rights.
No one said he did not have rights, but one of those rights is the not the ability to steal from the American public.
Way2snobby, inventing your own hero’s again? Please prove where anyone has said he is a hero. You can’t. Tsk!
Does that liberal website World Net Daily count? They called him “America’s Newest Hero”.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/americas-newest-hero-meet-the-real-cliven-bundy/
The author of this blog is too nice to us, his commenting readers. I noticed no one really wanted to touch the substance of the link I included, which when combined with the general non condemnation of the racist idiocy that is Mr. Bundy in the comments is just further evidence of the truth of the author’s observation. So, grind teeth on the below from Mr. Chait.
“As it happens, just the other day, Tuccille expressed outrage over something I wrote. In a longer argument about the future of American politics, I suggested that conservatism in its current incarnation has no future in American politics because “America’s unique brand of ideological anti-statism is historically inseparable … from the legacy of slavery,” and thus will have little natural appeal to an increasingly diverse electorate. Tuccille shot back, “It’s tempting to say ‘what the fuck?’ and take Chait’s argument as an exercise in self-congratulatory lunacy.”
To his credit, Tuccille then went back and read my magazine story about racial politics in the Obama era, which tries to untangle the fraught relationship between racism and ideology. To his discredit, Tuccille summarized my point as follows: “No need for debate, it’s all about internalized racism.” This is the precise opposite of my argument, which held that while conservatism and racism may be historically, sociologically, and psychologically inseparable, it is absolutely necessary to debate conservative ideas on their own terms. (Self-quote: “And yet — as vital as this revelation may be for understanding conservatism, it still should not be used to dismiss the beliefs of individual conservatives. Individual arguments need and deserve to be assessed on their own terms, not as the visible tip of a submerged agenda; ideas can’t be defined solely by their past associations and uses.” Seriously, somebody tell me how I could have made this point more explicitly.)
Most of the outrage against my argument came from the left, who objected to the “you need to argue with conservative ideas on their own terms” part, but Tuccille helped stoke some belated outrage on the right at the “yes, American conservatism is deeply intertwined with racism” part. In that spirit, I would absolutely concede that, while I find Bundy’s case completely unsympathetic, it is 100 percent possible to agree with his views on grazing rights without being racist.
Where we differ is that, I’d argue, it’s not exactly a coincidence that Bundy also turns out to be a gigantic racist. Just like Ron Paul’s longtime ghostwriter turned out to be a neoconfederate white supremacist. And like the way Rand Paul’s ghostwriter also turned out to be a neoconfederate white supremacist. Presumably all these revelations have struck Tuccille as a series of shocking coincidences. Why do all these people with strong antipathy toward the federal government turn out to be racists?”
Yawn! Okay. If it will make you go away. Wow! You’re right. We are all racist.
of course we are cracka!
Why do all the people that want a more powerful federal government and more socialism all turn out to be racists?
Well one of you believes State’s Rights were more important than the rights of the black citizens of the state (and has admitted to flying the Stars and Bars), so I’ll let others decide what that means. Really, really, severe libertarianism? The other, you’re on a team and are always a team player. Loyal. To. A. Fault.
Crog-GED, it can be pared down to simple logic:
ALL RACISTS ARE ANTI-STATISTS
does NOT mean that
ALL ANTI-STATISTS ARE RACISTS.
Within the larger group — the anti-statists — you have several subsets, one of which is the racists, among other groups which resent government intrusion.
Now, can we really say that all racists are anti-statists? Are there racists who trust the government?
Tutta, tut, tut. All anti-statists are racist – this is settled science. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to slip into something more comfortable (you know, my stars-and-bars T-shirt) and beat my pet pit bull with a picaninny doll. Oh, and vote for Romney.
After all, according to Chris, that’s what my Arizona confederate heritage requires. (Never mind that none of my ancestors even made it to the good ol’ U.S. of A. until after the turn of the century.)
Kabuzz, you fly the Stars and Bars?
Tutt, many on the left simply can’t accept that. If they did, they would have to make real arguments based on facts, legislation, policies and actions of the politicians they support. And as has been viewed on this blog and often on the Chron.com, they don’t even know what the politicians they support stand for or are doing.
nah, he was referring to me when I was in high school. Several schools in Houston used that flag and they were all integrated when they did. Like his buddy Chris, Crogged’s a master at baiting the race meme.
And I thought the team player was Kabuzz, always loyal to his “side.”
That’s interesting, Dan. I guess it is cool that Crogged knows what the Stars and Bars flag is. I find that most people don’t. Tutt and I were touring a small town on oe of our road trips and we drove by an old cemetery that had small versions of the Stars and Bars on several of the graves. I thought that was interesting. We have visited the cemetery of old Indianola a few times and some of those graves are decorated with the Southern Cross flag.
Since Kabuzz and I were the only two replies under this comment when he said it I figured he was taking about Kabuzz. But I have never seen Kabuzz favor states’ rights over ending slavery, and I know I haven’t ever said any such thing.
As for being a team player, Cap and I make a great team, and he is definitely
LOYAL – TO – A – FAULT
Captain Sternn is TEEMING with great qualities.
the states rights deal is Crogged is wedded to federal control of education and can’t stand the thought of kids not having to remain in those chains for their education, if you follow his comments today he is absolutely torqued about charter schools like Obama and Holder are
Thank you, my dear lady. Yes we do make a great team.
I have watched his comments on charter schools, Dan. He has yet to explain why he thinks they violate the Texas Constitution even though I have asked that question several times.
it’s in his 11:23 am reply that starts with this line…
“Why do we need another ‘separate but equal’ experiment? ”
Crogged’s a racialist like Obama. Like Sotomeyer. Like Holder. Like almost all of the democrat party this election cycle because they have nothing else. Everything has to be considered for it’s impacts on race, racial relations, racial hat size, racial impacts real or perceived, racity race racialism. Let’s get used to it because it is like a earworm to them and they are going to sing it at every turn.
Hey Crogged. Boo! (that’s racist for me to say even though 10% of the male population of Acres Homes are known as Boo)
My good Captain, no I do not fly the Stars and Bars. I was born and raised in Philadelphia and really have no idea what the Stars and Bars looks like. I think it is different then the confederate flag but not sure.
Ah, Kabuzz, allow me to ruffle Lifer’s feathers once more. The Stars and Bars was the original Confederate Flag. It looked a lot like the U.S. Flag, the Stars and Stripes. Soldiers on the field of battle would confuse the two and rally to the wrong flag. So the flag was changed to the Stainless Banner, a white flag with the Southern Cross in the upper inside corner. But that was often confused with the white flag of surrender, so a red strip was added to the outside edge, the Blood Stained Banner. The Southern Cross became recognized as the battle flag, a square flag. What many see as the Confederate Flag today is the Southern Cross in a 3×5 scale, it was actually the naval flag of the Confederate States of America.
http://www.usflag.org/confederate.stars.and.bars.html
Mr. Lifer, with respect to the 2012 election pattern, I can agree with your use of Points 2 and 3 — about the GOP doing better in places with low population density, and among older, White voters — but Point 1 — about the GOP doing better in places “where slavery was legal until Lincoln’s election” — seems rather contrived.
It’s like saying someone did better in regions with the fewest vegetarians in 1903, or where drag racing was prohibited after 7pm up until 1960, or some other arbitrary factor.
well Tutt if you accept the Chris is a liberal democrat working to maintain democrats in office it will make more sense to you. They sure can’t run on their record so they have to go back to the social memes they keep handy.
We’ll be getting plenty of helpings of racial demagoguery, war on wimmin, war on wealth and all that rot during this election cycle. It’s all they have.
Arbitrary factor? A culture built from the ground up around slavery, which then remained under racial apartheid until the ’70’s is an “arbitrary factor?”
let’s see…1970s? let’s make it 1979 to give you some help. 1979 – 400 = 1579, okay let’s go with Cuffy 1979 – 300 = 1679. Close enough for democrat arguments!
what do you guys expect to gain by destroying 50 years of attempts to reign in what you’re now throwing gas on to make a blinkered political point? If you think it works to change any minds you deluding yourselves.
Tutta, your summation of Chris’ fallacious logic (I use the term loosely) is as amusing as it is accurate. Touché! 😉
Mr. Lifer wrote: The bad news is that their rejection of a white nationalist agenda is accompanied by a fresh new enthusiasm for liberal economics.
****************************
We can’t always have it both ways. This reminds me of when Black voters in California came out in full force to vote for Mr. Obama in 2008, and how they turned out to be a decisive factor in defeating the same-sex marriage proposal. I can’t say I agree with their stance on gay marriage, but I have to admire them for not toeing the party line, and I grin at the irony of the situation.
Hey Kabuzz, hope you don’t mind me pointing out your clairvoyance on today’s topic.
“kabuzz61 says:
April 23, 2014 at 12:57 pm
Captain, Chris is part of the past GOP that lived in racism, according to him anyway.
If we can’t see beyond color, we will always have racism. Chris can’t see past color.”
nailed it a day early
Apparently Rand Paul believes that Jimmy Carter was a better fiscal conservative than Reagan. Wonder how that is going to sell to the right?
Sassy, Reagan wasn’t a fiscal conservative in that he was willing to undertake massive defense spending in order to end the Cold War with a (W). Paul is an isolationist like his father, and probably views Reagan’s military spending in a dim light. From that standpoint Paul’s comments on the topic are unsurprising. Whether a majority of conservatives will buy into this view is a matter for the primaries to determine.
Hmm. Interesting feature, that (W). Should have been ‘W’, as in ‘Win’.
I won’t argue you with you on that point but I don’t think he was simply referring to his military spending.
I’ve long stopped listening to the old, outdated and defunct folks waving their fists on their lawns screaming about a failed tomorrow and a better yesterday. I’m in my early to mid thirties….you don’t even want to know what the even younger crowd/generation thinks of them.
You’re 35 or almost there. I’m curious what all you whippersnappers are going to do when you realize you voted to bankrupt yourselves and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’d say I’m more worried than curious actually because I have a stake in that too.
Well, Dan, you have to think about who is talking about our future being bankrupt and then take into account their credibility (or lack there of). If you guys were even partially right about any of your dooms day predictions since Obama took office then maybe, MAYBE, we could listen but until then, we won’t.
You guys really screwed the pooch with all the anti-Obama/Democratic/Liberal rhetoric, obstructionism, etc.. That’s your bed…now sleep in it. Us younger whippersnappers will worry about our own sleeping arraignments.
good luck to you my liberal fiend
When you have the credibility of a fortune cookie, I believe it is you, who needs all the luck they can get. But thanks for the kind gesture anyways!
“good luck to you my liberal fiend, in bed”
I’ll be danged. That fortune cookie reference was a good one.
It’s not who is saying it, but what is being said.
Rucas, it is your party that is demanding keeping 1960 policies in action and refusing to touch or modify them. Go ahead, shake your fist if it makes you feel better.
Sometimes other people say it better.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/24/quote-for-the-day-357/
White nationalism? Seriously?
Guess that means the democrats are running based on regional politics and race.
FYI, the Bundy case has a long history and the ownership of the land has long been disputed.
It doesn’t stop there. The federal government is now looking at a land grab here in Texas, looking to take private property away from the owners and claim it as property owned by the federal government along the Oklahoma border.
Oh, and nobody alive today owned slaves.
Meh, digging into the Bundy situation can make a person’s head spin. Seems he isn’t the first or only person with this issue and that Nevada is a open range state. There was another case in 2013, U.S. vs Hage, that didn’t go so well for the federal government. Maybe they are going after Bundy as an act of revenge?
They really lost me when one of the groups who showed up to support Bundy said he would use women and children as shields if necessary. Total scumbag.
I never heard about that, GG. But if it happened, I would agree that said group fits your description.
I am more interested in the legal asspects, but I can’t wrap my head around them in a day. What I do know is that there is a real dispute over ancestral grazing rights, state control over the land and more. There are several treaties from the past that can and probably do apply to the case. The U.S. has never been all that solid in abiding by such treaties of people within the borders.
Another take on the Bundy case would be the court’s interpretation of the 10th amendment, the federal government can do whatever it wants unless the people rise up and stop it.
What a remarkably revisionist view of recent history, Chris. The counties shown are the same counties that helped sweep Reagan into office. We used to call those folks Reagan democrats. The same people who support Bundy enthusiastically bought into Reagan’s notion that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” And never forget that Reagan was every bit as reviled by the establishment GOP as Cruz is now. This isn’t about race; it’s about a federal Leviathan that is completely out of control.
Sorry, but that’s just mathematically false. Connecticut went for Reagan by greater than 60%. Philadelphia’s Mainline went for Reagan by 60-70%. Reagan won on Long Island by the same margins as in suburban Houston and Dallas. The South went to Reagan at about the same rates and in the same patterns as everyone else.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1984
Connecting Bundy and Reagan is intensely insulting. Federal leviathan my ass.
Google Reagan coalition, Chris. And while you’re at it, google Sagebrush Rebellion. Having grown up in rural Arizona, I understand very clearly Mr. Bundy’s disgruntlement with the federal Leviathan. Indeed, to a large extent I share it. Reagan famously tapped into this deep seated resentment and distrust of the federal government. Then, as now, government overreach combined with general incompetence fueled a simmering rage in the electorate. Just wait for it. If things continue as they are, Reagan 2.0 will win Connecticut by just as large a margin as Reagan 1.0.
The only question at this point is who Reagan 2.0 will be. Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? A player TBN? One thing for sure, it won’t be Jebby, Romney, McCain, or any other establishment GOP stalwart. And as long as the GOP insists on running such bozos, they will continue to crash and burn for the same reason as in ’08 an ’12 – classical liberals and libertarians will just stay home.
But it won’t because even though libertarianism is good for ‘why shouldn’t I be able to smoke dope in my living room’ it really sucks for doing the actual work of maintaining a society by educating all the citizens or determining equitable funding levels for other government services. See the prior posts where simple assertions of ‘because’ passed for describing how charter schools equitably educate all the students of all the state residents.
“Connecting Bundy and Reagan is intensely insulting.” – to who and why?
“Federal leviathan my ass.” – ah the old gorebull warming response, “the science is settled and there’s no more to say!”
Hey Crogged, you left a few dangling chads in that prior post. Why do you conflate any option other than the current public school systems as some nefarious thing? You seem very protective of the status quo in public education. What’s your reason?
Read my link above (and the imbedded link in it to Johnathan Chait) and you will see why conflating Bundy and Reagan is even worse than ‘insulting’.
not getting it but the Onion article was funny but a bit long, libs are always looking for a reason to be offended so missing the reason for the outrage happens to me often
what’s your tie to public education?
Why do we need another ‘separate but equal’ experiment? Maybe it’s worth going into here with you Dan; what do these words mean to you, “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people”? When do we determine that ‘general diffusion’ has occurred and then allow for individual supplementation of educating children, at what point are economics and/or location of birth determining the knowledge we give our children? Will the ‘vouchers’ include transportation to the school so that distance isn’t an issue? Maybe some child care vouchers so that accidents of employment don’t intervene?
You appear to be much more concerned with everything but actually educating the kids and trying to use the words of the Texas constitution to tie up attempts to tackle the problem.
Are you saying no one should be allowed to have a better learning experience than what the local public school provides? Notice that is exactly the same position Obama and Holder have. Do you also send your kids to very expensive private schools like they do as well?
No I don’t send my children to expensive public schools, nor did I have to relocate, as my parents did, to go to better public schools. We are dealing with two issues here, one is the prevalence of testing as determining results–we have now swung too far in reliance on this method (effort is more indicative of success in life than talent). The other is simple recognition that not all students are the same and doing more for some subsets of students is ‘equitable’, if not ‘equal’.
TTHOR wrote: The only question at this point is who Reagan 2.0 will be. Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? A player TBN? One thing for sure, it won’t be Jebby, Romney, McCain, or any other establishment GOP stalwart. And as long as the GOP insists on running such bozos, they will continue to crash and burn for the same reason as in ’08 an ’12 – classical liberals and libertarians will just stay home.
None of these clowns will ever be elected to the White House. The anti-federal government ploy may work well for the neo-con, neo-confederate crowd but the rest of the nation rejects such buffoonery. The far right likes to claim that if only a real “conservative” had the GOP nomination then they would have won. But they keep forgetting that even within the GOP such people like Perry, Cain, and Santorum could not win, much less the general election.
The map GOPlifer presents speaks volumes, the rest of the nation is not buying into the GOP product and the growing demographic groups of women, minorities, and the young are wholesale rejecting them.
Anti-federal government ploy? What is that and who supports it?
I’m talking about one issue. Improving the education of children. I’m for providing the best method of doing that in the most efficient manner and I don’t think that is the objective of many players in the education business. Having a federal level office have influence over state and local control of schools with dedicated social leftists in control of it is the worst way to improve to schools and education in my opinion.
My hunch is you do not see an problem with that as you appreciate the politics and tactics of the current administration. Those tactics include indoctrination of policies quite contrary to our constitution and many other assorted leftist endeavors to undermine our culture. I’ll wrap this up like I did with Way’s lament about being misunderstood (get it Way?), all evidence of the lefts tactics have been on display for 100 years now. They have really taken hold in the last 50 and are on steroids under Obama. We see the envy that motivates you. We know what you want, we see the destruction of our way of life as a result of those pursuits and we don’t like it.
me Cap, the feds have become far to powerful as exhibited by the BLM embroglio shows us. There needs to be an aggressive dismantling of the federal government in my estimation.
I would just like to see it restricted to its constitutional powers and duties, Dan. But not destroyed.
Oh my I didn’t mean to imply the whole thing. I am referring to the dem congress abdicating their rule making authority to the EPA, the several departments that have growth since inception that have not contributed anything to their cause other than providing bloated paychecks to the cronies running them (Dept. of Ed., Dept. of Energy, for example), the many layers of law enforcement that are mimicked at the state level and that type of thing.
I’ve got some time so let’s go through the soup.
“I’m for providing the best method of doing that in the most efficient manner and I don’t think that is the objective of many players in the education business.”
Another assertion as to the motivations of educators without evidence or much consideration of how it’s a usually low paying job. You want better teachers–reach into the libertarian mailbag and make teachers have better qualifications AND offer high pay, real high pay.
“Having a federal level office have influence over state and local control of schools with dedicated social leftists in control of it is the worst way to improve to schools and education in my opinion.”
Wouldn’t the federal level office staffed with ‘social leftists’ (eh?) having ‘control’ rather than ‘influence’ actually be worse?
The next paragraph is a mass of drooling paranoia about 100 years of something poorly described and other odd generalizations regarding a ‘way of life’ under attack (you forgot about the evils of the interstate highway system). I imagine this paragraph is an illustration for the class in “Logic” you forgot to include when describing changes we need in current curriculum.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/18/Holder-Fight-Guns-Like-Cigarettes
Well this certainly became an interesting thread. Crogged, you seem to be operating under the misapprehension that only the federal government is capable of supplying the plethora of service it supplies (albeit in grossly inefficient fashion). In truth nothing could be further from the truth. We need most of the ‘services’ that the federal government supplies like a submarine needs a screen door. So lay that canard aside.
With respect to Mr. Bundy, the depredations of the BLM amount to an egregious abuse of the Fifth Amendment; Mr. Bundy is the victim of a gross taking without just compensation. The BLM has destroyed his livelihood by decree. For the large population of westerners dependent on the use of public lands for their livelihoods, such abuse at the hands of a bunch of dudes from ‘back east’ is a common occurrence, and the cause of much mistrust – especially when it looks like powerful politicians stand to gain from their discomfiture. Harry refi is right about one thing; this is far from over.
TTHOR wrote: Mr. Bundy is the victim of a gross taking without just compensation.
Really? Bundy refuses to pay for the use of federal lands to graze his livestock for 20 years but he is the victim?
Nothing was done to him that wouldn’t be done to any other person that refused to pay their bills. But that is the real rub isn’t it, the rights wings feels they are entitled to every advantage this nation offers without having to pay their fair share.