A History of Violence

The long, sordid tale of anti-black brutality on the American left

Damon W. Root | August 20, 2009

Do the noisy protests directed at President Barack Obama's health care plan reveal something uniquely sinister about the American right? A surprising number of liberal pundits seem to think so. "Let's be honest with ourselves," progressive blogger Josh Marshall declared, "the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence....The ideological pattern is clear going back at least thirty years and arguably far longer."

Chip Berlet, a senior researcher at the liberal think tank Political Research Associates, went even further than that, telling New America Media: "For over 100 years—more like 150, you've had these movements, and they came out of the Civil War. It is a backlash against social liberalism and it's rooted in libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power, and, if they see themselves losing it, trying to get it back."

Now, it's certainly true that the United States has seen some brutal right-wing thugs over the years, particularly during the Cold War and the Civil Rights struggle of the mid-20th century. But Berlet's ridiculous claim that "libertarian support for unregulated capitalism" created a racist backlash stretching back "over 100 years—more like 150," reveals nothing more than Berlet's own profound ignorance about what actually happened over the past century and a half.

Perhaps Berlet should consider the career of South Carolina's Benjamin "Pitchfork" Tillman (1847-1914), a leading progressive who railed against the sins of "unregulated capitalism" while preaching the salvation of white supremacy. An ally of the agrarian populist William Jennings Bryan, Tillman supported antitrust laws, railroad regulations, the free coinage of silver, and a host of other progressive panaceas. He first entered politics as a member of the Red Shirts, a Klan-like terror group that "came out of the Civil War" to menace African Americans during the early years of Reconstruction. When President Theodore Roosevelt entertained the black leader Booker T. Washington at the White House in 1901, Tillman served as a de facto spokesman for the Southern opposition, declaring: "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again." It's hard to imagine a nastier threat of political violence than that—and Tillman is obviously nobody's idea of a libertarian.

In fact, as the historian David Southern has documented, the worst evils of the South's Jim Crow regime, including segregation, disfranchisement, mob violence, and lynching, all "went hand-in-hand with the most advanced forms of southern progressivism." Remember that progressives wanted an interventionist government with sweeping powers to regulate all walks of life, an approach that fit nicely with Jim Crow's bullying assault on economic liberty and freedom of association.

As for "white people holding onto power, and, if they see themselves losing it, trying to get it back," let's not forget the racist history of the American labor movement, particularly the powerful American Federation of Labor (AFL). Since most AFL unions banned African Americans outright until federal anti-discrimination laws appeared in the 1960s, blacks often had to take drastic measures to break into union-dominated fields. This led many African Americans to accept dangerous work as strikebreakers—"scabs"—while the lily-white AFL walked the picket line.

In response to this unwelcome competition, AFL chief Samuel Gompers thundered: "If the colored man continues to lend himself to the work of tearing down what the white man has built up, a race hatred worse than any ever known before will result. Caucasian civilization will serve notice that its uplifting process is not to be interfered with in any such way." Along those lines, during the infamous 1892 Homestead strike against Carnegie Steel, black strikebreakers were beaten and dynamited by members of the picketing Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Once again, racist political violence coming from the left.

Have some ugly views cropped up at the recent health care protests? Sure. But to take that as evidence of a century-long battle between enlightened liberal reformers and knuckle-dragging laissez-faire racist goons is to believe in a self-serving fairy tale. It's time for any pundit who thinks that way to grow up.

Damon W. Root is an associate editor at Reason magazine.

Comments

Tomcat1066|8.20.09 @ 3:07PM|#

And que the "enlightened" to explain how wrong this article really is.

Frankly, they're full of shit, but I'm looking forward to the show anyways ;)

|8.20.09 @ 3:08PM|#

Tomcat1066 is clearly a racist.

Anonymous|8.20.09 @ 3:12PM|#

The fact that this article has to be written indicates that assertions taken as fact are far too powerful in influencing me. It's gotten completely totalitarian here. There is no escaping regulation and tax and fee and crime and room-temperature-IQ civil judges. The mass of the state ever increasingly begs power-mad leftists to capture rents I'm paying for. They want to keep me down. They're obsessed with the power the government tempts them with. "Power to the people" is disgusting, and it perfectly describes what they want. Fuck.

Tomcat1066|8.20.09 @ 3:12PM|#

Don't call me a racist just because I'm white...and from Georgia...and a libertarian...


Well shit.

!</ </a>|8.20.09 @ 3:15PM|#

Damon Root is whitey keepin' me down?

Kyle Jordan|8.20.09 @ 3:19PM|#

"The fact that this article has to be written indicates that assertions taken as fact are far too powerful in influencing me. It's gotten completely totalitarian here. There is no escaping regulation and tax and fee and crime and room-temperature-IQ civil judges. The mass of the state ever increasingly begs power-mad leftists to capture rents I'm paying for. They want to keep me down. They're obsessed with the power the government tempts them with. "Power to the people" is disgusting, and it perfectly describes what they want. Fuck."

Damn. I thought I was feeling down due to the bullshit. And sadly, this isn't too far off the mark Anon. At least in my opinion.

|8.20.09 @ 3:20PM|#

Luckily Damon Root wasn't racist enough to mention the violent groups the Obamassiah's pals were associated with back in the 60s, before they became tenured professors.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 3:21PM|#

I like the guy with the sign in the picture. Unfortunately, politicians have been passing water on the tree of liberty for a very long time.

|8.20.09 @ 3:28PM|#

Let's also not forget that it's largely the domestic labor unions that oppose immigration reform. It's the domestic workforce that is worried about hispanics "stealing" their jobs.

Also protectionist trade measures and the "buy american" goes with is has a heavy dose of xenophobia.

Frankly, I think the progressive mindset's collectivism easily lends itself to tribalism, which is why so many leftist movements have been heavily mingled with nationalism.
While capitalism - globalization, if you will, lends itself more naturally to a cosmopolitain intermingling of cultures.

A trading relationship is much easier to establish between people from different cultural backgrounds than a sharing relationship. A mere monetary exchange doesn't require you to even speak the same language. You hold up a coin, the other guy holds up the thing he's selling, and that's all. It's the world original way of meeting people who are different than you and treating them as equals.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 3:30PM|#

Chip Berlet, a senior researcher at the liberal think tank Political Research Associates, went even further than that, telling New America Media: "For over 100 years-more like 150, you've had these movements, and they came out of the Civil War. It is a backlash against social liberalism and it's rooted in libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power, and, if they see themselves losing it, trying to get it back."

So, a bunch of people with fanny packs and misspelled signs are there to "hold on to power".

Chip is clearly unhinged.

|8.20.09 @ 3:35PM|#

The badly named "Progressive" movement has been, from its inception, both virulently racist and anti-Semitic and that is well before the black racists such as Louis Farrakhan and people like Obama's crack pot pastor elbowed their way into the picture.As if Woodrow Wilson,Jimmy Carter and Robert Byrd didn't give it an ugly enough face

Steve Smith|8.20.09 @ 3:37PM|#

Unconvincing, if you have to go back over 100 years to find a couple of examples of economic progressives who were also racist.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 3:40PM|#

You hold up a coin, the other guy holds up the thing he's selling, and that's all.

Hazel:

I had an epiphany about Capitalism some years ago when walking through a Seattle neighborhood. I was walking through Capitol Hill, a gay--friendly neighborhood, and I saw a Budweiser promotional poster hanging up on a drinking establishment. The sign had a trim, sexually non-threatening sensitive looking man in profile, running in a body suit with a rainbow extending out from his back with the Budweiser logo on it.

There was no law demanding Budweiser produce this poster. There was no regulation in place forcing Budweiser to market in a fair and equal way. It was, as you say, someone holding up a coin, and someone else offering what they're selling. None of this is to mention that the Budweiser marketing machine somehow knew which watering hole in this neighborhood in this city this particular poster would best fit.

At that point for me, it was clear that Capitalism was the only way to a post-racial, post-discrimintory society.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 3:41PM|#

Unconvincing, if you have to go back over 100 years to find a couple of examples of economic progressives who were also racist.

Why go back 100 years? All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads.

|8.20.09 @ 3:47PM|#

All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads.

That's not racism. But nice try though

Let's also not forget that it's largely the domestic labor unions that oppose immigration reform. It's the domestic workforce that is worried about hispanics "stealing" their jobs.

And all this time I thought the talking point was that the unions want the illegals because they are more likely to want to join Unions and swell the ranks.

|8.20.09 @ 3:48PM|#

Capitalism: The Friendliest Gay Bar In Town

|8.20.09 @ 3:49PM|#

Let's also not forget that it's largely the domestic labor unions that oppose immigration reform. It's the domestic workforce that is worried about hispanics "stealing" their jobs.

I wanted to add that clearly, all those Minutemen "protecting" the border are all members of the AFL-CIO.

|8.20.09 @ 3:52PM|#

C'mon, we all knew that opponents of Obama's policies would be accused of racism by his thin skinned supporters. I, and others, predicted as much before he was even elected.

The new Dem slogan - We're all Sharptons now.

|8.20.09 @ 3:53PM|#

I think it is a bit much to say the left openly endorses racist violence. It is, however true, the progressives of the early to mid 20th Century had a horrible record of embracing things like eugenics that amounted to racist violence. The progressive left has never come to terms with its appalling behavior and beliefs in the early 20th Century. Too many people still hold up creatures like Margaret Sanger as hereos.

For that reason, they are still vaunerable to going down the path again. Indeed, there has never been an honest conversation about the lost generation of black people in this country that were never born thanks to Roe v. Wade. There is a serious undercurrent of "we just need to have only the right kind of people breed" going on whenever a progressive talks about abortion as a way to eliminate the problem of unwanted kids.

Ratdog|8.20.09 @ 3:53PM|#

Makes me wonder what Zora Neale Hurston would have thought about all this. I know I get really tired of the deceit, and how easy it is to predict these one trick pony's next move. For some reason, guilt maybe, they just can't get over their obsession with race. Time to evolve into the 21st century, children, you can't keep pulling things back where you'd like them where you burn a few crosses, maybe lynch someone, whatever needs done to intimidate those they oppose to get them shut up and unseen. The method varies, but the general game strategy doesn't really change much. They know what they're doing, and it's despicable. I'm well aware of the motives those early unions had in mind. Personally, I don't like the idea of hate crime laws, it's very difficult to know what someone may have had going on in their mind when carrying out a crime. That said, I hope Kenneth Gladney is successful, if he decides to pursue that avenue, it would serve them right. A person has to wonder why he was targeted. Makes me think of that line in MLK's speech about those who leave the liberal plantation.

|8.20.09 @ 3:54PM|#

It is a backlash against social liberalism and it's rooted in libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power

I still want to know how libertarians have now suddenly replaced conservatives as the bad guys. I mean, WTF?

The sign had a trim, sexually non-threatening sensitive looking man in profile, running in a body suit with a rainbow extending out from his back with the Budweiser logo on it.

Running + beer = PUKE FAIL

I guess the gays are all taking the parking spots in Capitol Hill because it's impossible to find a spot there.

|8.20.09 @ 3:54PM|#

Why go back 100 years? All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads.

They succeeded. It was one of the first official actions of the Obama administration.

Quick Quiz|8.20.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Guess it's time to boycott Budweiser.

|8.20.09 @ 3:58PM|#

"C'mon, we all knew that opponents of Obama's policies would be accused of racism by his thin skinned supporters. I, and others, predicted as much before he was even elected.

The new Dem slogan - We're all Sharptons now."


Absolutely. I said it myself numerous times. And I was told by the progs on this board I was an idiot trying to predict the thoughts in their heads and how they would react to something that hasn't happened. Yeah. You didn't have to be a genius to figure out that the party that got a guy elected by claiming that electing him would clense the country of racial guilt would play the race card as soon as someone criticized their guy.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 3:58PM|#

"Since most AFL unions banned African Americans outright until federal anti-discrimination laws appeared in the 1960s, blacks often had to take drastic measures to break into union-dominated fields."

Interestingly they were just using their much-ballyhooed freedom of association, right?

These kinds of articles are always silly. When civil rights succeeded in the 1950's and 1960's we know where the left and right were, respectively.

|8.20.09 @ 3:58PM|#

I still want to know how libertarians have now suddenly replaced conservatives as the bad guys. I mean, WTF?

I think it was all the mustache-twirling.

Quick Quiz|8.20.09 @ 3:59PM|#

"That's not racism. But nice try though"

The fuck it ain't. But then you are in Chicago, so I will overlook your stupidity. Again.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:01PM|#

Sugarfree, don't forget the monocles and top hats...

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:01PM|#

All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads.

That's not racism. But nice try though

I'd love to agree with you, but after listening to decades of tortured definitions of racism from progressives, I'll stick with this pretty clear case.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:01PM|#

Seeing libertarians as the bad guys is kind of like hating the Detroit Lions...

|8.20.09 @ 4:01PM|#

American history isn't conducive to talking about the "left" and "right" of 1900 in terms of today's left and right. A lot of the spiritual ancestors of todays liberals were Northern or Midwestern Republicans - who generally abhorred racism. The racial faction of Southern Democrats went over to the Republicans in the 1970s-80s. And unfortunately they brought their Democratic taste for overseas intervention with them, helping create the unholy neocon foreign policy ideology wrongly called "conservative." There's a direct line from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush. And of course today paleocons seem to be the only group left with sympathy for the eugenics and immigration controls that were such a big part of 1920s progressivism. Would Damon Root call Steve Sailer an heir of leftist ideology? The average individual today if thrown back in time would probably find themselves completely befuddled by the political alignments of 1910.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:02PM|#

vanya
Take your nuanced, sense talking self outta here!

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:03PM|#

When civil rights succeeded in the 1950's and 1960's we know where the left and right were, respectively.

I used to know where the left and right were on the first amendment. Well, I guess I know exactly where the left is on the first amendment now. It's just not the same place I knew they were 25 years ago.

|8.20.09 @ 4:05PM|#

Sugarfree, don't forget the monocles and top hats...

And I do wear a tuxedo everywhere. Even the gym, where I change clothes, but only to wear my work-out tuxedo.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:06PM|#

MNG: I also knew where "uber-right gun nut" Charlton Heston was on civil rights.

|8.20.09 @ 4:09PM|#

"And of course today paleocons seem to be the only group left with sympathy for the eugenics and immigration controls that were such a big part of 1920s progressivism."

Progressives still have a love affair with Eugenics. They sell abortion as a way to eliminate down syndrome. Further, immigration controls are supported by a majority of the country in poll after poll; not just the Paleocons.

As far as the line from Woodrow Wilson to GW Bush, that is a pretty simplistic and stupid view of American history. First, America was never an isolationist country. It was always expansionistic and imperialistic. How do you think we wound up owning the Continent? The US was constantly involved in little bush wars in the Central and South America and expansion into the Pacific throughout the 19th Century. We just stayed out of European wars. But that was mostly because we couldn't, until World War I project any power to Europe. If anything, there is a constant line that runs from Jefferson through Jackson through Wilson to Bush.

|8.20.09 @ 4:10PM|#

And I do wear a tuxedo everywhere. Even the gym, where I change clothes, but only to wear my work-out tuxedo.

Holy shit, NutraSweet is The Penguin! It all makes sense now!

moosecat|8.20.09 @ 4:11PM|#

vanya, the point being rebutted was limited govt types are racist white guys who are afraid of losing power. clearly it is not true that libertarian tenets are not based on racism.

|8.20.09 @ 4:11PM|#

The fuck it ain't. But then you are in Chicago, so I will overlook your stupidity. Again.

The stupid person is the one conflating economic protectionism with racism.

I'd love to agree with you, but after listening to decades of tortured definitions of racism from progressives, I'll stick with this pretty clear case.

You have the right to be as wrong as you like.

The issue isn't about race but about protecting turf/jobs from competition.

|8.20.09 @ 4:11PM|#

I'm paraphrasing here, but the argument against Mehican trucks was, "those Mexican trucks are less safe than the ones our hillbilly rednecks make their deliveries with". Most people with a pulse know it was really about protecting our jerbs against competition. But a little racial prejudice didn't hurt the pitch too much.


And all this time I thought the talking point was that the unions want the illegals because they are more likely to want to join Unions and swell the ranks.

Never heard of that "talking point", and it doesn't even make sense. If that argument was made, it would have been by a stupid few. (Chicago Tom wanting to paint the other side as ignorant - say it ain't so!) Unions would never want to import extra labor.

moosecat|8.20.09 @ 4:11PM|#

edit: clearly it is not true that libertarian tenets are based on racism

Warty|8.20.09 @ 4:12PM|#

STEVE SMITH NO BELIEVE PUNY ARTICLE GARRRRRR STEVE SMITH RAPE NOW

|8.20.09 @ 4:13PM|#

Well, I guess I know exactly where the left is on the first amendment now. It's just not the same place I knew they were 25 years ago.

I chuckle when I read shit like this.

Because the right loves them some free speech and the first amendment. they defend it to their death.

|8.20.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Holy shit, Steve Smith is Bizarro Steve Holt!

|8.20.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Let's also not forget that it's largely the domestic labor unions that oppose immigration reform. It's the domestic workforce that is worried about hispanics "stealing" their jobs.
- - -
I wanted to add that clearly, all those Minutemen "protecting" the border are all members of the AFL-CIO.

Hey, ChiThomas, you need to look up "conflate" in the dictionary. Also, I thought you'd like to know that many of us use the name of your fair city quite a bit these days, to wit:

It's not just the plain and simple fact that President Obama is a slick, not to say oleaginous, politician, like "W" before him and the others going back all the way to "Cherry Tree George." No, it's much worse than that. He is a Chicago politician, part of one of the dirtiest, most corrupt, most illiberal, and power-besotted political machines in history.

You should be proud.

|8.20.09 @ 4:15PM|#

"All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads."

"That's not racism. But nice try though"


-------The policy itself may not be racist, but it draws support from those who would have racial tendencies to keep foreigners second to "Americans" in terms of government policy. Protectionism is a form of nationalism-racism as it is basically saying, "Fuck everybody who isn't us."

"Let's also not forget that it's largely the domestic labor unions that oppose immigration reform. It's the domestic workforce that is worried about hispanics "stealing" their jobs."

"And all this time I thought the talking point was that the unions want the illegals because they are more likely to want to join Unions and swell the ranks."

------Once again, buddy, we are LIBERTARIANS. That is a "republican" talking point. They want to associate foreigners with the left. The left actually likes this association, even though they don't really do anything than pay lip service. The left is torn between wanting to cater to the economic needs of poor immigrants (thus winning votes, this is the lip service) and wanting to protect their constituents from that evil capitalist competition. This issue isn't right/left so much as it is statist/non statist. That is the libertarian argument. Obama's current tactic of associating libertarians with the right (or extremists or right wing extremists) makes no sense at all to people who are actually libertarians.

And how come when the left is not in power, their enemies are "Hitler and the evil empire," and when they're not in power, their enemies are "brownshirts in the streets trying to undermine the government's abillity to do its job?" Well, I guess it is similar to how the right is pretending to be libertarian now they AREN'T the ones in power.

JB|8.20.09 @ 4:16PM|#

It's time for any pundit who thinks that way to grow up commit suicide.

|8.20.09 @ 4:17PM|#

Warty,

Always remember: He's afraid of fire.

|8.20.09 @ 4:17PM|#

Beams and motes, people, beams and motes. No one is on the side of angels here. Pick any long established political group and you will find a history of violence. Including libertarians.

|8.20.09 @ 4:17PM|#

Damn. That should have said, "....when the left is not in power, their enemies are "Hitler and the evil empire," and when they're IN power, their enemies are "brownshirts in the streets trying to undermine yada yada yada....."

|8.20.09 @ 4:18PM|#

"All we need do is look at modern unionism. Those wonderful progressives are doing all they can to keep those dirty mexican trucks off our pristine white roads."

That's not racism. But nice try though

What, and the truckers unions aren't using sterotypes of crazy drunked mexicans to raise fears of the safety of mexican truck drivers?

Union interests are necessarily opposed to immigration. They are largely responsible for the byzantine immigration laws we have to day. They are the REASON mexicans have to immigrate illegally. The unions pushed through legislation that made it impossible for thme to enter legally.

Learn your god damn history.

|8.20.09 @ 4:18PM|#

. But a little racial prejudice didn't hurt the pitch too much.

You really have to stretch the definition of racism to include Mexican trucks. The argument is similar to the anti-free trade arguments about labor conditions, and environmental regulations in other countries.

Pretending that it's racism merely exposes your own dishonesty.


Never heard of that "talking point", and it doesn't even make sense. If that argument was made, it would have been by a stupid few. (Chicago Tom wanting to paint the other side as ignorant - say it ain't so!) Unions would never want to import extra labor.

I have heard it from the righties who are anti-immigration. It is the thrown about as the reason the left supports immigration reforms and amnesty for "illegals".

And it makes perfect sense. Union membership is dwindling. Immigrant laborers would be some of the easiest to unionize and swell the ranks of the unions (and by extensions the democratic voter rolls)

|8.20.09 @ 4:21PM|#

-Once again, buddy, we are LIBERTARIANS. That is a "republican" talking point

You may be "libertarians" but you seem to only like to attack the left. And your talking points are right-wing ones.

This whole joke of a thread is trying to pretend that the left is more racist than the right. Which is complete bullshit.

The fact is that racists feel more comfortable in the GOP -- and it has been that way since Reagan.

Don't want to be conflated with the right? Don't act like them

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:22PM|#

Since Goldwater.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:23PM|#

Most people with a pulse know it was really about protecting our jerbs against competition. But a little racial prejudice didn't hurt the pitch too much.

Exaaaaaaactly. All the Union leadership had to do was say "Psst, these are Mexicans after all" and the rank and file were on board with whatever nakedly insane "safety" argument that could be made to legitimize the entire thing.

I mean, Chitom, you do remember that this girl who ran across a freeway was run over by a 10 ton dump truck because of racism, right?

Cynthia Wiggins was a 17-year-old single mother struggling toward a better life. She was engaged to be married and had dreams of being a doctor. Every weekday she boarded the No. 6 bus in her predominantly black Buffalo, New York, neighborhood for the 50-minute ride to Cheektowaga, a white suburb, where she worked as a cashier at Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips in the glittering, white-marbled Walden Galleria Mall.

|8.20.09 @ 4:23PM|#

What, and the truckers unions aren't using sterotypes of crazy drunked mexicans to raise fears of the safety of mexican truck drivers?

No, they are using stereotypes of unsafe vehicles and lower safety standards in Mexico.

I haven't seen anyone saying Drunk Mexican Drivers are going to flood our roads. (except in the context of Righties telling me that the crazy drunk mexicans are coming over the border to commit crimes)

|8.20.09 @ 4:24PM|#

"The fact is that racists feel more comfortable in the GOP -- and it has been that way since Reagan."

That of course has nothing to do with the coordinated campaign by the Left to associate every small government policy with racism? If that is true, it is true because people like you and those like you have been screaming racist at everyone they disagree with for 30 years now.

|8.20.09 @ 4:25PM|#

Immigrant laborers would be some of the easiest to unionize and swell the ranks of the unions

Makes sense. Poor language skills, substandard 3rd world education, desire to fit in, used to being pushed around by corrupt authority figures and taxed for services that never materialize. They'd go union fast.

|8.20.09 @ 4:25PM|#

Let me get into a bit more detail ...

There are two major ways to immgrate to the US. One is to have an immediate relative sponsor you (long waiting lists for this).
The other is to have an employer sponsor you.

But, in order to get an employment sponsorship you have to do somethign called a "labor certification". That is, you have to prove, using documented evidence, that THERE IS NO AMERICAN who could fill your position.

What do you think there effect of that is on the ability to do emloyment sponsorships? Yes, that's right, it makes it virtually impossible for a US company to hire any foreigner with less than a bachelors degree in a professional field. And how many mecian day laborers do you think are running around with Bachelor degrees in engineering.

Now, who the fuck do you think was mainly responsible for adding that "labor certification" requirement to the immigration process?

Oh, right, it was a bunch of racist southern rednecks. Surely.

|8.20.09 @ 4:26PM|#

"And it makes perfect sense. Union membership is dwindling. Immigrant laborers would be some of the easiest to unionize and swell the ranks of the unions (and by extensions the democratic voter rolls)"

Immigrants who had been here for a while (probably second or third generation) would join unions to protect their incomes, but they would in turn be threatened by new immigrants willing to work for less who didn't give a crap about unions.

I will admit that the left has been the least racist of the two (right vs left) but that is only because of the old money on the right, and the lefts new strategy of USING minorities for votes. Which in itself is kinda racist..... Now that a whole new non-racist generation of righties (many of them minorities themselves) things have changed. Trying to pigeonhole all righties as racist is actually a strategy that is probably more popular now than it has been during periods of actual racism!

|8.20.09 @ 4:27PM|#

If that is true, it is true because people like you and those like you have been screaming racist at everyone they disagree with for 30 years now.

No John, it's because the GOP is in fact filled with racists and it has been for 30 years. Don't try and blame the people who point out that fact and pretend it's all propaganda.

|8.20.09 @ 4:28PM|#

Tom,

When is the left going to answer for the destruction visited upon minority communities by misguided do gooder liberals? Liberals have controlled the schooling, government and social services delivered to black communities for 50 years now. They advocated things like unrestrained welfare, the drug war, busing, and horrible educational theories and inflicted them on the black community with disastrous results. Yet, it is only the right that is racist.

The Left is more racist than the worst Southern Jim Crow redneck. It is just a subtle racism. It is a subtle form or white supremacy that says black communities can't exist and thrive without the help of the enlightened white liberal.

|8.20.09 @ 4:30PM|#

Yeah Tom. It is the GOP that is the racist. It just happens to be liberal policies done so much harm to the black community in this country. The entire liberal experiment of the 60s and 70s was a complete failure and black America paid the price for it. Meanwhile upper class whites like you go merrily on trying meet your white man's burden.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:31PM|#

"Liberals have controlled the schooling, government and social services delivered to black communities for 50 years now."

Haven't we had, like only 13 years of Democratic officials in the White House since 1968?

|8.20.09 @ 4:31PM|#

Now that a whole new non-racist generation of righties (many of them minorities themselves) things have changed. Trying to pigeonhole all righties as racist is actually a strategy that is probably more popular now than it has been during periods of actual racism!

1. A new Generation of righties many of them minorities? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.

The GOP brand is mud, and the young folks turned out in record numbers to vote for and self identified as Democrats. You are delusional.

2. Hispanics tend to be conservative and religious (and their values tend to align with the GOP) yet they have stayed the fuck away from the GOP because they realize that it's the racist party and that a large number of it's members hate anyone with dark skin.

3. I never said all righties are racist. I said racists are more comfortable around righties. There's a big difference.

|8.20.09 @ 4:31PM|#

And it makes perfect sense. Union membership is dwindling. Immigrant laborers would be some of the easiest to unionize and swell the ranks of the unions (and by extensions the democratic voter rolls)

The truth is that the dying union membership has forced them to ally with progressives to stay viable. And the progressives have imposed a pro-immigration policy upon them. They wouldn't be going along with it if it weren't for grim political necessity. Their political voice is whithering and they have to take their allies where they can get them.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:31PM|#

You may be "libertarians" but you seem to only like to attack the left. And your talking points are right-wing ones.

Right, we right-wing libertarians, always talking up "the nation", and national unity. And nationalization of the industries. About how every individual must supplant his personal desires and work for national goals.

We libertarians are all for freedom of speech but...

I am probably the most progressive liberal person in the world and I am personally offended by the sign," said Janet Stillman, executive director of the Wallingford Neighborhood Office. "It's so blatant and so in your face."

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:33PM|#

John no wonder blacks pass on the GOP so overwhelmingly.

"Hey black people, those guys who have been advocating more transfer payments to you are the real racists since they think you need their help, they are worse than those folks who thought it would be a travesty for "your kind" to walk on the same kind of the street as us."

|8.20.09 @ 4:33PM|#

-Once again, buddy, we are LIBERTARIANS. That is a "republican" talking point

You may be "libertarians" but you seem to only like to attack the left. And your talking points are right-wing ones.

This whole joke of a thread is trying to pretend that the left is more racist than the right. Which is complete bullshit.

_______No no no no no double no. The point of this article was not to prove that the left is more racist than the right. It was to prove that the left does not have clean hands either. Open your eyes. And I haven't used one right wing talking point. What is a "talking point" anyway? You could probably use that anytime somebody say anything that somebody else probably said before.

The whole mexican trucker argument is retarded on both sides, and it misses the point. If you don't consider unions trying to keep out foreign goods so they don't have to compete with foreigners "non-racist," then name one policy of the right that IS racist. We're talking about straightforward racism. Not round about racism. GO GO GO you goob!

|8.20.09 @ 4:33PM|#

Haven't we had, like only 13 years of Democratic officials in the White House since 1968?

Despite the best efforts of your ilk, schooling is still somewhat local (and federal bureaucrats aren't replaced wholesale by GOP presidents), and local governments do exist.

Tony|8.20.09 @ 4:34PM|#

John look at the demographic makeup of the two parties. Look at the GOP's vote-getting strategy for the last 40 years. It's not like a mystery that they rely on southern white racial resentment. Now in the year 2009 all that's left of the GOP are older white southerners, and the Dems got themselves a black president elected. You're really straining here.

|8.20.09 @ 4:34PM|#

It just happens to be liberal policies done so much harm to the black community in this country

Then why are blacks overwhelmingly democrats?

Are you implying that they must be too ignorant to see how much the Dems are hurting them? Or that they are like an abused spouse who just can't quit them?

Or maybe they realize that the Dems is their best option cuz the alternative (the GOP) has quite a bit but contempt for people of color?

John, try as you might, reality keeps contradicting you.

|8.20.09 @ 4:34PM|#

"Haven't we had, like only 13 years of Democratic officials in the White House since 1968?"

Name one major city with a large population that isn't owned by the Democratic Party? Name one school of education that isn't completely leftist? Name one major education or teachers union that isn't leftist?

Who was responsible for busing? Who was responsible for unrestrained welfare that paid young black women to get pregnant out of wedlock? Who was responsible for the complete collapse of city police forces and law enforcement in many major cities in the 1970s? Who was running places like New York and Detroit when urban murder rates exploded and functioning neighborhoods turned into something out of Fort Apache the Bronx? It sure as hell wasn't the GOP.

|8.20.09 @ 4:36PM|#

"Then why are blacks overwhelmingly democrats?"


Because lying shitheads like you have convinced them that all REpublicans are racists. So we have blacks voting Democrat only see Democrats vote to kick poor black kids out of private schools in Washington DC. It is a pretty sorry state of affairs.

|8.20.09 @ 4:36PM|#

No no no no no double no. The point of this article was not to prove that the left is more racist than the right. It was to prove that the left does not have clean hands either.

I don't think anyone believes that the left is pristine when it comes to racism.

But the amount of filth on the right's hands not just historically, but to this day, doesn't even compare to the left.

|8.20.09 @ 4:36PM|#

No, they are using stereotypes of unsafe vehicles and lower safety standards in Mexico.


Despite the fact that Mexican truck drivers are actually MORE safe than American ones according to the government's own tests.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:36PM|#

Hey black people, those guys who have been advocating more transfer payments to you are the real racists since they think you need their help, they are worse than those folks who thought it would be a travesty for "your kind" to walk on the same kind of the street as us"

Southern Democrats?

|8.20.09 @ 4:37PM|#

Because lying shitheads like you have convinced them that all REpublicans are racists

So you are going with "they are too stupid to think for themselves and fall for propaganda" ?

Maybe, just maybe, they see the GOP for what it really is?

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:37PM|#

Welfare > Jim Crow

Think of the insidiuous incentives!

|8.20.09 @ 4:38PM|#

"John look at the demographic makeup of the two parties. Look at the GOP's vote-getting strategy for the last 40 years. It's not like a mystery that they rely on southern white racial resentment. Now in the year 2009 all that's left of the GOP are older white southerners, and the Dems got themselves a black president elected. You're really straining here."


Screw you man. You're making accusations of racism! I have friends who are righties, and you're wrong wrong wrong. You're making unsubstantiated arguments and making blanket claims of racism. The entire point of the article was to bring fairness to the debate, and now you people have twisted it into some "who's more racist!" debate. The left shot first, accusing anyone who disagreed with them of racism. Makes me wanna puke.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:38PM|#

"Southern Democrats?"

Back in 1960, now they are "Southern Republicans."

|8.20.09 @ 4:39PM|#

Paul,

Did you see the fine print? Hilarious.

Soundoff (Read 185 comments)
What do you think of the controversy over the sign? (Oh, and our software may prevent you from using the word "bitch" in your response. That's because it's so frequently used in name calling that we've restricted it. But then, that's part of what the shop owner is trying to say...she wants to take back the word's original meaning).

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:39PM|#

But the amount of filth on the right's hands not just historically, but to this day, doesn't even compare to the left.

I agree the right's hands are much dirtier than the lefts... but I hold there. I don't think they're "much, much" dirtier than the left's. Especially considering that the extreme left and the extreme right are shockingly similar and often share ideology.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:40PM|#

Because few people are as representative of the modern American left like Strom Thurmond.

Quick Quiz|8.20.09 @ 4:40PM|#

"That's not racism. But nice try though "

The unions are calling Mexicans an inherently reckless people who are too lazy and cheap to maintain their trucks. Unlike white folks. Nope, no racism there..

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:41PM|#

Paul
I'm not sure the left doesn't have more blood its hands really, if you think of some of the wacky anarchist groups (Haymarket riots) and groups like the Weathermen...

|8.20.09 @ 4:41PM|#

"So you are going with "they are too stupid to think for themselves and fall for propaganda" ?

Maybe, just maybe, they see the GOP for what it really is?"

Or maybe they don't see the reality. The reality seems to be that Dems care more about teachers unions than they do about black kids. Dems care more about public employees unions than they do about black people. Dems care more about unions and Davis Bacon than they do about black entrapeneuers. But it is the Republicans that are racist. Dems just happen to kick poor kids out of private schools.

|8.20.09 @ 4:42PM|#

I have friends who are righties, and you're wrong wrong wrong.

So your couple of friends completely negates the Southern Strategy?

The point of the article was the try and pretend like there is some kind of equivalence where there really isn't.

One of the two parties is MUCH MUCH MUCH more racist than the other, your friends notwithstanding.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:42PM|#

Sugarfree:

You bet. Read it all. It's fun to live in a Progressive City. I get to bask in the glow of 'qualifiers' when it comes to statements about civil liberties. Seattle, a city where more shit gets banned before 9am, than most places do all year.

|8.20.09 @ 4:42PM|#

"Because lying shitheads like you have convinced them that all REpublicans are racists

So you are going with "they are too stupid to think for themselves and fall for propaganda" ?

Maybe, just maybe, they see the GOP for what it really is?"

This is insane. I've know lots of people of every political stripe and you're generalist accusations and circular logic are ridiculous. Lots of people have voted left and right of various colors and religions. Their reasons are personal, and I will not pretend to understand them, but you sir make me sick. You use race as a political device, and remember the left started this game first. The right is merely defending themselves.

Oh btw, THE LEFT ARE THE ONES IN POWER AND IT IS THE DUTY OF THE PEOPLE TO HOLD THE ONES IN POWER ACCOUNTABLE. Why are you sticking up for the right? BECAUSE WE AGREE WITH LOW TAXES AND LESS GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT EVEN THOUGH DIDN'T SEE IT THAT WAY WITH BUSH. Yes, they're shitheads, but so are you. You are using race to protect the ones who are in power. That is the abomination.

|8.20.09 @ 4:43PM|#

and I have friends that are nig black and I'm a lefty. So there.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:43PM|#

John
Most liberals oppose vouchers not because they want to kick black kids out of schools, but because they worry about the black kids that would be left behind in the public schools. Be honest.

hmm|8.20.09 @ 4:44PM|#

Why is it important which side has more blood or dirt on its hands?

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:46PM|#

Why is it important which side has more blood or dirt on its hands?

Because we're keeping score goddamnit, now quit being the wet blanket here!

|8.20.09 @ 4:46PM|#

I have friends who are righties, and you're wrong wrong wrong.

"So your couple of friends completely negates the Southern Strategy?

The point of the article was the try and pretend like there is some kind of equivalence where there really isn't.

One of the two parties is MUCH MUCH MUCH more racist than the other, your friends notwithstanding."

THe SOUTHERN STRATEGY? What! OMG are you retarded. I live in the south and I have no idea what you are talking about. Much of the south votes Democrat. Dallas has a Democratic Mayor. The Democrats ran from the end of the civil war to the beginning of the 90's. You friggin dupe. Republicans just recently won the legislature and the Democrats had a conniption fit.

The right has probably had more recent racism (most of which ended by the time I was born), but both parties have a mountain of racism in their histories. A mountain vs a mountain and a mole hill.

|8.20.09 @ 4:47PM|#

The reality seems to be that Dems care more about teachers unions than they do about black kids. Dems care more about public employees unions than they do about black people. Dems care more about unions and Davis Bacon than they do about black entrapeneuers.

Even if we were to pretend these statements to be true (which they aren't) not caring as much about them isn't the same as being hostile to them, which the GOP is.

Really John, your whole argument is a fucking joke.
The GOP is openly hostile to minorities (and it's getting worse as the GOP becomes more of a Southern Regional party), and minorities have run screaming from the GOP in horror. You can pretend that it's that they are all too stupid to see through the liberal propaganda, but that doesn't make it so.

Bush was savaged by his own party for daring to try and allow immigrant workers to come and work in the USA.

|8.20.09 @ 4:47PM|#

"John
Most liberals oppose vouchers not because they want to kick black kids out of schools, but because they worry about the black kids that would be left behind in the public schools. Be honest."

The end result is the same. Further, those peopel are so concerned about black kids, yet they continue to support a failing public school system that is condeming now a third generation of black kids to poverty. They refuse to consider reform because they love teachers' unions and their money so much and are so dogmatic. Are they conscously racist? No. But a hardcore racist couldn't do more damage to black kids then these well meaning idiots do if he tried.

MNG|8.20.09 @ 4:47PM|#

I don't think there is much blood on the hands of either side in the current political debate, so maybe nobody should get too worked up...

Paul|8.20.09 @ 4:47PM|#

Actually, what I can't figure out is why any libertarian cares how much racism exists in the GOP at all?

Oh yeah, because we were accused of being crypto-gop'ers.

Pff, never mind.

hmm|8.20.09 @ 4:49PM|#

It seems pretty stupid to even attempt the argument. There is no predictive value, there is little value in the comparison to determine current social events, even the comparison itself is skewed since it requires vast amounts of time to get similar events to compare.

It's fucking retarded, and exactly why the MSM doing it is fucking retarded.

|8.20.09 @ 4:49PM|#

Tom,

Liberal policies have totally screwed black people in this country. You can hide behind the "republicans are worse" and "we didn't mean to do it" all you want. But there is no denying the horrible effects of liberal policies on the Black community. Progressives need to shut up about Republican racism and do some serious self reflection on the damage they have done over the last 40 years.

Ted Kennedy|8.20.09 @ 4:50PM|#

"I will admit that the left has been the least racist of the two (right vs left) but that is only because of the old money on the right, and the lefts new strategy of USING minorities for votes. Which in itself is kinda racist"

I'm gonna miss my old money.

Nelson Rockafeller|8.20.09 @ 4:51PM|#

Me too, Ted. Me too.

hmm|8.20.09 @ 4:51PM|#

Actually, what I can't figure out is why any libertarian cares how much racism exists in the GOP at all?

Or the infringement of civil liberties based on race by a social group is tantamount to a deadly sin for religious Catholics when civil liberties are considered the most, or one of the most, important aspect of a belief?

|8.20.09 @ 4:53PM|#

Actually, what I can't figure out is why any libertarian cares how much racism exists in the GOP at all?

I can't figure why a libertarian site felt the need to write a post defending the right from accusations of racism and had to make an equivalence.

|8.20.09 @ 4:54PM|#

How would vouchers hurt the black kids still in public schools? I'm not talking about giving a few kids vouchers. We could give all kids vouchers.

Racism may not be apparent in current leftist policy, but you do have ideas that hurt people of minority races. Now, you might think you are helping them, and that's not immoral. However, you also ignore right wing and libertarian ideas that challenge you conceptions, but would also help minorities. The results of your actions are reminiscent of de facto racism, even if your heart is in the right place.

|8.20.09 @ 4:54PM|#

Fifty million people in the GOP, and they're all white males?

Frankly, I think the polemics are silly. The Democrats and the Republicans have been screwing people over of all races, creeds, religions, national origins, and sexes for many decades. If you start parsing things, you just end up fleeing the truth. Lots of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act. Lots of Democrats have been (and are) racists. Most blacks vote Democrat. And once upon a time, most of them voted Republican. So what? I don't think either party is overtly racist or sexist today, and claims that they are sound foolish.

The libertarians, of course, are the only enlightened ones without a stained history.

|8.20.09 @ 4:58PM|#

"THe SOUTHERN STRATEGY? What! OMG are you retarded. I live in the south and I have no idea what you are talking about. Much of the south votes Democrat. Dallas has a Democratic Mayor. The Democrats ran from the end of the civil war to the beginning of the 90's. You friggin dupe. Republicans just recently won the legislature and the Democrats had a conniption fit."

That should have said that Democrats ran "Texas" from the end of the civil war to the beginning of the 90's. whoops.

Nelson Rockafeller|8.20.09 @ 4:59PM|#

"John
Most liberals oppose vouchers not because they want to kick black kids out of schools, but because they worry about the black kids that would be left behind in the public schools. Be honest."

I just shit a little.

|8.20.09 @ 4:59PM|#

Pro Lib, Ya'll gots ta get outta mom's basement ta make some history my friend.

|8.20.09 @ 5:00PM|#

"Really John, your whole argument is a fucking joke.
The GOP is openly hostile to minorities (and it's getting worse as the GOP becomes more of a Southern Regional party), and minorities have run screaming from the GOP in horror. You can pretend that it's that they are all too stupid to see through the liberal propaganda, but that doesn't make it so."

Hostile to minorities? Name one policy. We're talking about direct hostility here. Go!

Tony|8.20.09 @ 5:00PM|#

Without data close at hand I would venture that there is less racism in this country now than there ever has been. Great. But it still exists. And where does it exist? Same place it always was.

|8.20.09 @ 5:00PM|#

Holy shit, when did ChicagoTom turn into such a douche?

|8.20.09 @ 5:00PM|#

"That is the abomination." - obviously a subtle racist reference to the prez...

/sarcasm

MNG | August 20, 2009, 4:43pm | #

John
Most liberals oppose vouchers not because they want to kick black kids out of schools, but because they worry about the black kids that would be left behind in the public schools. Be honest.


honest? they do it to protect unions and government institutions from private competition.

|8.20.09 @ 5:01PM|#

I said enlightened, not useful in any way.

|8.20.09 @ 5:01PM|#

Tony,

Boston?

|8.20.09 @ 5:02PM|#

So John, it's only because the wrong policies are in place that the black community is in such bad shape? If only we had the right people in charge.

|8.20.09 @ 5:02PM|#

Without data close at hand

SOP, then?

|8.20.09 @ 5:03PM|#

Tony,

Boston?

Nah, that's witch burning. Totally different kind of -ism.

|8.20.09 @ 5:04PM|#

brotherben | August 20, 2009, 5:02pm | #
So John, it's only because the wrong policies are in place that the black community is in such bad shape? If only we had the right people in charge.


----Wrong! The black community isn't in bad shape. I have two black friends, both college graduates, both pretty comfortable in life. THey did it on their own, well as much as any of us do. Not because of some left wing policy, but because they are smart and hard working. With smart and hardworking people without barriers in their way, it doesn't matter who's "in charge."

hmm|8.20.09 @ 5:05PM|#

Pro Lib, Ya'll gots ta get outta mom's basement ta make some history my friend.

Ma! The meatloaf! Fuck!

|8.20.09 @ 5:05PM|#

brotherben | August 20, 2009, 5:02pm | #
So John, it's only because the wrong policies are in place that the black community is in such bad shape? If only we had the right people in charge.



You talk like they are animals or something. "What's to be done about all those black people!"

"So poor, and so black. What a shame."

|8.20.09 @ 5:08PM|#

The worst racism I've ever personally witnessed--and I'm not talking about just once--was when I was in Boston.

|8.20.09 @ 5:10PM|#

tkwelge,

There are tons of black people who are not in trouble. But we also have millions of black men in prison. We have a huge illegitiamacy, high school drop out rate, poverty, unemployment rate and so forth in the black community. Liberal policies destroyed our inner cities. And blacks, though not exclusively blacks, suffered from it badly. That is just the sorry fact.

Yeah what is to be done? What do we do with the people who are too poor to get out of these horrible neighborhoods and schools?

|8.20.09 @ 5:11PM|#

ChicagoTom | August 20, 2009, 4:53pm | #

Actually, what I can't figure out is why any libertarian cares how much racism exists in the GOP at all?

I can't figure why a libertarian site felt the need to write a post defending the right from accusations of racism and had to make an equivalence."



didja read the effin article?!?!

ap|8.20.09 @ 5:11PM|#

I'd love to agree with you, but after listening to decades of tortured definitions of racism from progressives, I'll stick with this pretty clear case.

You have the right to be as wrong as you like.

The issue isn't about race but about protecting turf/jobs from competition.

interestingly enough...barry goldwater took a stand on principle once. he was called a racist and still is. i am sure you not one of those people though are you

|8.20.09 @ 5:12PM|#

You can't name a policy on the right that is directly racist once you take the whole "indirect racism" concept out of the picture. If opposing Mexican trucks in the USA isn't racist, because the opposition isn't directly racist in nature, than opposing affirmative action isn't "directly" racist either. Playing by these rules, the last directly racist policies were poll restrictions (which were outlined with racism in mind and only the ones outlined with racism in mind; by your logic if there was any other reason than it's not racist) and segregation. Name one directly racist policy pushed by the right today! Or even in the last 15 to 20 years. Go for it!

|8.20.09 @ 5:14PM|#

ChicagoTom | August 20, 2009, 4:53pm | #

Actually, what I can't figure out is why any libertarian cares how much racism exists in the GOP at all?

I can't figure why a libertarian site felt the need to write a post defending the right from accusations of racism and had to make an equivalence."



didja read the effin article?!?!






BECAUSE THE LEFT WAS TRYING TO ATTACK THE RIGHT BY MAKING ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM. THEY ARE THE DEFACTO RULERS OF THIS COUNTRY AND THEY ARE ACCUSING THE OPPOSITION OF RACISM RATHER THAN ARGUING ON MERIT. If Bush did something similar, I would tar and feather him too.

|8.20.09 @ 5:17PM|#

The worst racism I've ever personally witnessed--and I'm not talking about just once--was when I was in Boston.

Maine for me, but yeah- lots of Yankees dislike non-white people every bit as much as my born-and-raised-in-Alabama grandfather.

|8.20.09 @ 5:18PM|#

Please forgive the ambiguous syntax of my last post.

|8.20.09 @ 5:19PM|#

ap: re: Goldwater -

that's exactly right. further, that brand was applied to his party and scared many minority voters away.

Nelson Rockafeller|8.20.09 @ 5:20PM|#

"Holy shit, when did ChicagoTom turn into such a douche?"

Last week.

Tony|8.20.09 @ 5:21PM|#

Um it seems to me the people screaming "racist!" the loudest these days are righties accusing minorities of it, especially the president. It's like they found a new toy or something.

Whatever the outcomes of policy, left or right (and John I don't think the institutional racism that has led to outsize incarceration proportion for blacks is a result of lefty policies) racism is not tolerated at all by the left. It's not AS openly tolerated by the right either, but that's because the left has been so successful in turning racism into a stigma. The Southern Strategy has accordingly evolved from outright saying we're gonna protect you from the niggers to more subtle variations, such as the welfare queen and more recently the ACORN bogeyman. Maybe someday the right will catch up but to make an equivalence claim is to be really disingenuous.

Nelson Rockafeller|8.20.09 @ 5:23PM|#

"So John, it's only because the wrong policies are in place that the black community is in such bad shape?"

What was the black out of wedlock birth rate in 1964? About 26% In 2008? About 80%. Go figure.

|8.20.09 @ 5:25PM|#

The worst racism I have witnessed was in Mississippi in the late 70s. Folks still came up missing for dating out of their race among other things.

I had a relative that was raised in southern Ms. that was born around 1900. The most hateful man I've ever met. He used to recount lynchings from the 20s and 30s with a twinkle in his eye. As near as I could tell, he wasn't just a casual observer.

Federal Dog|8.20.09 @ 5:27PM|#

Well, there's this history:

October 13, 1858
During Lincoln-Douglas debates, U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas (D-IL) states: "I do not regard the Negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever"; Douglas became Democratic Party's 1860 presidential nominee

April 16, 1862
President Lincoln signs bill abolishing slavery in District of Columbia; in Congress, 99% of Republicans vote yes, 83% of Democrats vote no

July 17, 1862
Over unanimous Democrat opposition, Republican Congress passes Confiscation Act stating that slaves of the Confederacy "shall be forever free"

January 31, 1865
13th Amendment banning slavery passed by U.S. House with unanimous Republican support, intense Democrat opposition

April 8, 1865
13th Amendment banning slavery passed by U.S. Senate with 100% Republican support, 63% Democrat opposition

November 22, 1865
Republicans denounce Democrat legislature of Mississippi for enacting "black codes," which institutionalized racial discrimination

February 5, 1866
U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) introduces legislation, successfully opposed by Democrat President Andrew Johnson, to implement "40 acres and a mule" relief by distributing land to former slaves

April 9, 1866
Republican Congress overrides Democrat President Johnson's veto; Civil Rights Act of 1866, conferring rights of citizenship on African-Americans, becomes law

May 10, 1866
U.S. House passes Republicans' 14th Amendment guaranteeing due process and equal protection of the laws to all citizens; 100% of Democrats vote no

June 8, 1866
U.S. Senate passes Republicans' 14th Amendment guaranteeing due process and equal protection of the law to all citizens; 94% of Republicans vote yes and 100% of Democrats vote no

January 8, 1867
Republicans override Democrat President Andrew Johnson's veto of law granting voting rights to African-Americans in D.C.

July 19, 1867
Republican Congress overrides Democrat President Andrew Johnson's veto of legislation protecting voting rights of African-Americans

March 30, 1868
Republicans begin impeachment trial of Democrat President Andrew Johnson, who declared: "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government of white men"

September 3, 1868
25 African-Americans in Georgia legislature, all Republicans, expelled by Democrat majority; later reinstated by Republican Congress

September 12, 1868
Civil rights activist Tunis Campbell and all other African-Americans in Georgia Senate, every one a Republican, expelled by Democrat majority; would later be reinstated by Republican Congress

October 7, 1868
Republicans denounce Democratic Party's national campaign theme: "This is a white man's country: Let white men rule"

October 22, 1868
While campaigning for re-election, Republican U.S. Rep. James Hinds (R-AR) is assassinated by Democrat terrorists who organized as the Ku Klux Klan

December 10, 1869
Republican Gov. John Campbell of Wyoming Territory signs FIRST-in-nation law granting women right to vote and to hold public office

February 3, 1870
After passing House with 98% Republican support and 97% Democrat opposition, Republicans' 15th Amendment is ratified, granting vote to all Americans regardless of race

May 31, 1870
President U.S. Grant signs Republicans' Enforcement Act, providing stiff penalties for depriving any American's civil rights

June 22, 1870
Republican Congress creates U.S. Department of Justice, to safeguard the civil rights of African-Americans against Democrats in the South

September 6, 1870
Women vote in Wyoming, in FIRST election after women's suffrage signed into law by Republican Gov. John Campbell

February 28, 1871
Republican Congress passes Enforcement Act providing federal protection for African-American voters

April 20, 1871
Republican Congress enacts the Ku Klux Klan Act, outlawing Democratic Party-affiliated terrorist groups which oppressed African-Americans

October 10, 1871
Following warnings by Philadelphia Democrats against black voting, African-American Republican civil rights activist Octavius Catto murdered by Democratic Party operative; his military funeral was attended by thousands

October 18, 1871
After violence against Republicans in South Carolina, President Ulysses Grant deploys U.S. troops to combat Democrat terrorists who formed the Ku Klux Klan

November 18, 1872
Susan B. Anthony arrested for voting, after boasting to Elizabeth Cady Stanton that she voted for "the Republican ticket, straight"

January 17, 1874
Armed Democrats seize Texas state government, ending Republican efforts to racially integrate government

September 14, 1874
Democrat white supremacists seize Louisiana statehouse in attempt to overthrow racially-integrated administration of Republican Governor William Kellogg; 27 killed

March 1, 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875, guaranteeing access to public accommodations without regard to race, signed by Republican President U.S. Grant; passed with 92% Republican support over 100% Democrat opposition

January 10, 1878
U.S. Senator Aaron Sargent (R-CA) introduces Susan B. Anthony amendment for women's suffrage; Democrat-controlled Senate defeated it 4 times before election of Republican House and Senate guaranteed its approval in 1919. Republicans foil Democratic efforts to keep women in the kitchen, where they belong

February 8, 1894
Democrat Congress and Democrat President Grover Cleveland join to repeal Republicans' Enforcement Act, which had enabled African-Americans to vote

January 15, 1901
Republican Booker T. Washington protests Alabama Democratic Party's refusal to permit voting by African-Americans

May 29, 1902
Virginia Democrats implement new state constitution, condemned by Republicans as illegal, reducing African-American voter registration by 86%

February 12, 1909
On 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, African-American Republicans and women's suffragists Ida Wells and Mary Terrell co-found the NAACP

May 21, 1919
Republican House passes constitutional amendment granting women the vote with 85% of Republicans in favor, but only 54% of Democrats; in Senate, 80% of Republicans would vote yes, but almost half of Democrats no

August 18, 1920
Republican-authored 19th Amendment, giving women the vote, becomes part of Constitution; 26 of the 36 states to ratify had Republican-controlled legislatures

January 26, 1922
House passes bill authored by U.S. Rep. Leonidas Dyer (R-MO) making lynching a federal crime; Senate Democrats block it with filibuster

June 2, 1924
Republican President Calvin Coolidge signs bill passed by Republican Congress granting U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans

October 3, 1924
Republicans denounce three-time Democrat presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan for defending the Ku Klux Klan at 1924 Democratic National Convention

June 12, 1929
First Lady Lou Hoover invites wife of U.S. Rep. Oscar De Priest (R-IL), an African-American, to tea at the White House, sparking protests by Democrats across the country

August 17, 1937
Republicans organize opposition to former Ku Klux Klansman and Democrat U.S. Senator Hugo Black, appointed to U.S. Supreme Court by FDR; his Klan background was hidden until after confirmation

June 24, 1940
Republican Party platform calls for integration of the armed forces; for the balance of his terms in office, FDR refuses to order it

August 8, 1945
Republicans condemn Harry Truman's surprise use of the atomic bomb in Japan. The whining and criticism goes on for years. It begins two days after the Hiroshima bombing, when former Republican President Herbert Hoover writes to a friend that "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."

September 30, 1953
Earl Warren, California's three-term Republican Governor and 1948 Republican vice presidential nominee, nominated to be Chief Justice; wrote landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education

November 25, 1955
Eisenhower administration bans racial segregation of interstate bus travel

March 12, 1956
Ninety-seven Democrats in Congress condemn Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and pledge to continue segregation

June 5, 1956
Republican federal judge Frank Johnson rules in favor of Rosa Parks in decision striking down "blacks in the back of the bus" law

November 6, 1956
African-American civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy vote for Republican Dwight Eisenhower for President

September 9, 1957
President Dwight Eisenhower signs Republican Party's 1957 Civil Rights Act

September 24, 1957
Sparking criticism from Democrats such as Senators John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, President Dwight Eisenhower deploys the 82nd Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR to force Democrat Governor Orval Faubus to integrate public schools

May 6, 1960
President Dwight Eisenhower signs Republicans' Civil Rights Act of 1960, overcoming 125-hour, around-the-clock filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats

May 2, 1963
Republicans condemn Democrat sheriff of Birmingham, AL for arresting over 2,000 African-American schoolchildren marching for their civil rights

September 29, 1963
Gov. George Wallace (D-AL) defies order by U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson, appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower, to integrate Tuskegee High School

June 9, 1964
Republicans condemn 14-hour filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act by U.S. Senator and former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd (D-WV), who still serves in the Senate

June 10, 1964
Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) criticizes Democrat filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act, calls on Democrats to stop opposing racial equality. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was introduced and approved by a staggering majority of Republicans in the Senate. The Act was opposed by most southern Democrat senators, several of whom were proud segregationists-one of them being Al Gore Sr. Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson relied on Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader from Illinois, to get the Act passed.

August 4, 1965
Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) overcomes Democrat attempts to block 1965 Voting Rights Act; 94% of Senate Republicans vote for landmark civil right legislation, while 27% of Democrats oppose. Voting Rights Act of 1965, abolishing literacy tests and other measures devised by Democrats to prevent African-Americans from voting, signed into law; higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats vote in favor

February 19, 1976
President Gerald Ford formally rescinds President Franklin Roosevelt's notorious Executive Order authorizing internment of over 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII

September 15, 1981
President Ronald Reagan establishes the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, to increase African-American participation in federal education programs

June 29, 1982
President Ronald Reagan signs 25-year extension of 1965 Voting Rights Act

August 10, 1988
President Ronald Reagan signs Civil Liberties Act of 1988, compensating Japanese-Americans for deprivation of civil rights and property during World War II internment ordered by FDR

November 21, 1991
President George H. W. Bush signs Civil Rights Act of 1991 to strengthen federal civil rights legislation

August 20, 1996
Bill authored by U.S. Rep. Susan Molinari (R-NY) to prohibit racial discrimination in adoptions, part of Republicans' Contract With America, becomes law

Wicks Cherrycoke|8.20.09 @ 5:37PM|#

"You may be "libertarians" but you seem to only like to attack the left. And your talking points are right-wing ones."

Funny...I must have missed all the G. W. Bush supporters on this website.

Nipplemancer|8.20.09 @ 5:38PM|#

Federal Dog - great list. i'm totally stealing that for future use.

Joe M|8.20.09 @ 5:41PM|#

That timetable is interesting, but really doesn't add much to the discussion of left vs right, as the party alignments, particularly in the 19th century, were quite a bit different than they are now.

|8.20.09 @ 5:44PM|#

MNG: I also knew where "uber-right gun nut" Charlton Heston was on civil rights.

But do you know where he was on the Gun Control Act of 1968?

|8.20.09 @ 5:47PM|#

I think it's unfair to cite a vacuous propagandist like Chip Berlet as a representative of the Left. There really isn't much Left left in America. The people have gotten all the peace, freedom, equality, community, etc. etc. etc., they can stand for the moment. What a time for traditional capitalism to blow a tire! Oh, well....

As for the Republicans and racism, up until Nixon the Republicans were a fairly liberal party (in the old sense of the word). Nixon began the Southern Strategy -- in effect, Democrat-izing the Republicans -- and Reagan (a former Democrat) completed it. But unlike the Democrats, the Republicans don't seem able to control the religious fanatics and imperialists they've acquired. God (so to speak) help them.

|8.20.09 @ 5:54PM|#

this is short wiki article on a book I thought was very good about the gop's adoption of the christians. The author throws in some oil and the economy and the middle east. A good read IMO.

Anonymous|8.20.09 @ 6:00PM|#

What a time for traditional capitalism to blow a tire!

What the fuck are you talking about?

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 6:09PM|#

"Luckily Damon Root wasn't racist enough to mention the violent groups the Obamassiah's pals were associated with back in the 60s, before they became tenured professors.@

How about recently, as in the recent got-off-the-hook-no-wrist-slap actions of the New Black Panther Party, when they intimidated voters last November?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 6:12PM|#

"You may be "libertarians" but you seem to only like to attack the left. And your talking points are right-wing ones."

If I had a dime for every time I've heard this mindless tripe response, I'd have a shitload of dimes.

The reason the left doesn't like us is, we're capitalists who believe in the power of the individual - two concepts that make liberals froth at the mouth, as those concepts get in the way of their planned East Germanization of what's left of this great country.

d|8.20.09 @ 6:14PM|#

Root, you should've at least taken a few lines to point out how libertarianism is, by design, the most color*blind* political movement around. It takes a group-based political movement like the Rep's or Dem's (or socialists, Marxists, whatever) to even make it possible to condemn groups based on race or religions *alone* and still remain internally consistent. For a libertarian, racism is a personal defect, but it cannot be a consistent part of his or her political beliefs -- which are based on the value of the individual and the liberties that rightfully belong to him or her, and not in any way on group-based classifications.

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 6:16PM|#

"I can't figure why a libertarian site felt the need to write a post defending the right from accusations of racism and had to make an equivalence."

Tom, it's because - to the left - anything not of the left, is racist. Just a curly pube hair to the right past the 50.0001% left/right marker, is "proof" to liberals that the person who doesn't vote Democrat is a de facto racist.

It's bullshit, but hey, you guys made up the rule.

|8.20.09 @ 6:20PM|#

What TLG said.

Economics trumps everything for liberals.
The only talking points coming from libertarians they see and hear are the ones about capitalism because THAT'S REALLY ALL THEY CARE ABOUT. They just don't notice all that civil rights and civil liberties stuff, because THEY DON'T REALLY GIVE A CRAP ABOUT IT. It's ALL secondary to the economic issues.

|8.20.09 @ 6:22PM|#

Tom, it's because - to the left - anything not of the left, is racist.

No racism is merely instrumentalized by the left. It's just a tool in a long-running war over economic policy. A useful bludgeon for beating people who oppose their social welfare programs.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 6:23PM|#

The worst racism I've ever personally witnessed--and I'm not talking about just once--was when I was in Boston.

They're race-obsessed in the east. Kind of like old-Europe.

I remember a story on This American Life about a guy who was half black who got hit up for what exactly his race was the entire time he was growing up in the East. He said it kind of stopped when he moved out west.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 6:24PM|#

It's bullshit, but hey, you guys made up the rule.

*shrugs*

That's kind of how I feel.

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 6:30PM|#

Tom, in addition, if you'd be interested... I can name half a dozen local Democrats who have called me an out-and-out racist for the crime of...

wait for it...

...being against affirmative action.

Who knew it was a crime? I sure as hell didn't.

Oh, and since I've attended ONE tea party, now I'm supposedly a Republican, despite the fact that I ran against my own Republican state rep on the Libertarian ticket... twice... and have only cast two Republican votes in the last twenty years.

But the Dems around here are so fucking myopic, all they see is "he's not a Democrat, therefore he wants five-year-olds to work in factories while he sells them heroin", and other stupid shit like that.

You'd be pissed, too, if you were me.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 7:01PM|#

The Lib Guy:

That was my original point about my Mexican trucks comment (which had the desired effect). I'm against welfare program 'X'. Welfare program 'X' happens to be used primarily by women and minorities. Eliminating Welfare program 'X' will result in women and minorities being hardest hit. Therefore, I hate women and minorities.

|8.20.09 @ 7:06PM|#

Tony | August 20, 2009, 5:21pm | #
Um it seems to me the people screaming "racist!" the loudest these days are righties accusing minorities of it, especially the president. It's like they found a new toy or something.

Whatever the outcomes of policy, left or right (and John I don't think the institutional racism that has led to outsize incarceration proportion for blacks is a result of lefty policies) racism is not tolerated at all by the left. It's not AS openly tolerated by the right either, but that's because the left has been so successful in turning racism into a stigma. The Southern Strategy has accordingly evolved from outright saying we're gonna protect you from the niggers to more subtle variations, such as the welfare queen and more recently the ACORN bogeyman. Maybe someday the right will catch up but to make an equivalence claim is to be really disingenuous.


Excuse me? Wow, what a bunch of hyperbole. Yes, it was the left that got us evil right wing racists to go into the closet! Grrrrrrr!

Once again, what the hell is the "Southern Strategy." I'm from the south and I have never heard of such a thing. There have been equal amounts of racists on the right and the left for the most part, and the only reason the left even pays lip services to minorities is because they realized that it was a vote winner. Name one overtly racist policy, I'm still waiting.....

WHat a fucktard.

|8.20.09 @ 7:08PM|#

"The Southern Strategy has accordingly evolved from outright saying we're gonna protect you from the niggers to more subtle variations, such as the welfare queen and more recently the ACORN bogeyman."

Once again, if being against mexican trucking is not racist, than being against welfare is not racist. Once you throw away the whole, "indirect racism" thing, than nothing that has been seriously proposed by either party in 40 years has been overtly racist.

|8.20.09 @ 7:11PM|#

"the Republicans don't seem able to control the religious fanatics and imperialists they've acquired. God (so to speak) help them."

Can you guys stop pulling shit out of your asses. You can't just throw around ideas like "the republican party is full of religious fanatics and imperialists" like that. Words mean things and generalization and hyperbole such as this is disgusting.

|8.20.09 @ 7:12PM|#

Somebody please explain to me. What the hell is the "southern strategy?"

|8.20.09 @ 7:15PM|#

Joe M | August 20, 2009, 5:41pm | #
That timetable is interesting, but really doesn't add much to the discussion of left vs right, as the party alignments, particularly in the 19th century, were quite a bit different than they are now.

Exactly, but a lot of that stuff goes while into the 20th century goofball. Even the recent republican actions are far from being anywhere near racist. That is all in the list. Did you read it?

|8.20.09 @ 7:16PM|#

The Myth of 'the Southern Strategy'

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By CLAY RISEN
Published: December 10, 2006

Everyone knows that race has long played a decisive role in Southern electoral politics. From the end of Reconstruction until the beginning of the civil rights era, the story goes, the national Democratic Party made room for segregationist members - and as a result dominated the South. But in the 50s and 60s, Democrats embraced the civil rights movement, costing them the white Southern vote. Meanwhile, the Republican Party successfully wooed disaffected white racists with a "Southern strategy" that championed "states' rights."

It's an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book "The End of Southern Exceptionalism," Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth. In the postwar era, they note, the South transformed itself from a backward region to an engine of the national economy, giving rise to a sizable new wealthy suburban class. This class, not surprisingly, began to vote for the party that best represented its economic interests: the G.O.P. Working-class whites, however - and here's the surprise - even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)

The two scholars support their claim with an extensive survey of election returns and voter surveys. To give just one example: in the 50s, among Southerners in the low-income tercile, 43 percent voted for Republican Presidential candidates, while in the high-income tercile, 53 percent voted Republican; by the 80s, those figures were 51 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Wealthy Southerners shifted rightward in droves but poorer ones didn't.

To be sure, Shafer says, many whites in the South aggressively opposed liberal Democrats on race issues. "But when folks went to the polling booths," he says, "they didn't shoot off their own toes. They voted by their economic preferences, not racial preferences." Shafer says these results should give liberals hope. "If Southern politics is about class and not race," he says, "then they can get it back."

|8.20.09 @ 7:17PM|#

THat article was from "The New York Times!!!!!!"

|8.20.09 @ 7:19PM|#

And as far as "religious fanatics" go, the right uses those religious fanatics the same way the right uses minorities. It pretends to protect their interests but only does so symbolically.

Anonymous|8.20.09 @ 7:35PM|#

Yes, the Southern strategy is to champion states' powers for racist purposes, just like in the Civil War.

"Government bankrupt. All welfare stops. Minorities hardest hit."

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 7:40PM|#

Paul, that's the same thing I've gotten, too, on top of all the other ersatz racism/bigotry/cause du jour opposition heat I've received over the years from the leftists.

Then again...

The right doesn't like us because we're too individualistic, and not on-board with them on their precious pet social issues. One local Republican likes to call me a homosexual because I'm not against gay marriage. Go figure.

Paul|8.20.09 @ 9:02PM|#

The right doesn't like us because we're too individualistic, and not on-board with them on their precious pet social issues. One local Republican likes to call me a homosexual because I'm not against gay marriage. Go figure.

That's the joy of being a libertarian, you get it from both ends.

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 9:05PM|#

Paul, I could make a "but I don't get it from both ends, that's why I'm not gay" joke, but I won't. That would be too obvious.

Snicker.

Seriously, I hear you, but at the same time it gets to be frustrating at times, even when a Brand X party opponent knows damned well he/she isn't misinterpreting libertarian philosophy.

|8.20.09 @ 9:09PM|#

"Since no one seems overly concerned about putting a racist on the Supreme Court-- provided it is a politically correct racist-- the moral of the story seems to be that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, that doesn't matter if it coos like a dove at Senate confirmation hearings." -- T. Sowell, Aug 11, 2009

|8.20.09 @ 9:20PM|#

Don't forget Robert "KKK" Byrd, perpetual senator of WVa. And let us also recall that a bigger percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted in favor of the civil rights act of 1964. BTW it would have been the civil rights act of 1960 if the Democrats had not fillibustered against it. Also did you know that Al Gore Sr voted against the 1964 act? I bet your schoolteacher left that out.

Question|8.20.09 @ 9:53PM|#

Is Pat Buchanan a liberal now?

|8.20.09 @ 10:18PM|#

These pundits on Reason are pretty irritating at times. They tend to make claims that Libertarians are above reproach but some on the left or right are hate mongers. Then he slyly provides links to David Duke. Duke was a hater but had no real power in the right wing or the Republican party, he was disparaged openly by Conservatives. Meanwhile the darling of Libertarians, Ron Paul, has published openly racist material and has ties to racists, truthers and loons.

|8.20.09 @ 10:25PM|#

apparently the "racists" have taken over air america too...

http://www.breitbart.tv/charming-liar-progressives-turn-on-obama-as-air-america-exposes-fascist-drug-deal/

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 10:31PM|#

Ken, there ARE hatemongers on the left and right. Haven't you noticed?

We're not above reproach... we have our troublemakers and so forth, every party does. But I wouldn't call Ron Paul one of them, as you did. Your opinion, though, and you're entitled to it.

|8.20.09 @ 10:39PM|#

Keep in mind the progressives pushed the terms 'right wing' and 'conservative' on those groups known as that today.

They're mostly just insults... sorta like neocon. They're everything bad while progressive (and, shhhh, socialist) is everything good.

Just like today's talk of racism, history and facts have nothing to do with it...

One of the ironies, of course, is they also include 'ignorance' as part of being right wing while progressives are the educated ones...

Anyway, good job not letting it just slide by without a response....

|8.20.09 @ 10:42PM|#

MNG | August 20, 2009, 4:43pm | #
John
Most liberals oppose vouchers not because they want to kick black kids out of schools, but because they worry about the black kids that would be left behind in the public schools. Be honest.


What a total and complete crock. Yes, let's be honest. The real reason liberals oppose school vouchers is because they don't want their precious little snowflake to go to school with black kids. That's what white flight (liberals fleeing urban, i.e., "becoming more black," communities) was all about and they'll be damned if it'll happen now.

Liberals and progressives talk a good game, but they are the first ones to move away from a community as soon as one of those darkies come to town.

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 10:45PM|#

Rufus, my read on it is that liberals don't want their precious kids stranded in public schools while there's competition out there in the private sector.

Unless they're liberal politicians, in which case they damn well WANT their kids in private schools.

Anonymous|8.20.09 @ 10:46PM|#

Liberals and progressives talk a good game, but they are the first ones to move away from a community as soon as one of those darkies come to town.

Well, they understand voting with their feet. I wonder why everything else about voluntary transactions escapes them.

Tim|8.20.09 @ 11:23PM|#

If one presses someone like ChiTom to a point he will admit that he is not "calling everyone on the right racist". Such people are also likely to admit that most conservatives and especially most libertarians are not racists. This raises the question of why even bring up the fact that some on the right (which conflates the important distinction between social and economic conservatism) are racists? The only reason I see is to create an impression of guilt by association since libertarians and GOPers share some views in common with outright racists. It is an ad hominem attack used by the left that has no intelligent response to the fact that competitive free markets work better than government programs to increase general prosperity, so they imply that those articulating such views are just racists and therefore all their opinions are equally as wrong as their opinions on race. They don't want moderates and undecided voters to listen to free market alternatives on health reform for example, so they try and find the most racist gun touting militia member and make him the face of the opposition. They want wavering congresspeople to think that it isn't really their constituents opposing the bill, their constituents love it!, but just a bunch of racists, radicals, and idiots ginned up by special interests bussed in to oppose health reform.

Another poster made a great point on the actual predictive value of a broad ideologies past association with racism, given the 40 years prior to the civil rights era by the same standards advanced by the modern left we would have had little reason to suspect any beneficial Democratic involvement in the Civil Rights movement.

Regardless, no ideologies hand's are clean of racism; however I find it quite hard for one to be a consistent classical liberal or libertarian and also be a racist. It is hard to simultaneously believe that all men are created equal and should be free to do what they please so long as they don't hurt others while believing the government should deny some or all of those freedoms to so called undesirables. If one believes the latter one is not libertarian. The vast majority of the President's critics libertarian and conservative, are not racists and the attempts to bring up race in the discussion is nothing more than an ad hominem attack designed to distract from the real issues.

Tim|8.20.09 @ 11:31PM|#

One can't be an economic libertarian anyways, that idiot's post was the first time I ever heard the term. Libertarian is the word we have to use now because the old term for freedom is liberal, but that word is now used by the progressive big government left intent on quashing economic liberties. The only purpose for using the economic libertarian term is to drag libertarians into the conservatives are racist narrative lest the escape the implication should he have said economic liberalism, or fiscal and economic conservatism. They can't let any of their opponents escape their allegations of racism.

And the purpose of the piece is not to go out and say the left is more racist than the right, but to put to bed the asinine revisionist history where the progressive big government types were always the good guys fighting against the evil individualist, greedy and racist capitalists and their big corporations and foreign adventurism.

|8.20.09 @ 11:43PM|#

Unconvincing, if you have to go back over 100 years to find a couple of examples of economic progressives who were also racist.

That depends on whether you consider Hillary Clinton an "economic progressive" or not.

-jcr

|8.20.09 @ 11:50PM|#

Is Pat Buchanan a liberal now?

No, he's an entirely different variety of jackass.

-jcr

|8.20.09 @ 11:51PM|#

One local Republican likes to call me a homosexual because I'm not against gay marriage.

Maybe he's just trying to flirt with you.

-jcr

|8.20.09 @ 11:53PM|#

The real reason liberals oppose school vouchers is because they don't want their precious little snowflake to go to school with black kids.

Amen to that!

Hell, the lefty racists in California came up with a diabolically clever way to keep the mexicans away from their kids. They segregate them into spanish-speaking classes, call it "bilingual education", and pretend that it's "good for their self esteem".

-jcr

|8.20.09 @ 11:55PM|#

I find it quite hard for one to be a consistent classical liberal or libertarian and also be a racist.

It's possible to be a racist and a libertarian. A libertarian racist would be one who believed that some race was superior over another, but still held that anyone, superior or inferior, was entitled to their freedom.

-jcr

The Libertarian Guy|8.20.09 @ 11:55PM|#

Doubtful, John, but it is a possibility. What pisses me off is, he spreads this shit (not that I give a shit if anyone is gay, but in this case I'm being called a liar) and it might hurt my chances with the babes.

Oops, politically-incorrect of me... I meant "dames".

|8.21.09 @ 12:05AM|#

I blame government interventions on the ills of black and native american society in America. The democrat party has been especially manipulative with these groups....if only black people knew how destructive they have been....

Tony|8.21.09 @ 12:34AM|#

That's the joy of being a libertarian, you get it from both ends.

Now that's the first time being a libertarian has sounded fun.

|8.21.09 @ 1:25AM|#

Tony:

your sense of humour is a redeeming quality. not a get out of jail free card, but redeeming nonetheless...

MLevi|8.21.09 @ 1:42AM|#

Hell, the lefty racists in California came up with a diabolically clever way to keep the mexicans away from their kids. They segregate them into spanish-speaking classes, call it "bilingual education", and pretend that it's "good for their self esteem".

-jcr

Well, how else would you suggest creating a impoverished, marginalized working class to mow your lawn while your own kids are busy at soccer practice? /s

|8.21.09 @ 1:59AM|#

The North and the South have traditionally suffered from two different strains of racism. White folks in the South didn't care how close black folks got, so long as they didn't go to far, and white folks in the North didn't care how far black folks got, so long as they didn't get to close.

That's why blacks were more politically and economically oppressed in the South, yet more racially segregated in the North.

Art-P.O.G.|8.21.09 @ 4:15AM|#

Too many good comments in this thread to point out individually, but ChicagoTom, may I suggest you actually RTFA or STFU.

|8.21.09 @ 6:45AM|#

They can't let any of their opponents escape their allegations of racism.

The Left is wicked crafty that way. It arose from their Jewish wing. Those fuckers are super smart.

|8.21.09 @ 8:32AM|#

The Dems have always been the party of slavery. Once upon a time it was race based slavery. Now that their social programs have bought blacks back into slavery they are intent on bringing us all to slavery.

Even in universal slavery they still hate blacks and always will. Their support for abortion is entirely race based.

|8.21.09 @ 8:34AM|#

Might I mention that the Dems climate and environmental concerns are also race based. They are very afraid of economic growth among the dark skinned countries of the world,

|8.21.09 @ 8:54AM|#

Hating people is no fun by yourself--it's far better to have a few friends over to hate together with. Far better still is create a group or !!! an organization !!! committed to spreadin' the hate.

If you can get your local, state, or federal gub'mint to enforce your hate, NOW you're hatin'.

Laissez-faire is French for "contemptible idea that people should be left alone".

|8.21.09 @ 9:05AM|#

It won't matter. You could hold a national press conference about how the left is bigoted through overt acts and the soft bigotry of low expectations, and the dems will still get 90% of the black vote. And that is for one reason- they offer black people entitlements and free stuff at the expense of the rest of society, and are quick to excuse unacceptable behavior by blacks by shifting blame to society. As for me, I'm done worrying about "blacks this, blacks that." Either one day, they'll as a whole decide to start competing in society with the rest of us, or they won't and they'll remain content as a permanent underclass. Either way, pointing things like leftist bigotry against blacks is useless. Too many of them don't care because all they want are free stuff and excuses when needed.

PR|8.21.09 @ 10:16AM|#

"The fact is that racists feel more comfortable in the GOP -- and it has been that way since Reagan."

Pikers. They got all their most disgusting racism on in the Democrat Party. Slavery, Klan, Jim Crow, Bull Connor, lynching. Your party owns all that, but you forgive it. I never could or will.

|8.21.09 @ 10:55AM|#

Government welfare programs and the public education system have been the worst anti Black racist programs in America.

Welfare programs are based on the idea that blacks are not smart enough to advance economically and socially and therefore require government assistance. This government assistance destroys the incentive in Black people to work hard and advance.

The public education system in the inner cities is nothing more than a caretaking system. That has been proven time and again where voucher programs were allowed.

Now Obama is doing more of the same except this time it is the Black communists elitists and other communists and socialist in Congress and the Obama administration that are keeping their own kind under foot.

Obama the African coloinial Marxist Muslim dictator and tyrant.

I predict the following

1. ObamaCare will pass using Reconciliation
2. Amnesty will pass in 2010
3. ACORN under Obama's direction will modify the real census numbers to benefit Obama and the other communist/socialists that will be running for election in 2010.
4. ACORN, SEIU and the Black Panthers will use intimidation and fraudulant vote counts in the 2010 elections to insure that the Democrats retain control of both of houses of Congress
5. Localism laws in talk radio will force all anti-government stations off of the air.
6. FOX will be gutted of anti-Obama newscasters
7. Obama will declare martial law sometime before the end of 2012.

Tony|8.21.09 @ 11:20AM|#

PR,

Dems don't have to forgive their party for those things because it's not the same fucking party anymore. Are you even paying attention? Get yourself a history education. Also a grammar lesson. "Democrat" is a noun. "Democratic" is the adjective you're looking for.

Anonymous|8.21.09 @ 11:23AM|#

Also a grammar lesson. "Democrat" is a noun. "Democratic" is the adjective you're looking for.

Oh, God, the tears, they're so yummy.

|8.21.09 @ 11:34AM|#

No one likes being called a racist. We can all cite incidents over the past century of leftist racism (Planned Parenthood, eugenics) and right-wing hate (KKK, et al). Where does that get us?
If we are to become truly post-racial we must drop the ethnic hyphens - acknowledge we are all Americans - admit our side has made mistakes and learn to get along while understanding we may see things differently.

|8.21.09 @ 11:45AM|#

All those bad things Damon Root talks about...they all happened so long ago. Liberals LIKE black people now.

But Conservatives are all still in the KKK. Bad, bad Conservatives!

|8.21.09 @ 11:59AM|#

Pro Libertate | August 20, 2009, 5:08pm | #

The worst racism I've ever personally witnessed--and I'm not talking about just once--was when I was in Boston.



The worst racism I've ever witnessed has been when visiting the black community here in Seattle. By far the most racist bastards I've ever met, man, woman and child.

The Libertarian Guy|8.21.09 @ 12:17PM|#

Gosh, Tony, you Democratics sure are anal-retentive about terminology.

Another Anonymous|8.21.09 @ 12:19PM|#

"Dems don't have to forgive their party for those things because it's not the same fucking party anymore."

No, it isn't the same. It's a whole new fucking party, and a disgusting one at that.

Tony|8.21.09 @ 12:56PM|#

Gosh, Tony, you Democratics sure are anal-retentive about terminology.

When self-styled independently minded libertarians speak like they are reading from Frank Luntz's daily talking points memo yeah I get a little touchy.

|8.21.09 @ 1:57PM|#

"Yes, the Southern strategy is to champion states' powers for racist purposes, just like in the Civil War.

"Government bankrupt. All welfare stops. Minorities hardest hit."


Name one case in the last 20 years of a republican using this "southern strategy" for a position of direct racism! Name one! GO!

|8.21.09 @ 2:05PM|#

When self-styled independently minded libertarians speak like they are reading from Frank Luntz's daily talking points memo yeah I get a little touchy.


You can't just smear shit and call it an argument. Name one Frank Luntz "talking point." WTF is a "talking point" and how is it a "bad" thing. If a talking point is just something that somebody has said before, than it really isn't a "bad" thing necessarily. Who cares who said something, it's what's being said that matters. I've not seen one accusation that you are using "liberal talking points."

May I remind you...... THE LEFT ARE THE DEFACTO RULERS OF THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE DEFENDING THE EMPIRE AND WE ARE HOLDING IT TO TASK!!!!!!!!!!

Tony|8.21.09 @ 2:09PM|#

Only right wing hacks say "the Democrat party." That's all I'm sayin.

Anonymous|8.21.09 @ 5:58PM|#

Tony, since I don't subscribe to Jurnolist, maybe you could give us a rundown on which phrases or keywords are racist or bigoted.

The Libertarian Guy|8.21.09 @ 6:09PM|#

"When self-styled independently minded libertarians speak like they are reading from Frank Luntz's daily talking points memo yeah I get a little touchy."

Luntz can kiss my dick. And so can [insert just about any Democrat talking head.]

Whose talking points do YOU use, Tony? I gather mine from different sources, for the record, including this site.

PC Police|8.21.09 @ 6:10PM|#

"Tony, since I don't subscribe to Jurnolist, maybe you could give us a rundown on which phrases or keywords are racist or bigoted."

Pretty much anything said by anyone a smidgen to the right of center.

Tony|8.22.09 @ 2:06AM|#

Tony, since I don't subscribe to Jurnolist, maybe you could give us a rundown on which phrases or keywords are racist or bigoted.

If you're not aware of what is considered mannerly speech with regard to race then I suggest you educate yourself.

What I have no patience for are people whose main civil rights concern seems to be their inability to be racists without being called out for it.

Anonymous|8.22.09 @ 12:26PM|#

"mannerly speech" isn't responded to with invectives, so I think I was asking about something else.

The Libertarian Guy|8.22.09 @ 2:16PM|#

"What I have no patience for are people whose main civil rights concern seems to be their inability to be racists without being called out for it."

Depends on if you use the actual definition of racist, or the one that reads "whoever WE say is racist, IS racist".

Tony, I'll bet you view everyone who didn't vote for Obama with suspicion - even the ones who voted for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. In your world, half of America are Klan members, right?

|8.22.09 @ 3:07PM|#

I need to relax before I type, or at least utilize the "preview" option. Whoops. Sorry, I just get personally offended when somebody calls everyone on the right "racist," or even "more likely to be racist." It's just disgusting and infuriating.

|8.22.09 @ 3:13PM|#

Grammar lessons in forums are kinda lame anyway. As long as people can grasp your point, it doesn't really matter. My use of the word "really" was unnecessary for example. Btw, quotation marks aren't just used for quoting, but also for implying a word has a loose or multiple meaning. "Bad" and "good" for example are commonly used words with a completely subjective meaning.

Tony|8.23.09 @ 7:12AM|#

Tony, I'll bet you view everyone who didn't vote for Obama with suspicion - even the ones who voted for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. In your world, half of America are Klan members, right?

Wow you sure have pegged me. Now why don't you go back to fantasizing about mass murder of people who disagree with you?

The Libertarian Guy|8.23.09 @ 12:17PM|#

Tony, again, I don't know why you're spreading some specious misreading of a post as gospel truth, but I don't fantasize about mass murder.

|8.23.09 @ 2:12PM|#

I find it funny how the dems are the ones in power, but they still try to make it seem like they are the ones that are being mistreated. They cry foul that people are disagreeing with them en masse, claiming that they are defending the "real" people from the right wing menace. Meanwhile, they control the house, senate, legislature, and have quite an influence over the judiciary. We're living under one party rule, and they're complaining!!!!! That's fuckin hilarious in my opinion.

|8.24.09 @ 11:50AM|#

"If you're not aware of what is considered mannerly speech with regard to race then I suggest you educate yourself."

And who is deciding what is "mannerly speech"? I'd sure like to know, because there seems to be a double-standard about it.

"What I have no patience for are people whose main civil rights concern seems to be their inability to be racists without being called out for it."

What I have no patience for is the unequal treatment of people of different ideological backgrounds when it comes to making racist statements. Since I live in New York, I'll use Al Sharpton as an example. Here is a man who has been found guilty, in a court of law, of falsely accusing a man of a racial attack. And yet, anyone seeking the Democratic nomination for ANY major office in NYC or New York State has to kow-tow to "Rev" Sharpton and get his approval. Find me any example of a GOP politician who has to seek the approval of someone so blatantly racist in order to get a nomination.

And then there's Jeremiah Wright. The media and the entertainment industry did everything in their power to try and disassociate Pres. Obama from him in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Your charges of racism would carry a lot more credibility if the standards were equally applied to people of all idelogical and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Libertarian Guy|8.24.09 @ 6:02PM|#

Give up, Ellis. Tony's one of those hand-wringers who say "you're racist because I say you're racist"-style liberals.

Chip Berlet|8.25.09 @ 12:38PM|#

Yikes, Damon. Three big problems with your post.

First, it is based on a fallacy of logic. You cannot disprove my argument by arguing that the folks I hang out with are worse. Feels good, but Ayn Rand would spit.

Second, do a little research and you will find that in my published work, both popular and scholarly, my full argument is that "libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power" are two distinct strands of "Right Wing Populism in America" (the book I co-wrote) that sometimes intersect. That's the "and" in the sentence you swatted.

Third, one of those points of intersection was the period around the Civil War and the struggle for States Rights, and today; as is pointed out in detail at this blogsite: http://www.mahablog.com/2009/08/25/free-minds-free-markets-choose-one/

I expect less sloppy work at Reason. Your hatchet needs sharpening if you want to get to the root of a problem.

Jake Witmer|9.1.09 @ 5:21PM|#

http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=140019513&sec_id=140000845

-The long history of racism brought into the modern day by Klansmen like Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (and the black preachers he owns).

This shit form at Reason deleted my following comment, which I stupidly forgot to copy. ...You guys really should fix your upload form.

I normally don't link to marxists, but they got the following story right. Unfortunately, the Chicago Libertarian Party doesn't care enough about freedom to ally itself with the people who have the boot on their necks. I met with Aaron Patterson in 2003, right after he got off death row [after serving 17 years for a crime he didn't commit, having been tortured by Area 2 detectives with suffocation until he confessed]. Patterson is about 90% a libertarian, and a die-hard opponent to Daley [the prosecutor who sent him to death row on false charges].

http://www.chicagoanswer.net/Chicago%20report%20uncovers%20police%20torture.htm

The case of Aaron Patterson

Aaron Patterson was one of those tortured after 1982. Patterson is well known in Chicago for his campaign against his own frame-up in 1986. Patterson had been convicted and sentenced to death for a double murder of an elderly couple on Chicago's south side. His conviction was based on an unsigned confession extracted after hours of torture. He spent 17 years in prison before winning his release in January 2003.

Aaron has fought tirelessly, both before and after his release by former governor George Ryan, to hold accountable the police who tortured him, along with state's attorney Richard Devine and former state's attorney Daley. All were complicit in covering up the torture.

The day after he was released from death row, Patterson met with Ryan to press for clemency for the other torture victims who were still in prison. One of those prisoners is Andrew Wilson.

Then, almost two years later on August 5, 2004, Chicago police and federal ATF agents arrested Aaron Patterson on phony charges of selling drugs and receiving guns from an informer. The informer had charges against him dropped and was paid $6,000 for setting up Patterson. The bogus charges against Patterson follow a pattern of arrests against people who fight back against the long history of police abuse and torture in Chicago. However, this was the first time that the federal government got involved in the 30-year-old scandal.

Aaron Patterson's arrest occurred just days after a federal judge ordered former police commander Jon Burge to come back to Chicago. Burge was to be deposed in civil suits filed by Patterson and three other torture victims who were also wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and eventually released from death row. The four suits are against the city of Chicago and current and former police officers, including Burge.

Lawrence Kennon, a petitioning attorney for the torture victims, told the Chicago Defender on July 20, 2006, that it was disappointing that no indictments will follow the release of the special prosecutors' report. Kennon said he hopes for federal indictments. Report co-author Boyle said a copy of the report was delivered to the U.S. attorney's office.

For two years, Aaron Patterson has been in prison awaiting trial. The U.S attorney whose office will try Patterson is none other than Patrick Fitzpatrick, who decided not to prosecute Karl Rove. This is the same U.S. attorney's office that has decided not to proceed against the police torturers on two separate occasions.

Left unanswered by the special prosecutors' report is the important issue of new trials for Burge's torture victims who are still in prison. Andrew Wilson has been in prison for 24 years.

This report once again shows that the judicial system is incapable of reforming itself. The capitalist state covers up its mistakes and tries to punish people who seek to reveal them in the interests of true justice.

It will take a people's movement to free Andrew Wilson and Aaron Patterson and to jail Burge, Daley, Devine and all the others who are complicit in the racist judicial system.

This article originally appeared at PSLWEB.org